Holiday Hell

Harry Winnipeg had never been on a plane before. He was 6"1. He has kissed a dozen girls. He had fallen in love a million times. He had given himself a way to a girl who never truly loved him at all. Yet he had never one been a hundred thousand miles above the earth on a large metal machine, putting his life in the hands of only a few people. It was funny the way life worked out like that. There were a few things you noticed when you first looked at Harry. His dark brown hair was a knotted mess and his nose was one of his biggest insecurities. Some would describe it as a "honker" or a "beak." Recent surveys however described it as "it"s like someone tried to build a massive ski slope but gave up half way through so there"s a massive dent in it and they thought - f**k it - it"s good enough." These descriptions were of course, made up in his tiny little mind. His tiny little mind got bored so often that he narcissistically thought of what other"s first impressions of him must be. He wondered if he was a likable person then pondered what made anyone likeable whatsoever. Opinions were subjective and life was short, so it didn"t really matter anyone. Everyone would forget about him when he was dead, anyway. The impression he gave now only resulted in fluffy things like birthday cards or Christmas cards or New Year’s cards. Cards were a waste of ink and trees, anyway. The plane rattled like a can of beans as it prepared to take off. If he was going to be perfectly honest, this wasn"t what Harry was like on a normal day. Normally, he was never so cynical. He was quite the optimist but tie him down to a metal machine of potential destruction and you created a completely different man. He was rather surprised at his own indecency. He did quite like cards, actually. He loved the little personal messages co-workers wrote for him. It made him feel like they knew him, when of course they didn"t. Harry was far too awkward to actually talk to people. All he could offer them was a polite smile at the tea machine and printer. He was a passive kind of guy and he liked it that way. Preparing to take-off was one of the strangest experiences that he had ever had. For something like a rollercoaster, you know where that was going. It could go up, but it was guaranteed to race back down to earth within a matter of seconds. Besides that, it was attached to the track. However, planes kept going up. And up and up. And they didn"t stop for, like, hours. It was a terrifying prospect that he was going to be miles and miles away from the ground. He felt separated from the world below half the time, anyway. He didn"t need it to happen literally. What he needed was a nice real break from reality, and the break of a holiday. In all honesty, he could not wait. The idea of a break was something he had craved for a while. He needed to separate himself from the socially anxious world he had built around him. He was a product of his uptight work environment in the office and a little time in the sun would do him the world of good. He had attempted to be spontaneous - to pick a random place on a map and just go wherever that took him. That would prove he was not trapped in wherever he was forever. He was free-spirited and free to do whatever the Hell he wanted. Unfortunately, the dart he threw at the map sent him deep into the Atlantic Ocean. Then, the North Pole. Then, some private island near Maui that cost over £15,000 to stay there. He overthought this plan and decided to get onto a cheap last minute booking website. He thoroughly went through the costs and places and evaluated the best place to visit. So, here he was. Alone and on holiday to some part of Spain, he couldn"t pronounce. He had no plan and no idea how to get there from the airport, but he was sure it would all work itself out. Except he knew that it wouldn"t but he wanted to be optimistic so badly he convinced himself otherwise. He was a bird that flocked away from the flock. He was the spring chicken who... couldn"t figure out a good enough metaphor to continue with. The people around him knew exactly what they were doing. He envied them so much. For example, the man to his left certainly knew that he was asleep right now. Lucky him, Harry thought, lucky him. He could afford to crash out before take-off. He wasn"t carrying the weight of a million anxieties on his shoulders. Instead, he could drift off into a world of pure slumber. His old aged innocence was something worthy of a particular envy to Harry. The wrinkled lips conveyed a sense of purpose in his life, one he could devote to empting his mind and not allowing the troubles in his life to get to him. He had been through strife, the bags under his eyes told you that, but he had made it through. He had had several crazy girlfriends before settling on his wife, evident by his dusty old wedding ring that would need to be pried off in order to be removed. Harry had a subtle amount of appreciation for him. To his left, sat a girl who you could tell did not give a single care to the world. The drawing of a middle finger on her t-shirt told you that, loud and clear. Dark purple streaks painted through her hair. Her eyeliner was black and heavy, creating rings of coal around her eyeballs. A firm look of annoyance stained her face. A relentless pout fell upon her brown lipsticked lips. She glared down at her phone and let out a large groan. He caught eyes with her, sending pure panic throughout him. The girl looked him up and down, a gentle smirk growing n her face. She took him in for a little while. His awkwardness amused her. The bouncing eyes, the vacant stare - his reaction was hilarious. With confidence, she gave him a prod on the shoulder. He looked as though he’d seen a ghost. “Spain?” she said. Her accent was foreign to him. The “a” was all emphasised and sounded wrong. She sounded like she was from London, except different. A look of warmth accompanied the accusing tone. All she got in return was a look of blankness which prompted her to continue. “Spain? Hello, anyone there? We’ve only got a couple hours of his flight are you going to stare at me for the entire time?” He was brought back to earth, plummeting into the suffocating oceans of anxiety. A stumble of a reply forced its way out of his mouth: “Yes. Sorry. Spain. Yes. Sorry.” He felt himself physically cringe at the sound of his own words. Why did he have to be like this? “Right. Paris, eh? Can’t wait to see the Eiffel Tower.” Confusion and fear overwhelmed his features. It only subsided when the girl let out a burst of laughter. “God, your face. I’m just messing with you. Chill out. No, Madrid, right? A place of discovering yourself, huh?” The words came out of her mouth with precision. They were a coherent stream of consciousness, the sort he only ever dreamed of achieving. She went on: “You a lone wolf like me? Or is your girlfriend hiding somewhere on this plane? Is she in the luggage compartment? Only way to shut her up, I bet.” “J-Just me. Alone,” he admitted. It sounded way more pathetic out loud than it did in his head. “Respect. Takes a lot of guts to do something like this on your own.” In the distance, he caught sight of someone who set my heart to stop. All sound in the entire plane was sucked out like a vacuum. A white ringing noise drummed into his ears. He couldn’t blink, he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t do anything. Everything happened in slow motion. The blonde streaks of hair fell down her perfectly pointed chin. The eyelashes fluttered abound like little butterflies in a garden centre, desperate to the centre of attention with the way they fluttered. Her eyes were full of life and knew exactly what they were doing. She wrinkled her little nose and something of a sly smile emerged on her thin red lips. The second the made eye contact, a mere five rows apart from one another, he could have sworn she had winked. Unless he had been imagining it, which was completely possible as his senses were heightened and paranoia was something he had become a victim of. A few moments went by until she turned back around, facing the front of the plane. His heartbeat was going into overdrive. How could she be here now? Of all places in the world she could have been, why did it have to be on this plane headed towards his dream holiday, trapped on a two hours flight in the same proximity? He prayed his eyes were simply playing tricks on him. That he had seen something of a ghost that had resembled her. That his mind was tricking him into the possibility that she had followed him here. But, no. She was real and she was sitting there. He didn"t know what to do. Jenn gave him a questioning look, expecting him to go into some sort of cardiac arrest. "Yo, dude? Are you OK?" He didn"t answer as he couldn"t hear her. All he could hear was the beat of his own heart, the lilt of his ex"s laugh in the back of his mind, the everlasting memory of hurt of their departing. "Hello? Whatever pills you"ve been popping, please can you share. I can"t stand listening to this snoring dweeb for another two hours." He was gradually brought back to the reality he had been avoiding. He turned to her and exhaled, unwilling to admit it aloud just yet. A few deep breaths tried to calm him down to no avail. "I just saw her." Jenn squinted, trying to figure out what on earth he was talking about. "Her? Who"s her? Who did you see?" "My, uh, ex. My ex-girlfriend," he blurted out incoherently. A laugh emerged from Jenn"s throat, one of disbelief and confusion. "Say that again?" "My ex-girlfriend is sitting just ahead of us, see. The girl with blonde hair." "Oh, her?" Jenn pointed to the throne the demon was sitting on. "Ah, I saw her when she boarded. She"s pretty hot. And way out of your league, dude. No offence." He knew that. He knew he had got lucky with her. It was his only chance of shooting above what he was worth and he had completely messed it up. "What do I do?" he asked her, eyes wide and alert like a hunted prey. Her hands of comfort pawed over his sweaty palms. "Go get her, man. This is your chance to win her back." He shook his head with rapid succession. "No. No. It"s not like that. I don"t... I don"t want to win her back." "Why? You end on bad terms, huh?" All he could do is nod. He couldn"t relive the past and go into those gory details. Not right now. He didn"t have the stomach for it. "Fair enough. What"s got you so wacky then?" she asked him, curiosity in her tone. "I feel like I should go say hi, right? That"s what people have to do in times like this. So it"s not awkward when we get off the plane." Jenn shrugged. "I don"t know. What does anyone do in situations like this? If I was you, I"d be running for the hills. As far away as possible." "Kind of going to be impossible when we"re going to be ten thousand feet in the air," he noted to which she nodded. "That"s true. Hey, if you wanna talk to her, go for it. That"s what I"d say. Up to you, man." He could feel his heart pounding out of his chest. If there was any better time to act, it was now. Like a mighty warrior preparing to head into battle, he rose from his seat and stepped forwards to face his ultimate fear. Before he could make any further progress, the flight attendant appeared by his side and said: "Seatbelt sign"s on, sir. Please take a seat."