The Long Haul

This post is a continuation of my epic adventure to China. If you haven’t familiarized yourself with Part 1 and Part 2, those are probably good places to start. If you click on each on the links above, you’ll be taken directly to the respective pages.

It’ll fill you in on the back story, but as with many things in life, it’s your choice. Knowledge can be power, and overwhelming.

Catabolic. No Protein.

A few moments later, another flight attendant came by to offer me an extra bonus tray. At first my heart soared: they found me a chicken dish, one that had been hidden in the heart of the aircraft galley. But, alas, it was only another tray of the sides – to replace the delicious airline chicken entrée that didn’t exist anywhere but in my hungry mind.

Perhaps she took pity on me, having seen my crumpled visage, etched with the thousand sorrows that is an empty belly soaring thousands of feet in the sky. Or perhaps, her training in warding off the hanger had warned her of potential threat. I would never know.

I took the second tray gratefully, acknowledging her kindness. What it lacked in heft from the missing entrée, the tray made up in effort, albeit effort that would never fill the void left by the chicken I’ll never have. That hollow hydrochloric acid filled hole of disappointment just deep to my navel. Two soft sounds escaped my lips, my mama had taught me well.

“Shi shi”

Devious Interlopers

The moment I unwrapped the new tray, exposing the plump, curvaceous bun, I thought to myself, forget the intermittent fast, I’m going to carb load instead. This is the power of metabolic flexibility. Unencumbered by only one dieting style, I could freely choose the path I wanted. This was true freedom.

The buns were warm and soft. They melted the butter on contact. The salads, while containing raisins hidden among the foliage and chickpeas, were pretty good as well. Only because I was able to pick out all those vile little buggers thanks to the thousands of dollars I had spent almost a decade ago on laser eye surgery. As life does, it just proved to me you may have to wait, but you will see the value in some of your long ago decisions.

Except one little fucker.

It snuck in and assaulted my taste buds. But with a quick ‘Pfffth’ towards the first class cabin, problem solved.

In this case, I went for distance, not height, knowing the overhead bins had the potential to cause ricochet return fire. The risk was too great. The cake was soft and moist – though not chocolate, it was pretty tasty nonetheless (it was not seafood flavoured and didn’t have raisins, really that’s all that mattered in that moment).

The Flight Continues.

It’s now 5 hours that we’ve been in the air. The fancy LCD screen firmly affixed to the back of the seat ahead of me, sharply angled downward due to the recline of the seat back, enveloped my crotch in its faint blue glow in the quiet, fart filled darkness of the airplane cabin, the time to destination alternating in the top right corner between itself and the local time at origin.

Only about 7.5 hours to go.

I’ve watched one movie already, played one game of black and white, and will soon start another movie.

It’s at this point I’ll pause my writings and pick up again if anything interesting should occur.

Thanks for reading, dear reader. Knowing you’re here with me as I relive this big adventure will make it more palatable for me.

[author’s note: these posts were crafted from the in vivo, real-time notes and musings of our protagonist while on the trip itself, this is totally the reason for all grammatical errors, typos, syntax miscues etc]

Photo by Mai Moeslund on Unsplash