Abu Dubai

Abu Dhabi airport. The altered reality of long haul travel is hard to convey. It does feel like we are hauling something, up from under the water. My hearing is dimmed and my sense of humour sharpened. When the lights came on for our last landing my companion pulled a blanket over his head in despair and I laughed at him until my eyes ran and stomach ached. It is always such a joy to survive air travel. The man sitting behind me from Singapore was floridly farty, a round Irishman whose gases escaped him in his sleep. I felt how I was unable to sleep and yet unwilling to waken, trying to stay upright to take little sips of air as close to the ceiling jets as possible, a turtle with its neck stretched out from underwater taking little sips of consciousness. Back at home the hammock which I made myself lie in every afternoon just to soak up the last of the heat and the sun is folded and packed away. On the morning of our departure, some six or seven weeks ago now it feels like, I made everything ready and went down to lie in it, cuddling my pillow, closing my eyes. Every stir of the local breeze was warm and feathery distinct on my skin. The leaves shifted. The light changed. The traffic pounded behind. The tree I was fastened to may not be there when we get back, someone has bethought themselves to maybe chop it down. I thanked it for all its leaves and its mangoes and shade. For giving a home to the butcher birds and possums. The tree spoke amongst itselves, as a friend of mine once said when I had coffee with him and he left me alone to go order: you just talk amongst yourselves. I thought that was hilarious. When our friend arrived at 9am I had almost fallen asleep, and her voice and my partner’s voice seemed to approach from a long way off, as voices right behind you will seem to do in a pressurised roaring cabin. We went upstairs and collected all our luggage together. I got into my travel clothes: scarlet and white onesie from Denmark, for ease of lolling, and giant black zippered biker boots, trying to shave five kilos off my bulging luggage. I’m always carrying too much weight in aircraft because books and journals are heavy. Oh my god, I said: I look like Santa Claus off duty. My partner said, you look like a rock star. At the airport I caught a glimpse of myself in the long glass doors and said, Hey! I look like a rock star! Then a jolly fellow in his sixties came up laughing to ask, Are you here to bring me all my Christmas presents? Oh, ho ho ho. On the plane we folded and refolded our four metres of limbs ingeniously and repeatedly, trying to get comfortable. At each airport we stumble out and cover the concourses. If I described how loud the announcements are here in this giant waiting room filled with black leatherette seats, no one would believe me. They fill the room like black sun. Everything trembles, or maybe that’s just me. My Santa suit zips right up to the crest of the head, so if I cannot stand the strain of being in public for so long continuously I can just close it up and disappear. But when finally a horizontal surface presented itself just now, I just lay down and pulled my hair over my face for a scarf, and slept almost at once.