The Grand Journey Ahead by Hudson Aimless

     "I am a writer, of sorts," he said, smiling down assuredly. "I write mostly fairy tales. Not exactly for children, more for adults. I find them quite mysterious, fairy tales. A great place to explore my inner psychology -- and everyone else's of course. I'm finishing a novel."

     "I see." She wasn't looking at him. She was staring down into the screen, tapping a series of unintelligible codes on the oversized multicolored keys.

     "It's going to be a great trip for me because you know what I have planned?" He did not give her a chance to respond, though it is unlikely she would have nonetheless as her interest was now squarely focused on the small monochrome screen. "Nothing. That's what I have planned. Absolutely nothing. Well, that's not entirely true, I suppose." And here he smiled and stared out past the line of people behind him at the large expansive glass windows and at the clouded sky beyond. "I have my writing to do. Seven whole days in Nice -- just sitting on the hotel balcony and writing, writing, writing."

     He reached across his chest and took hold of the lapels of his new jacket and pulled on them firmly, setting the creases just so and squaring the shoulder pads so that they sat firmly on high. It was a fine linen jacket, single-breasted and deep navy blue with three faux-bone buttons on the front, two on each cuff. He had paid handsomely for it, the most he had ever spent on a piece of clothing and he felt rich and sure of himself in it.

     The jacket and the laptop computer were his great indulgences, made with a heavy brow and a final, decisive stroke. These together accounted for half the money he had bankrolled and the rest he had carefully calculated. What with the cost of the airplane ticket and the hotel bill he recognized that his daily stipend for food would be meager. For his breakfast he imagined only coffee and perhaps a brioche. One or two days he would indulge with fruit and yogurt or, perhaps, eggs. Lunch would be almost exclusively a simple sandwich on fine, French baguette. Truly, who could need much more than a few slices of ham or cheese on such perfect bread when served with a glass of house wine in the soft air of the Cote d'Azur?

     He had it all figured out. His mornings would be spent furiously writing. After lunch he would lay down for a short nap, perhaps only a half-hour, perhaps slightly more. When he woke he would walk down to the beach for a quick swim in the incredibly blue waters of the Mediterranean. While he rested on the beach, he assumed, drinking in the lithe and perfect beauty around him, golden and bare-breasted in languorous repose, he would chew over the plots and characters, filling in whatever gaps might have worried him during the morning. Sated by the sun and the sea salt he would return to the hotel for a quick shower and then to the small veranda where he would bang out a number of pages more.

     At night, if he had pinched his pennies well, he might find a decent brasserie and indulge in an entrecote and a good glass of wine. Perhaps even a pastry or an ice cream cone as he strolled the boulevard, seeing the glamorous tourists and the delicate French women whose skin is golden and freckled and whose eyes smile kindest of all. And he had allocated a small sum for cigarettes in his budget. He was not, per se, a true smoker but this was France and he was, if only in his small way, a writer. His night would end seated on a bench, the tender sting of the cigarette smoke and the shadows of lovers off in the periphery.

     The woman finally looked up at him and for the first time he took in the pretty shape of her face. She was not a beauty, but there was a balanced proportion to her features, he thought. Her nose was aquiline which many thought valuable. He rather preferred a flawed or flowery nose; a nose with curves and movement and uneven forms that require thought and, sometimes action. He liked when a woman's nose had a small droop at the end, ever so slight. It suggested a most kissable and hidden spot just above the lip. This woman did not have such features but her hair was light and well-groomed and her lips prettily rouged.

     She smiled up at him and he felt a swell in his chest that his trip had already begun, here, with this first discussion. He felt liberated and free of his so-called normal existence. He had planned for months and saved for no less than two years for this event. All this for one week in Nice. One week on the edge of the blue waters with his novel's outline drafted and the challenge to flesh it out, to make it real, clearly set before him. To finally write his novel. To finally set it all down on paper. How long had he looked forward to such a time? Five years? Had he been five years divorced already?

     "Aisle or window, sir?"

     "You don't have any middle seats?" He chuckled to himself rather smartly.

     "You would like a middle seat?" Her face was still and blank.

     "No, I'm sorry, I'm only joking. Middle or aisle..." He ran his index finger over the slight cleft in his chin and pursed his lips. He hoped to make good headway on his work on the flight. The writing he was able to do would set the tone for the entirety of his trip and so he considered which might be the best seat for this purpose. Should he sit in the window, he would be undisturbed for the duration of the journey, but it would be nearly seven hours and it might be a challenge to so infrequently get access to the restroom or the opportunity to walk the aisle and stretch his legs. To sit in the aisle would afford him the greatest freedom, despite the nuisance of other passengers and the annoyance of facilitating their needs.

     In the end he realized, and this thought came far too quickly, that he didn't care in which seat he sat as much as in whose proximity. To be seated next to a charming young woman would provide him unquestionable amounts of enthusiasm, regardless of the physical freedoms or restrictions the seat itself encompassed. Were that she, herself, French and making her way home to Nice, where he may further enjoy her friendship... well, this was perhaps too much for which to hope. But a young woman, single and reasonable in her face and manners, certainly this could be accomplished. The only question was, how?

     "Well, I think I would prefer an aisle, but here's the thing -- " and he leaned in closer, over the grey counter so to more softly voice his thoughts. "it would be great if you could seat me next to someone... well, how would you put it?" She looked up blankly at him, the seventy-third of some four hundred passengers she would assist before the end of her day. "I'm traveling alone. Perhaps you've seated a young lady with whom I might enjoy conversation during the flight over?"

     He felt a mixture of emotions rush over him. There was a pride in the gustiness with which he approached his desires and still a certain shame that he could be so overt and direct. He turned away a second to confirm no one else was in earshot of such an awkward and honest question. Turning back he found the lighting of her nose to be somewhat less flattering now.

     "No, not for this flight, Sir, you're among the first. I can book you in an aisle on an empty row and perhaps whomever takes the seat next to you will prove a good companion."

     "You'll look out for me?" Having said it, he was quickly ashamed of the question. She hesitated, clearly embarrassed for him.

     "Of course. Any luggage?"

     He lifted the small wheelable cart in which he had tightly packed his few necessities -- shorts and short-sleeved shirts, mostly -- and smiled.

     "Nope, just this for carry-on."

     He found the seat at the far back of the cabin easily enough, nearly at the last row where the bank of toilettes stood open like sour mouths. He kidded himself that their proximity would alleviate any concerns he may have had of 'holding it' but in truth he was a touch disappointed by the environment they created. He could smell their chemical odor even now and knew well it would grow only more acrid and pungent as the passengers made good use of them.

     His was a row of just two and the window seat was so far unoccupied. He glanced up the aisle behind him, secretly hoping to find some shimmering flower waiting to join him but was instead greeted with a gathering of hunched, aged men and young frazzled mothers struggling to navigate the narrow path with both a growingly disagreeable infant and cumbersome luggage. He stowed his small valise in the compartment above the seat and quickly sat himself, glancing at his watch.

     "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the aircraft." The voice was sweet and indistinct. "Tonight's flight will be full, so it would be of great assistance if you could step out of the aisle and take your seat as quickly as possible so that the remainder of the passengers may board. Thank you."

     He looked at his watch again. It hadn't changed. He craned his neck down the aisle expectantly once more, but saw nothing new and decided that he would be best off distracting himself with the airline's self-marketing magazine. Pulling it from the forward seat-pocket he was taken with the cover image of a two young children knee deep in the foaming sea surf and smiling broadly. "Fun in the Sun has Begun," it declared. "Indeed," he thought to himself and flipped his thumb over the edge of the magazine to start reading from the back.

     Though there was hardly a dozen sentences in the whole of the magazine that interested him, he did manage to spend enough time heads-down that when he looked up and about he could see only one seat as yet free, the one adjacent to his own. Glancing across the aisle he was greeted with the small, apple-cheeked face of a toddler, contorted for an infinite moment. Head poised back and mouth broadly drawing in air, the child's eyes were closed tightly and his mucus-encrusted nostrils flared.

     He well knew what was about to come and turned his head to avoid the fine mist and questionable detritus the child expelled a brief second following. He could feel the warm air of the sneeze cast over the back of his neck and could sense the wet speckles of snot that peppered the shoulder and collar of his prized linen jacket.

     "Jesus Christ, look at all these little kids!"

     He turned to face the lumbering form whose rude remark hung daringly naked in the air. As if not shameful enough, the unshaven male form looked down at him and winking added, "probably Frenchie kids, huh?"

     The form stood a good six feet, a tower of ungainly bulk. While the skin of its arms and neck were rough as sackcloth, the flesh of its stomach slid out from under its shirt and drooped over its defeated waist like the white of a soft-boiled egg. As it struggled, muttering, to push is small bag into the compartment above, its pale underbelly rolled and swayed in viscous waves. With one last, close-fisted smack, its bag relented to the pounding and the form turned to him, upper lip dotted in sweat.

     "That'd be mine, there." It pointed what appeared to be a cloven finger at the seat next to his and smiled broadly, exposing a crag of ruined teeth and the tip of a tongue long soiled by tobacco. He stood, swallowing his fate in a thick, bitter gulp and let the form squeeze by, its body warmth drifting in sickly waves from its damp shirt. It sat, and then he did. It let out a prolonged yawn, raising its arms above. From those dank creases of flesh came a startling scent and he suddenly found himself nostalgic for the chemical candied perfume of the toilettes.

     "This is your captain speaking from the flight deck. I want to welcome you all aboard a full flight today to Nice, flying time eight hours, fifteen minutes. I'd ask you to finish stowing your belongings as we're about to make final checks and get on our way."

     The issue of his aislemate settled, though far from his liking, he stood again to retrieve his laptop. In his mind the story was far from clear and he treasured the outline he had drafted over the last few weeks in which he was able to realize the details with some absoluteness. The plot had come to him a few years ago shortly after he had discovered that his wife was having an affair with a colleague and before he had discovered she was also having an affair with her boss. And though she rueful about the affairs and vowed that she would reform, it was the overall sense that she had slept with the majority of their common friends that finally undid his confidence in the marriage. During that painful time he was at a loss as to what to do, instead spending a considerable amount of time at the movies.

     There, in the depths of the cool black spaces and in the well of his distraction he concocted a story about a man who crisscrosses the countryside taking only the most desirable lovers and feeding them each night with a different sophisticated fairy tale. And though he had flashes of inspiration often during that time, it remained little more than simply a framework for a book. Now and again he would have a feeling for one of the stories the dashing lover would tell, but he had rarely made any kind of notes during that time. Instead he agreed that one day he would sit down and write the piece out and that all of the content would flow to him again, as if by providence.

     Instead, he began to save money. Only, after too long a time, he realized that the trip would one day be a reality. And then, monies set aside and plans put in place, it became apparent that he would need to think the project through further, and so he waited for just the few weeks before his trip to put as many thoughts as he could into some kind of order. It was an extensive and exhausting effort but one he knew would pay off a hundredfold during his stay. It had been the wee hours that had been richest in their yields, hours damp with the tinge of a beer or two. And though the roadmap, for better or worse, had been sketched in a document on his computer, it was the product of walks along the border of exhaustion and he would be hard-pressed to recount but a tenth of it from his memory alone.

     Pulling down his valise was no small chore, densely packed-in as it was by the punch-drunk sack of the form in the seat next to his. Carefully rocking it this way and that, and by applying an excruciating amount of constant force he was finally able to slide the case forward and out of the overhead compartment, assisting it almost not at all as it fell down onto the flat of his seat. It unzipped quickly and he dug through the top layer of cotton socks and dingy underwear. His hands merrily burrowed past the few ironed shirts and past the pair of light espadrilles he would wear back from the beach each day until, with some horror, his fingers hit upon something that sent a concussive wave of fear through his midsection: the bottom of the suitcase.

     He stared straight ahead, unknowingly into the blank eyes of the unkempt form, while his fingers gently probed the abdomen of the case in minute circles, as if the undershirts and Rayon bathing suit were the gentle waters of a fingerbowl. He could not bring himself to look down at the reality of his error. Fear dried his mouth and his soft palate felt gummy.

     "Sir, you'll have to stow that now. You can go through it later, once we're airborne," came the sweet, indistinct voice behind him. With a sickened slowness he zippered up the case and robotically jammed it back into the tight sleeve of the storage space. Inside his mouth his tongue thrashed slowly like a dying fish.

     He sat back down with a rough slump, his flesh cool and growing damp. He thought it through, could recall the startled awakening in his apartment and the obnoxious honking from the taxicab out on the street. He had set the laptop on the kitchen counter to charge the night before. Why had he chosen that place? Why hadn't he set it in front of the door?

     The airplane turbines fired up with a sudden, rocketing whir that jolted the cabin. Joining them shortly thereafter was the first high-pitched shriek of a young and frightened child singing out in full voice.

     "Gonna be eight hours of that crap," noted the slovenly form, thrusting a blunt thumb in the general direction of the child's screaming. "Better just start drinking now, don't you think?" It reached into an oversized pants pocket to remove a handful of mini-bar bottles of orange liqueur and released them into its lap. With a soft crunching noise it twisted off the cap of the first bottle and held it up in salutation before positioning the small aperture of the bottle's opening against the seam of two wet and chewed lips. A second young vocalist joined the first, this one at a slightly higher register and in a slightly less pleasant timbre. The ill-hewn lips formed a sharp grimace. With the contents of the bottle fully ebbed-out, the form dropped it to the floor disinterestedly before opening another and emptying that, too.