Princess in the Sky
Part 1, the only part
This certainly wasn’t like anything I’ve seen before. She stands in the aisle giving the routine safety pitch with actions that — to her — are mindless after such endless routine. The surroundings started enclosing side-to-side, front-to-back. The universe didn’t matter for this split second. A split second that lasted for an eternity as far as my mind allowed me to comprehend. I have finally experienced breathtaking. And Breathtaker crushed me. She wouldn’t look at me and I respected this, or interpreted this, as it was a courtesy prolonged to me only as a result of strangers having gazed at her for miles, hours, days, skies, and oceans at a time. Or maybe it was a mere safeguard. Maybe protocol. I’m not a flight attendant, I couldn’t know why. Flight attendant, stewardess, princess in the sky — call her what you will. Either way, there wasn’t a glance in my direction. As hard as I would strive, as hopeless and romantically imaginative the mutual glance would arrange itself in my mind, there was no visual connection. What did I miss out on? What did the sky princess miss out on? What’s more intriguing than sad is what will never be. I’m a passenger in her world of desperate, lonely, busybody, depressed travellers; her jetlag, relationship yearning, and endless perfectly-made beds by hotel maids she considers herself above, but lacks the stability and sedentary lifestyle they hold which she envies.
The connections between individuals in today’s world are incomparably different than those of the past. These moments are interpreted differently than they were before. A smile 50 years ago no longer means what a smile does today. Society has conditioned us to think more deeply into these gestures, no matter how authentic or ingenuous. But this isn’t any sort of reality worth my time or hers… so I’ll make happen what it is I choose.
Rewind. Breathtaker is standing in the aisle. Her feet are comfortably settled in the grooves of the plane’s carpet where she’s stood so many times before. She is at home right now. She is in her comfort zone. Without knowing how either of us would feel after what’s to come, we locked eyes. She stuttered and tripped over her own routine lecture around airline safety. This was the moment when everything we both thought we had come to know was set aside. No reading too deeply into a good-willed gesture. No interpretation of a smile as a one-off opportunity to hook up. This was the moment life came true, and it’s happening now. Dreams, romances, desires, fantasies — it all began and couldn’t be stopped even by an airplane travelling at 500 miles per hour. Endless romantic nights, days, mornings, afternoons, and evenings. Endless curiosity into why anyone is so good to anyone else. I never wonder why she treats me like a king. She starts to wonder why I treat her as a goddess. I reassure her because that’s what she wants; that’s what she needs. It makes her heart melt and when her heart melts mine melts to a point it’s nearly dissolved. Then we rewind and are reminded. We don’t think deeply into why, but we enjoy the moments we’re in; the nonsensical beauty that transpires. We enjoy the comfort and security in such a magnetic, rare connection, no matter how we got there or where we’ll be. And that’s what I live for — and who I live for in these six hours: the Princess in the Sky.
