Gently into the good night

Chapter Six - Florida

"You have your passport? Tickets? And luggage? And everything right?" Mom says, she looks petrified and I feel she is about to faint with the stress of sending us.
"Mom, we have everything and please don't worry so much" Paul says hugging mom.
I hug dad first then mom and assure them that we'll be good and cause no chaos. Jordan stands there awkwardly and looks everywhere else other than us.
"Jordan, you are family. Come give me a hug" Dad says opening his arms. There is a marvel smile on his face while he hugs dad.
"Take care you three and please keep us updated. My little children have grown so much" Mom says and I can almost see her eyes fill with tears.

After I'm seated in my allotted seat I quickly give mom a call and inform her that we are seated and the flight is going to take off in a while. Paul is sitting to my right and Jordan to my left. Well lucky for Paul he got the seat next the aisle I'm sure the flight attenders will be honoured in him company.
"Isn't the blonde one pretty?" Paul whispers, I just roll my eye and give a brief nod. It's an eight hour flight. The aircraft hasn't taken off yet and I'm already staring to feel sick. I'm not much of a traveller and high altitudes make me really sick. I feel trapped in a metallic tube which is shot into the air with enormous velocity, practically I'm trapped. There is a popping sensation in my ear while the air craft takes off and it makes me want to puke. I feel like the wave of nausea has engulfed me, like I have eaten funnel cake and I'm riding on a roller coaster and I'm four months pregnant and very element present inside me wants to spring out of my body. After the flight has taken off my heart begins to throb.
"Are you okay?" Jordan asks looking extremely worried, we have never been on a plane together so he doesn't exactly know my 'aircraft behaviour'.
"She'll be fine" Paul says placing his hand over mine, which he always does in situations involving physical tension. We are an hour through and I feel really dizzy. My head feels heavy and my pulse feels like its thumping. Thump is all I hear and all I feel. I feel my brain, my skull and everything that's present above my neck being smashed away by a sledgehammer, it might explode but I don't care as long as the pain promises to disappear. There is an ugly and disastrous feeling of rotten atmosphere in the plane. I'm a pessimist in an aircraft. Now I start thinking the airplane is missing some important part and nobody will be aware of it until it plummets from the sky. Well, now I know why my head aches, my brain is taking revenge on me for all the nonsense I make it think. I should sleep. And amazing I'm just not able to sleep with the uncomfortable feeling surrounding me. Okay let me do the sleep counting technique. One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four sheep .........thirty five sheep, thirty six sheep.........seventy nine sheep, eighty sheep, eight one sheep...........hundred and twenty one sheep. Oh god this isn't working! Not even a million sheep can help me fall asleep.I open my eyes wide and I sit bolt upright in my seat. Okay let me watch a movie. At least it will take my mind of the situation. I scroll through the options - too boring, already watched, boring, already watched, already watched, too long, eww political, too dramatic, too dumb, watched , doesn't sound great....Blah Blah. I shut it and try to sleep again. This time with all the luck in the world I fall asleep. I wake up to the sharp voice of an air hostess. "Mam your meal" She says placing a tray of food in front of me. I feel too sick to eat, I glance at Paul but he is too engaged talking to the air hostess with the blonde hair. My hands feel shivery and cold. With a lot of effort I manage to eat with my wobbly hands. Then I try finding myself a comfortable position to sleep in and the only thing I can think of is somebody's shoulder. I glance at Paul he's still busy talking to her and I can clearly see that she is enjoying the conversation as well. I slowly nudge his arm and he replies with annoyance "What?" I smile at the air hostess and then whisper to him "I thought mom told you not to" .He nods and says "I know, I heard her as well. Sleep" he turns back to her. I look at Jordan. His cerulean eyes are shining and his blonde hair is in perfect waves. We are best friends so I don't think it would hurt to rest my head on his shoulder. So I do. There is no reflex action and I make myself comfortable. He slowly puts his arm around my shoulder, his eyes still fixed on the screen. I can feel his heartbeat, it's ten times faster than a normal human's would be. It feels warm as I mould myself in him. I feel his fingers stroking my hair and he slowly looks at me. Our eyes meet for a few seconds and his face is so close to mine I can feel his breath. "Is it okay if I rest my head on your shoulder?" I ask, he nods with a smile and I break the eye contact and close my eyes to disappear from the world briefly. My body feels like it's falling, I open my eyes. I feel the adrenaline flow through my veins. The aircraft is moving vigorously, well not like amusement ride vigorous but it's moving and it's frightening because I'm in the sky and not the ground and this metallic tube is flying a thousand feet above the ground level. My heart starts to throb and the only thing I'm wishing for is to reach Florida without dying. "It's the turbulence" Jordan says, I don't respond because I'm so terrified. I clench his hand until the plane clams down which is ten minutes later, "My hand is numb now" he says and I realise that my grip was so tight that I blocked the blood flow through his veins "I'm sorry I just really freak out on air crafts" I say removing my grip on Jordan's hand giving his veins the peace they deserve. He doesn't say anything, only nods and looks back at the screen.

As I keep my feet on the ground of Florida I begin to frolic in relief at the fact that I'm still breathing. We collect our luggage and walk out of the airport and our eyes wander in search for Uncle Richard. "Hey, kiddos how are you?" We hear a hoarse male voice from behind us and Uncle Richard is standing right there. The usual sharing of hugs takes place and we are finally at his house. It doesn't looks like our house or any house as a matter of fact. It's massive and there not the warm feeling of love and family comfort but more like a scientifically generated house which is modified to convince outsiders that somebody can lives in this place and it's not meant only for research . It feels like living inside a big scientific engine house. ( I'm really not that sure what it means but you get it right?)

Uncle Richard has always been a science geek, so in a way this is his dream house or laboratory, or whatever he thinks it is. He has been living in it for the last thirty years. He never really had his own family or kids; it's always just been our family and his parents and a few immediate relatives. He always claims that NASA and science is his family outside his homeland. He married this girl called Celia. They were together for a year and a half until uncle decided to convert their bedroom into a partial lab because apparently he wasn't able to fit everything in the house as the basement, attic, living room and even fractions of the bathroom were occupied with his research material. Well, I really wouldn't blame Celia. Then she got married to another man called Steven and their bedroom remained only a bedroom with no scientific interference for the rest of her married life. Well after the tragic story uncle brought another house in the outskirts which was cheap and huge with about 12 bedrooms, a basement triple the size of ours and a huge attic and he converted it to this house-lab thing. He still complaints about availability of area and I have really nothing to say, some people just need their space.

Uncle escorts us to our room and luckily we have three separate rooms for each of us. I feel tried and jet lagged. The fatigue of the flight has taken over my body and all I want to do it sleep. I change into a comfortable outfit and remain sleeping for whatever time is left for the next morning to arrive.