Before 24 Billion and Counting

Chapter 26 Part 1 You can't choose who goes with you

Dedicated to @ufgator90 who silently voted for all chapters of BEFORE and then the real story of 24 Billion and Counting

My years of travelling on an expense account, with the arrangements carefully crafted by Kelly, had been poor preparation for the actuality of tourist class travel on an Airbus 880 run by the airline which had earned the nickname Squeezyjet.

The two hundred passengers on the lowest narrower deck of the three on the airliner were looked after by a minimal number of cabin crew, who in the main were burly stewards rather then their more glamorous female counterparts upstairs. The chaos of competition for either aisle seats with more opportunities for leg stretching or window seats for distraction, in the three five three seat configuration was eventually quelled, and I sat between a caucasian on my right who was next to the window and an Asian woman garbed in a Burka carrying a squalling child in arms.

There seemed to be much of a problem with stowing the hand baggage of the woman and her child, bottles and garments and other bags. I said to her, "Here. Let me take the child".

The dark eyes crinkled inscrutably and she put the baby on my lap. She, or so I guessed the baby to be, was an exquisite child with olive skin, sparkling dark brown eyes, and a sprouting of dark curls. It was a long time since I had taken my new grand daughter in my arms, but the little being was soon content and gurgling happily.

My companion on the right said, as I rocked the baby , "Bloody blecks, they'll over-run us."

The Afrikaner accent and attitude were too offensive to be worth a reply. I recognised this was one more burden added to the ordeal of the forthcoming flight. I just looked at him.

Order was carved out of chaos, the woman settled down and I returned the baby to her, and she started feeding her child from a plastic bottle. The steward fussed around her checking safe attachment of the seat belt, and 800 tonnes of a mix of aluminium and plastic, kerosene and 800 humans climbed from the runway to the devastating roar of four huge turbofans. Being on the lowest deck the thumping rumble of the packing away of 30 wheels no longer needed seemingly immediately below our feet was intimidating.

The narrow seats were not comfortable and the air was stale. I had started this trip tired, and could have wished for sleep which eluded me for some time, but the banal entertainment on the 18cm screen in front of me interrupted so frequently with mind numbing adverts, dulled my brain. It was to my shame that the odd advert had come from my studio, and was no less vacuous than the rest. I suppose it provided a living. On this thought I fell into a sort of sleep.

The jumble of material fed to my brain from the adverts translated to confused dreams of waves of artificial coloured hair, smooth, smooth indestructible skin and fast foods.

I woke with a start at the woman beside me tapping me on the shoulder. She held her baby towards me. I shook my head to blow away the remnants of my dreams, and took the child from her. The infant immediately began to whimper. I tried to comfort her, but when her mother walked into the aisle the whimper became a wail.

I watched the woman walk towards the front of the aircraft which struck me as strange since that led to the stairs to the deck above, rather than the toilets which were to the rear. A steward met her and redirected her.

There was a hesitation in the woman's walk.

She swung around and ripped the head-dress off.

Time became a glutinous viscid liquid dripping ever so slowly from a leaking tap of eternity.