It was the best night of Milford's life. Not only did he have no time to even think about his entire venture since there was so much stuff happening, but the night-life of Beijing was one of the most relaxing sights he'd ever seen. To spend the entire night including the wee hours of morning with Max and Pablo, two people he'd experienced many things with, sounded like bliss, and it was.
Most times, they would only stay in a store for twenty minutes, then leave without paying. There were still many things to look at in the stores that would never, ever leave any of their minds, so that was a plus.
In the end, Milford counted four restaurants they all ate at, because every two or three hours somebody would become hungry.
The entire night was just non-stop action, kind of like New York City in a way. Everything was still open and anyone could be in there waiting for you.
In order to pay for everything, someone still needed to understand Chinese and Mandarin, but thankfully, Pablo did say they learned it with the other few languages they spent their time on. Some cashiers could speak very general American, but Pablo felt like they wanted to test out some of their knowledge in the real world, just like high school always told them would pay off in the end. Milford also caught sight of some yuan in Pablo's wallet, but they preferred not to talk about it.
When they all finally got back to the hotel at what Milford thought was 5 in the morning, Pablo told them they would catch a flight back to America either the next day or the day after that, nobody really knew. It didn't matter at that point, all Milford could think of to do was fall asleep.
________
It was 12 hours later when Milford awoke.
He quickly reminisced on the previous night quickly in his mind, but shortly thereafter, he wanted to stay in bed. That is until he heard rapid breaths and noise coming from the only two people who he knew were in the room with him.
Max and Pablo were packing everything they had into garbage bags like there was no tomorrow. They didn't need to speak to him to tell them they were running late for a flight, because Milford was already out of bed and beginning to getting ready.
It was an other-worldly sight seeing all three of them, not having taken showers in a few days, with uncombed hair, carrying one or two garbage bags each going up to the desk to check out. Max later exclaimed how he was surprised they didn't get inspected for stealing hotel property or anything. While Pablo was speaking to reception, Milford saw it was raining outside.
A few minutes after, they all ran out of the hotel to find a yellow and blue taxi that nobody was taking. They almost destroyed the thing by opening and slamming the doors of the vehicle so violently. Pablo didn't shout into the driver's ear when they asked for the nearest airport, but their tone in the language they spoke gave the impression that they meant business.
The driver nodded and started cruising as fast as they could.
The airport looked huge and Milford liked the architecture of it. The place seemed very odd, and he enjoyed that kind of look on anything.
When they paid the taxi driver and got inside, it was like a 1500 meter run. Except you had to dash for it with all of your speed and keep going.
Out of breath, Milford asked about midway, "What time do we have to be there!?"
"THREE MINUTES!" Pablo shouted, either spit or sweat flying with every syllable.
The lady at the front of the terminal they were supposed to be at was just about to close the door, sealing their fate, before Max screamed at the top of his lungs, "Wait for us!" She turned in their direction with a look of vulgarity, but still acted as though they were interested. Pablo handed her the tickets smiling, despite their looks overall disgusting. Milford did wonder where they got the tickets from, but what mattered was that they were there in the first place. With no enthusiasm, she allowed them in, but signaled to them to hurry up.
Milford and Pablo did so, Max following behind. Then, Milford thought he might as well say something.
"Hey, Pablo."
"What?"
"Thanks for doing all this stuff for us this whole time."
Pablo smirked, then replied, "No problem, man. I had fun."
When they arrived in their seats, Milford had realized the irony of some things.
"Pablo, what's gonna happen to your boat back in Portugal?"
He regretted saying that after all that they'd been through so far that day, right after Pablo had closed their eyes and got some relaxation. Their anxiety shined through in their response.
"Wait... Oh, I don't know. Oh my God," they gripped their seat tighter, "What did happen to it!?" Pablo didn't cry or have a panic attack subsequently. Instead, they just sighed and looked out of the airplane window that accompanied them on their left side.
Max was just watching the TV on the back of someone's seat, not even realizing what had just taken place. Milford wished he'd had headphones like Max did, but he was just stuck in the middle of all three seats with nothing. He wanted to ask for some, but he thought he might as well wait until they were in the air first.
