Returned favour

London was sunny. Leaving it now, was the farthest from her mind. The aeroplane that she was petrified of, removing her from The One she finally found. Nonsense.

He couldn't have been serious to drive her to the airport. Though he looked it. In his tight black jacket glistening like the skin of a stallion, his Roman soldier profile, his wild mane.... But his body still lay back in his seat, proving how he can force the gear stick and gently hold her palm with one hand. Gazing at her deeply every minute, his eyes gleaming like burning coal... Melting the tar before them as the radio played...

'Damn this car!', he suddenly shattered her daze. 'Hooray?' she timidly meowed a startled second later, pretending not to notice the rude interruption to their ride, anymore than a lover's sudden flatulence. A tiny faction of her heart did chip away from the shudder and dropped into that dark abyss of subconscious, that by 'damn' he meant regret. Regret so remindful of her former fiancee, who also couldn't help resenting taking her late to her flight. But it was insignificant enough to ignore. And lose in the sight of this Shiva. He, was so infinitely more godly than his predecessor. He, was the lover incarnate, the long deserved retribution. The correct, answer to her prayers.

'We are stranded on London's highway hooray hooray', she sang impervious to drivers' grimaces. In fact she wondered why people even bother about these silly burdensome cars and tyres and roadblocks and road signs, when one can be eternally transported by this fluid of love, this amorphous, boundless spiritual high. And finally, she met someone who understood what she meant, who could fly on her level and keep her in the sky. 

The glass edges of Heathrow suddenly shot before them, like the peak of a mountain straight out of a cloud. What could have stopped her heart, nonetheless somehow stretched his devilishly satisfied smile. 'Oh' she said, unsurely, 'My hero... You got us here after all.... I guess we can grab the airport coffee and a sandwich, I love...' 'Quick, let's try to catch your plane!' he impeded autistically. 'Whaaat?' she exclaimed her eyes swerving a sharp, almost permanent left to his mechanical body language. 

'Gate 602 closing!' resounded the boxed air, as she saw his All Stars and capoeira pants already reach the stewardess's microphone. 'Aren't you something', she continued to lust after his perseverance, yet certain in her love's victory, over his funny attempt at mere mortal efforts to not waste her flight ticket. And no sooner indeed was he returning to her, now slow, calm and with a smile hiding underneath his lashes in glad defeat. She accepted it with open arms and a trimphant yoga pose, making a triangle with her foot upon her other leg. 'They're waiting for you', he whispered in her ear and led her by the arm to the gate. 'I'll never forgive you!' she just managed to whimper, before the door closed, strangling her by his betrayal.

If ever a bad omen made itself perfectly obvious, it was by this cheap plane stuffed with an overload of sweating passengers. She plodded on to her designated seat like a lamb to slaughter, feeling the open entrance air still pull at her back, but following the line for this bad film's sake. Upon finding it, she squeezed into the sardine position, but waited for her queue like the star that she was. When the pilot resounded 'Dear passengers, our take off has been postponed an hour'.

She sprang out of her seat as if she heard her name and headed directly toward the still open door. 'Yes mam?' stood the overweight blonde stewardess blocking her perpendicular. 'Hi, I need to disembark'. 'You can't disembark Miss. The plane is about to take off'. 'Sorryy?' she glared, as if trying to widen with her eyeballs the rope she felt around her neck. 'You can't just leave the plane. We would have to uproot all the passengers and check it for bombs in that case.' 'Bombs??' she laughed, fretting her feet now in the tiny crack between seats, when a short white-haired pilot in a white suit, met her face turned in dismay. 

'Yes young lady, why do you want to get out of the plane, might you be afraid of flying, hmm?' 'Nooo...' she squirmed in the desperate hope that he was her friend. 'Well yes, OK, I am. But that is not the reason I want to get off the plane!' 'What is?' he cajouled, rather too relaxed for someone who was just about to crash this old dingy with 300 people inside. 'It's love', she said, feeling her entire truth dissolve like some bubble in society's cynicism. 'Love?? Ha, ha', chuckled the pilot as if grateful that he was finally surprised by something after decades of flying with human beings and booze. 'Does that still exist?' 

Heavily, they lifted from the English ground, her heart in her throat, her nails gripping at sweat, the sky darkening fast and her mind not knowing that she will survive, severed from her love, not seeing the future. What was there to look forward to but a crash, oh yes, it would serve him right, and be a far better ending to their romance than this prosaic care for the preservation of her money. What was it for and what could she live for anyway with this realisation that he wasn't the love soldier either, her Mark Anthony to her brave Cleopatra? That he, didn't love her enough either, but did everything to send her back? The flight shook from her shudders and was one of the worst she took. Would she ever speak to him again to at least tell him that?

Touchdown in her cold, empty land. Two and a half hours away from her heart, yet as though a mere visit to another room. She went to her terrace cafe, and still standing and looking at the pink horizon before twilight, extracted a box of cigarettes from her purse. Alive and safe, healthy enough to smoke. This can't be the end. Shakily, she dared switch the phone back on. It said 'I was wrong, please, please forgive me, come back!!!' And in the distance, the little wisecracking pilot, walking alone, shrilled with pride catching her eye. 'Are you happy now?'