Chapter IV: On Murphy's Law of Flight

When someone tells you that you heard of a Pakistani travelling to Guatemala, your natural reaction would be to wait for the punch line in the joke. Using Pakistan and Guatemala in the same sentence is a lot like using virtual cognition and chicken wings in the same sentence; you may as well put them together but it would make no sense whatsoever. And to be honest, I guess that’s one of the main reasons why I’m here; to feel irregular, absurd, anomalous and yet still manage to fit in.

Leaving Sweden was not easy, I’ll tell you that. Most of you may not believe this but the weather in Lund in the summers is actually nice. It’s sunny, doesn’t rain as often and everyone’s outside … I’m not BSing. You don’t have to worry about the cold, are no longer prone to suicide, women wear less clothes; I am telling you, it becomes the shit. Plus, when you’ve become too accustomed to the lifestyle, naturally you don’t want to change that. But I think all of us leaving for our field semesters have so much to look forward to and so many experiences to encounter that … well, yeah, it’s exciting but not all of us take excitement well. For me it’s extremely high acidity and insomnia.

Anyways, there are lots and lots of things I want to talk about but for now, I’ll start with the flight to Guatemala. Being a citizen of the country that possibly hosts Bin Laden, Hitler, the Manson family, Freddy Kruger and other enemies of the States, it’s not easy to travel. For starters, even if you simply want to transit to the US, you need something called a B-12 transit visa (but ok, apparently everyone needs that). For most people, you can get it in less than a week. Naturally, I am “special”. And I don’t mean like a pretty little princess with flowers in her hair or even a handicapped child. No, I mean take-out-your-guns-and-put-on-your-masks-when-you-see-him-near special. And since I probably would’ve gotten the visa at some point around the death of my great-great grandson, I decided to go through Spain instead, or Iberia Airlines to be specific.

The first stop was Madrid and upon boarding the plane in Copenhagen, I could already feel the salsa/latinness. The music on the flight was not exactly Hispanic nor latin; it was almost Mayan with a lot of Carribean. To top that off, the air hostesses were exceptionally good-looking. In fact, when they started showing where the exits are or how to put on masks during that presentation before take-off, for the first time, I found myself actually paying attention. I was casually listening to Dave Matthews’ Dreamgirl and reading some book I didn't really want to read when I raised my head to stretch my neck only to find myself mesmerized by this tall black-haired Hispanicita doing her thing. I still don’t know where she was pointing or what was being said with those movements and it didn’t matter. With the music and her movements, I found myself, well, smiling uncontrollably . And before you judge me or call me a pervert or refer to the other oft-cited rhetoric against our species, let me tell you that I was not the only one enjoying the display. After 4 minutes of incredible eye candy, I looked around casually, you know, just to seem I wasn’t ogling. Not surprisingly, every girl had her head down reading something and every guy had earphones in their ears, eyes on the air hostess and a stupid smile on their face.

We landed in Madrid a couple of hours later and I began dreading the 5 hour wait until the 13-hour flight to Mexico City. The only highlight of the Madrid flight had been the hostess’ incredible display; my companions were these two annoying Danish women who had evidently never seen a wing before because their gaze and talks were restricted to things happening outside the window. Every time it moved, they’d jump and start speaking with delight; bottomline, my Murphy’s law of flight was still in effect.

When they finally made the boarding call at around 2 a.m, I was already too exhausted and knew I’d fall asleep as soon as I sat down on the plane. But a few minutes before boarding, my gaze caught this eastern-looking girl with very prominent Mediterranean features. Knowing my luck, I turned away; the law would always be in effect.

Ok, before I proceed, let me quickly explain my Murphy’s law of flight. As long as I can remember, it has been my dream to find myself sitting next to a beautiful girl on a long flight, casually starting the conversation by something mundane only to find ourselves in a deep, semi-intellectual and strangely intimate tête-à-tête an hour later and eventually having it lead to something more. Long flights are the only place that can happen; you can get acquainted with a stranger without having to leave or be interrupted by outside nuisances (except maybe a kid constantly crying, which too can be useful as a conversation topic). Unfortunately, the more I have craved to be in that situation, the worse the quality of my companions has gotten. Eventually, I completely gave up on the dream and decided to occupy myself with music, books and finding awkward positions to seat myself to sleep.

On this flight, however, something strange happened. As I entered the plane, I was ushered to the very last cabin. There weren’t too many passengers and from where I was standing, there was only one other person in the cabin. As I walked near, I realized that it was the eastern-looking girl. Optimistically, I was relieved to know that at least she was in the same cabin. But when I saw her seat number and looked at my own boarding pass, my jaw dropped. It had finally happened! A surge of thoughts went through my head as I sat down with a smile and an “Hola!”; what should we talk about? Books? Politics? The Italian mafia? Mimic the accent? That was always a favorite with the ladies! Or, better yet, we would delve into the meaning and mysteries of life. My excitement was overwhelming and I did my best to hold it in.

Yet it seems that fate or destiny or whatever force that determines the manner of events is not without a filthy sense of irony and dark humor. A few minutes after settling down, I prepared myself for the wonderful conversational delights to come and started with a rather stupid but necessary opening. “Excuse me, hi! Do you know how long this flight is?” She smiled a rather Middle Eastern smile and replied very politely “Uhh, no hablo inglés!”.

It felt like the pressure in the cabin dropped and I found myself on the verge of tears. I looked around and saw several couples and pairs of strangers already in conversations with an evil smile on their faces, mocking me, cruelly laughing at me. The bitch we’ve all come to accept as fate was standing right behind them, laughing the loudest, pleased with herself.

I tried not to let our language barrier be the reason for fate’s billionth victory but with my limited Spanish, all I could get out of her was that her name was Valeria, she was half-Mexican, half-Italian, had a boyfriend in Italy, family in Mexico and forced herself to laugh when I did my rather depressing imitation of Don Corleone. The rest of the flight was, well, like all other flights. Fate had had the final laugh; the Murphy’s law would always be in effect.