Trip to Brisbane

I awoke in the middle of the night yesterday. Jill was curled into a tight ball beside me and I realized I was chilled. We had fallen asleep under the sheet because the humidity makes blankets unbearable. As the night proceeded, like an oven during dessert the house cooled. I reached down and dragged the blanket back from the foot of the bed. I drew its stiff comfort up to Jill’s waist and she unconsciously pulled it to her face. She stretched and rolled to sleep on her belly. Her arms tucked underneath her.
At 4 AM Jill’s alarm started jingling. I sat up and automatically started pulling on my outfit from where it was laid out on my bag. Through half lidded consciousness I pulled on socks and pants. I folded my nightshirt and added it to the overflowing bag and zipped it up like so many times before. I brushed my teeth for the last time in Sydney and packed up the few things left out for my backpack. I tucked our USB plug in last. I’m saving it to return to the store before we leave Australia. We limped to the bus stop in the dark and sat in the dark. On the bench the trees whispered above us and a few birds cried out the dawn. I saw the first worker arrive at school and some fluorescent lights flicker on inside. The bus arrives at 5 AM and we climb on determinedly, no one gets on a bus nonchalantly at 5 AM.
Dark houses and stores flashed by and the bus accelerated and stopped. Busses always seem to be accelerating and stopping. In this way we gathered more souls and discharged a few. Jill figured everyone was either a baker or a barista. Sure I said. We climbed off at our stop and followed a group down an unmarked escalator in a plaza because we didn’t know where else to go. It led to a warren of porcelain tiled hallways. I imagined around every corner a line of urinals fit for a stadium.
Jill told me she was nervous because we would miss the 5:33 train to the airport. I reassured her and we hobbled along. When we reached the platform we caught the 5:42 train. In 10 minutes we reached the airport. We made it to the gate with time to spare and sat down for a few handfuls of muesli. Every handful I ate I would spill some on my pants and on the carpet. The carpet was dark and the rolled oats stood out on it. I felt bad about spilling. I stopped eating because of this and because it wasn’t very good. I had to take a swallow of water each time to get the dry oats down.
Jill and I found some luggage scales and weighed our bags. They had to be under 7 kilos. Mine turned out to be 7.5 and hers was 4. I gave her my liquids because they were probably half a kilo. As we lined up to board a woman in a shiny yellow vest pulled a passenger aside and weighed her bag. It was over 7 kilos. She told the passenger that the bag had to be checked for an $8 fee and took the passenger to the gate attendant. The gate attendant was alone and frantically processing people onto the plane. She said a few words to the vested woman. I couldn’t hear what was said but the passenger got back in line with her bag and the yellow vested woman walked down the jetway. Soon, Jill and I got on the plane. The yellow vested woman turned out to be one of our flight attendants. She removed the yellow vest while angrily telling her partner about the bag scandal during boarding. Our seats were in row 4 and I had a good view.
The plane was slow leaving the gate but when it did we got off the ground fast. A glass partition separated the front row from the boarding hatch. My sightline was just over the top of the seats and I could see the reflection of my eyes peeking back at me. Beyond the partition the two flight attendants sat facing backward on jump seats. When I focused on the attendants I realized we were basically staring at each other. I started paging through the magazine.