The Midnight Layover
Six hours in Taiwan
Kennedy sat slunk in what passed for comfort seating in the airport lounge. It was the first 10 minutes of a 6-hour layover and she had no idea what to do. Go back in time and pick a better flight, she muttered to no one — or anyone, rather, as long as they didn’t mind her mumbling and could entertain for a quart-night. If a fortnight is a thing, can a quart-night — a quarter of a day — be one too? She wondered who controlled these things anymore. She wondered how much wondering she could do with six hours in a place that didn’t seem to exist at all.
That’s the thing about these lounges. You fly 14 hours to a world unknown to slouch in a recline-less sofa and stare at the buffet’s not-so-freshly cut fruit. It was the same everywhere, which meant it felt like nowhere.
So you’re nowhere with nothing to do for six hours. And the worst part of is that because of the time difference, she convinced herself that these hours weren’t real and thus all the more worth living.
Flying from Taiwan to LA was like flying back in time, so even if she spent 10 hours here, she would arrive home at a time sooner than when she left. It was like a gift from God. Time that would be experienced but never counted.
She could make some TikToks. She could make some friends. She could make a fuss over the lack of blankets in this frigid fish tank for the bottom-feeders in economy. She could wo- No! She couldn’t even bear the thought of it.
Imagine, flying halfway around the world to escape your 9-5 just to use your freebie 3-9 to work on it anyway. The mere thought of it! She felt so American, a way she only felt when she wasn’t with the real ones back home. It would fill the time, she supposed. But then the capitalists win!
They always do, but I don’t have to lose to them and boredom.
I could just lie here, people watch, play on my phone until something strikes my fancy.
I could do work that’s not “work.”
Although it had already become “work.” It had become “content” and she had lost that initial spark of creativity that always shone so bright until mean old Mr. Consistency snuffed it out.
She knew she needed to figure out a way around this, losing the passion for projects once they actually needed tending. She also knew she could figure that out later. Later being another time that didn’t really exist and thus didn’t really count.
How do people do it, she thought. Have an idea, feel that excitement, and stay committed to it even as the magic fades. It sounds like marriage. She couldn’t even get a boyfriend. She would need to figure that out as well, but maybe they’re the same issue. It’d be so much easier if they were. Let’s see:
Kennedy has a job but is not creatively fulfilled, so goes the usual story of people and their jobs. She has ideas, tons, thousands, and after 25 years has made some headway on them. But these ideas, like the best ones, do not make money. And oh money; that’s the stuff! So she keeps her job and is old enough to understand that the delta between her current job/financial situation and her dream job/financial situation is a steep peak. One that would be a laborious climb and Kennedy is not a cardio gal. A climb? That takes traction and footholds and spare resources. That takes foresight and commitment.
Kennedy is also single and even she can’t be sure where her fulfillment falls with that fact. The phrase “get a man” is so funny because there is hardly a woman who can’t get a man if she were in fact open to any man alive. He would be so lucky, But sadly, ‘tis not the way. She wants what she wants, and she wants who she wants to know what she wants so she doesn’t have to articulate those wants for herself. Her therapist asks these questions and she responds with an impressive array of noncomittals.
Is that it then? To commit is to build? There are so many what ifs. What if I need healthcare? What if he’s not actually going to “level up?” What if things are different now? What if there is no perfect project that keeps the curiosity aroused?
Are people just hunkering down? Digging in their heels and saying, “Well, hell! I’m here, might as well make the best of it.”
And if you make the best of it, how far off is that best from the best you could’ve reached if you didn’t settle for that first option. What if that’s the reality? That the versions of best are all so vastly different and unique to the version of you that accomplished them, that they’d all end up feeling the same if you asked every version of yourself how their best felt. Maybe it’s a steeper climb to the personal best for some over others, but we all end up at the same mountaintop.
Huh. I’ve never thought that before, not in this way from this route.
Well now, let’s not get too excited. If M were here, he could give some kind of nonsense equation to actually put some nonsense logic behind this. Let’s say Kennedy A commits to becoming a novelist and reaches her “best of it” at 38. It took 12 years, but she made it and she’s sliding down the backside of that delta like nobody’s business.
Let’s say Kennedy B commits to being a creative strategist. She reaches her “best of it” at 34. It’s been 8 years of pure shit shoveling, but she’s thrilled to have arrived at the other side.
If we’re to try and keep track of these half-baked metaphors on a map of the world, we could say that Kennedy A’s peak is in Chicago and Kennedy B’s peak is in LA. Now, forget everything you know about LA and Chicago and general topography and accept that LA and Chicago sit at the same elevation.
These Kennedys have peaked in very different places, but the view is all the same. Not in the visual sense, not in the slightest. In the sense that all she sees at the top is how far down she started. And how at this height, it matters very little how close she is to the sky, only how far she’s flown from the ground.