Dolls get high

Super Hell

We didn’t have months of training  for this particular challenge. I wish we had. The long months of slugging it out on hill tracks and lifting all those far too heavy weights at the gym have been no help at all when it comes to surviving eight hours in the Gate Lounge.

This a specialist torture chamber reserved for the old and unwary, those who have issues with body space and those who don’t organise their gear properly - oh and we mustn’t forget the snorers- why do they seem to travel so much?

If anyone wants to know - (and you could ask yourself why they would) how long it takes to become subhuman - I can now say with some authority - 8 hours - so long as you are in a gate lounge (any one will do), in the middle of the night.

Then you will find that as you lay your greasy head onto the stiff black contours of your back pack pushed  across the seat to support your ancient aching head, that feather pillows are obsolete.This feels ten times better. And the sticky plastic chair is as enveloping and comforting as the soft arms of a loving mother. And the rise and fall shriek of a few hundred Asians shouting to their relatives on cellphones held aloft, is as soothing as the rise and fall of a wild surf.

I even fell asleep.

Here’s hoping the plane turns up eventually- it’s 1.30 am but I’m not sure which day now- or even which time zone. I wonder if we will get breakfast or dinner?

And after that we will fall into a transit hotel with actual beds, sleep on the black velvet pillow of strong drugs and hope we will be magically repurposed as walking talking dolls again.