10Adam sat back in his seat, trying to relax, taking the first drag of his twenty-first cigarette of the morning. He had been forced to open one of the packets in the carton of 200 he had bought two hours earlier from the Duty Free in the airport. He closed his eyes as he continued his wait.
Adam had arrived at Glasgow airport at four am, in plenty of time for his seven-thirty flight. Being over six feet tall he needed to check in early to get a seat with extra legroom. He had parked his car in the long-stay car park and successfully negotiated the free bus ride to the terminal. The kids hadn't been screaming too loudly thanks to them being unused to the early hour. A suitcase falling over when the driver braked suddenly had scraped some of the skin off his shin, but Adam considered that a minor problem given that he had to board a plane shortly. Adam intensely disliked flying. His usual business travel took him to Europe, but that was a breeze by train since the Channel Tunnel had been opened. This time he was travelling to New York and had no option but to fly.
Adam's journey had begun slowly, his nerves apparent as he knocked over the ringing alarm clock by his bed that had rudely interrupted his sleep. He pressed the 'off' button while cursing under his breath. He opened his eyes to his dark bedroom and reached out for the packet of cigarettes he had left beside his alarm clock what seemed like minutes ago. The room was briefly illuminated as the gas-filled lighter ignited the first of many cigarettes. He lay back, resting his eyes for a moment. When he judged from the dull red glow at the end of his cigarette that he would have to flick off the ash, he switched on his bedside lamp so that he could see his ashtray.
Gently lit by the bulb beneath a plain lampshade, the room was revealed. Shadows formed in corners of the room, silhouetted by a chair, a desk, a wardrobe and copious amounts of shelving. All the shelving seemed to be straining to hold up the irregularly ordered books, some of which were stacked vertically, many horizontally. Some of the stacks seemed to defy laws of physics in maintaining their presence on the shelves. Indeed, there were as many books on the floor, but it was difficult to tell if they had fallen or been placed there with the same skill of balance as those remaining on the shelves. The desk was more ordered, in that it was clear of piles of books. The books on the desk seemed to be in use, left open at a certain page, or a bookmark placed so that they could be closed. A monitor reflected the pale glow of the lamp. It was switched off but covered in Post-It notes, still finding a way to fulfil its task of displaying information.
As Adam finished his cigarette he sat up and twisted round so that he could put his feet on the floor, then carefully stubbed it out in the ashtray. He didn't fancy the house burning down while he was away just because he had been a little careless at this ungodly hour. In fact, just to make sure, he poured in some water from the glass he always had beside his bed. He threw back the black cover of his single bed and revealed his thin white body. He had always felt uncomfortable in pyjamas. To really wake himself up he walked quickly through to his bathroom to take a shower. Once he had finished in the bathroom he returned to sit, still naked, on his bed while he had cigarette number two of the morning. That one died a sizzling death as it was stubbed out in the water in the bottom of the ashtray. Adam then dressed in the clothes he had left hanging over the back of the chair in front of his computer desk, a loose shirt, an old comfortable pair of trousers and a thick jumper. The former were for the travelling on the plane, leaving room for manoeuvre in a cramped seat, the latter to deal with the low temperature outdoors at this time of the night.
A large hot mug of coffee and another cigarette latter Adam was pulling out of his driveway, leaving his home behind for four days. He wished he could drive to New York. Despite the thousands of miles, the time, the expense and the strain, if it were possible he would rather do that than fly the distance in a tiny fraction of the time.
Once on the motorway Adam wound down the window and turned up the already loud stereo to compensate for the sound of air rushing past. As 'Highway Star' by Deep Purple, his favourite driving song, blared out, he began chain-smoking his way to the airport along the M8. He left behind a trail of cigarette butts each one of which had been smoked all the way to the filter. Apart from the fatigue, the journey was easy enough due to the lack of traffic, and it passed uneventfully.
By the time Adam had reached the Departure Lounge he had smoked twenty cigarettes. He had also had more than a couple of malt whiskys. That was the one good thing about airports, he reflected, they served nervous passengers alcohol whatever the hour. As he leaned back as far as he could on his seat, he waited with trepidation for the call to board that was fast approaching. According to the monitors displaying departure times his flight was due to leave on time. Perhaps unsurprisingly as it was one of the first of the day. Maybe he could finish this cigarette to at least make it worthwhile breaking into his brand new packet.
Just as Adam was thinking this, an announcement came over the loudspeakers, following an annoying tired old electronic tune. 'Please would passengers for flight BA 1345 to New York approach the gate. May we ask that passengers have their boarding passes ready, and their passports open at the photograph page? Thank you.' Adam forced himself to extinguish his half- finished cigarette, knowing that he was several hours from smoking another.
Adam's early arrival at the check-in desk had allowed him to choose a seat with extra legroom for an additional fee. He had been allocated seat 1A, just behind the cockpit, against the left wall of the cabin, the legroom being provided by that seat's proximity to a forward set of doors.
There were several reasons for the fact that Adam had a large bag of hard sweets clenched in his hands. The first was that because he couldn't smoke, he needed a substitute. The second was that, to add to his fear of flying, he often found take-off and landing painful due to the pressure changes, so sucked on a sweet to help him cope with that effect. The third was that it should help him relax. The fourth was just in case he found himself sitting next to a pretty woman with the same problems as him, and it would therefore be easy to initiate conversation.
The pre-flight routine and the taxiing inevitably took time, and this time spent in anticipation of take-off inevitably built up the stress levels for Adam. It didn't help that an elderly gentleman had settled into seat 1B, rather than his preferred young blonde. His stress was so high that he was getting through sweets so fast that they were already overtaking the number of cigarettes that he had earlier smoked. His jaw was clenching powerfully onto each sweet as soon as it popped into his mouth, so they were all crunched up quickly rather than being sucked slowly, as had been recommended to solve his pain problem.
The wait at the end of the runway seemed interminable, but eventually the engines screamed into life as the pilot engaged full throttle. Everyone was pushed suddenly into their seats by the G-force created as the plane accelerated quickly to the speed at which it would slowly lift off the ground, front wheel first and then leaning back to spear upwards into the clouds. Dawn was breaking sufficiently to make Adam notice that they had breached the low clouds and were in the pale pre-dawn light, almost before he had realised that the plane had safely taken off. He visibly relaxed as he loosened his tight grip of the armrests, and unfastened his seatbelt to allow him to pick up the sweets that he had dropped and were now scattered on the floor around his feet. He tried to prevent the more mobile ones from rolling backwards through the plane while it was still climbing at a steep angle.
Once he had finished collecting all the sweets, he took one of them and managed to suck it slowly as his tired eyelids grew heavy and he began to sleep, perchance to dream.