dromomania / cockpit error

It frightens me sometimes, how easy it is to get from one place to another. New York to L.A. Australia to the UK. Kuala Lumpur to Birmingham. These days, the trip can be made quite literally in your sleep. Doesn't it amaze you though, how ordinary and unremarkable the transition from one end of the earth to another feels - how few actual decisions you have to make - how stupendous and effortless it is to traverse seas and entire continents? Unimaginable distances obliterated in the span of three back-to-back feature length films.

Stumbling half-awake through airport terminals and waiting outside boarding gates - everyone looks tired. There's a trance-like monotony, a narcotic numbness to the whole affair. Order some tickets off the net, hand over your documents, copy down your name and address, hop in a car, stand in line, put one foot in front of the other, sit down and tune out for eight to fourteen hours. After a few trips you get used to the tedium and routine. It becomes white noise which your brain learns to tune out. Eyes automatically scanning the list of departures, muscle memory guiding your bleary eyed self efficiently through customs and security, your ticket hand rises reflexively to meet the air stewardess' smile. After a while, entering the airport begins to feel like entering a state of diminished consciousness - of hypnotic regression. It feels a little like being on one of those airport conveyor belts, standing still watching the listless world pass on by. You switch off and go on autopilot - action and consequence become uncoupled. You go through the motions without thinking. Paint by numbers. Next thing you know, you're in the UK. Malaysia. Wherever.

I only feel alive again once I step foot on a train. You can't switch off on a train because it requires you to actually participate. You have to look out for signs telling you when to get off. You have to make sure nobody steals your luggage. You have to figure out which is the next train to take, find out when it arrives and which platform it departs from. You have to pay attention. You have to stay awake. There's at least enough variation and risk to keep you on your toes and engaged, but with planes, everything is so streamlined and easy. Everything is so safe.

Nowadays, whenever I'm about to get on a plane, a part of me is afraid that my brain is so conditioned and accustomed to the anaesthetic stupor that my body will be taken over completely by pre-programmed operating procedure, and in that analgesic, unguarded state, something will interfere - something will go awry - I'll make one wrong step and wake up twelve hours later a world away from where I'm supposed to be.