Sentience in a seed-pod

An incident on Saturday’s plane trip got me thinking about how depressingly similar our human reactions are to certain fixed stimuli. Far from engendering a sense of camaraderie and belonging with the rest of mankind, this kind of (regular) realisation troubles me parlessly. That I am as much an anonymous creature of fatalistic thrust and parry as of my own design invalidates any measure of self-worth I may posses, and unfortunately I lack the zen sensibilities which would port this into a relaxed acceptance of my inevitable place in the universe. In short, I rail.
Let is be said at the outset that I am what is euphemised as an “easy traveller”, which is to say I heedlessly fall asleep, eschew irritability and exist in a general state of comfort quite independent of my surroundings, betraying the best efforts of airlines et al to make my itinerant life unpleasant. This affords me the luxury (if you’ll allow me some latitude) of travelling on an economy class fare without bitching about it.
The flight back from Atlanta is long but not intolerably so. If you discount hours spent before departure at the airport, we can be precise and say it consists of two eight hour stints with an hour’s layover in the Cape Verde islands that is seamlessly introduced by not allowing us to disembark there. So, seventeen hours of sitting, reading, watching movies and, in the main, sleeping. I’ve done this a couple of times and I’m fine with it.
For the sake of completeness, my logical mind prompts me to introduce the concept of the exit row, in staccato, as follows. Aeroplanes have emergency exits. These exits must be unobstructed, i.e. unhindered by seats. The seats by these exits therefore have an extraordinary amount of legroom – usually more so even than business class. Hence, these “exit row” seats are in demand by extraordinarily tall people, or simply people who like a little extra bang for their buck.
On my last trip, I secured a seat only one row away from the exit. I archly noted this, nothing more. However, on this particular trip the exit itself was damaged, and the airline folks decided in a typically obtuse leap of consciousness that it would be dangerous to populate this phantom exit row even though a gentle and unheeled stroll to the other side of the plane would get you out like gangbusters via the functional opposite door. At any rate, questioning the judgement of the airline is like questioning the sanity of Bush Junior – a good case could be made, but it wouldn’t do you any favours.
Nevertheless, this murky situation was the root of the tree from whence the forbidden fruit of my discontent, forbidden only because once again it hurts my fragile pride to be phased by mere irritation.
Ahead of me lay two deviously unclaimed pieces of prime plane real estate. The play would unravel thusly: a wholly unappealing, fat and dishevelled individual, driven by boredom, discomfort or a final damning vote from his or her tribe to wonder the aisles in search of solace. Imagine the overwhelming bliss, comparable probably to that of Christopher Columbus spotting the beaches of the West Indies for the first time, as their eyes lay purchase on the pristine promise of boundless leg stretchability and more importantly, asylum from their no doubt strained relationships with the thin people that surround them. Tired of scooping buckets of excess blubber back over their armrests, the tension the assailed skinny folks generate must be cut with a knife they would reserve, given the choice, for more culpable activities.
Then begins the doubt. Where are the natives of this Promised Land? I see the question in their beady, greedy eyes, as they loiter closer and closer to the tantalising prize. Surely the rightful owners of these golden perches are this minute called away by nature or some tragic circumstance! Still, hope springs eternal somewhere deep in a heart otherwise beset by massive levels of the worse kind of cholesterol.
It is inexorable: eventually greed outguns guilt and paranoia and they innocently sit down, at first as delicately as their considerable bulk will allow. Some will cautiously pretend that their overemphatic stretches require a sedentary posture. Others merely glance nervously from side to side. Where are the used pillows and crumpled blankets, they reason, that would be the flags of an established colony?
Soon, in the absence of protest, they are emboldened to stretch back, even reclining the seat a little. Now they are truly comfortable. Now is the Summer of their content.
Tragically, such a utopian setting cannot last. Soon, the very acquisitiveness that led them there in the first place overwhelms their better judgement as they furtively embark on a final voyage to their unhappy homeland. They now undertake the treacherous task of moving their belongings to their newfound haven. This is a course of folly, for such hubris angers the gods, Fate not least among them.
No sooner have they resettled themselves – earphones securely in place, eyes tightly shut against the world behind airline issue eyeshades, plump toes wriggling free in limitless space – than the dream is over. The passing air steward evicts them. Like Columbus, they return to the darkness from whence they came with nothing to show for it besides bittersweet memories.
So it plays out, time and time again, and only the players change. Suddenly, just as my smug superiority attains an apogee of contempt, I realise with a start that the root of my discomfort is not high-minded disapproval of animal impulse but an animal impulse of my own. I am jealous. I wish to have those seats for myself. Would I not know the futility of the exercise I myself would have danced the musical chairs like a Salome with sore toes.
Of course, having said this, I have an indescribable urge to do the exact opposite of what occurs to me. And I will, in this instance.