We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.
If you get it you, get it.
The longest flight I’ve been on was a Heathrow to St Lucia. I being all of 14 dying for a nicotine hit in the humid, loud and generally uninviting plane cabin. My dad was friends with a factory owner there who wanted my dad to install and set up a water bottling company. He asked if we could tag along, me & my brother, for some culture lessons.
We hit the tarmac and in true style, the factory owner waved us past security control and bundled us into a black car and drove for what felt like hours. The cigarette cravings now pounding my head. We got to a bar. It was night. Mum and Dad went into the no-walled bar and ordered us all drinks. I walked a few feet and it was literally sea.
I looked up.
“Bro.. Look up”, I said. “Why?” he grumbled. “Just fucking look up”.
“Whoa”
If you live with light pollution at night you don’t see many stars. When you come to a poorer country and look up with no light pollution. IT BLOWS YOUR MIND. You could see everything. To a 14 year old that was a significant moment in my life. That there are stars up there. That we cannot be alone. So many stars. So not trying to quote 2001: Space Odyssey.
So after doing that for what seemed like hours. I scored some smokes. I was given some salt fish and a banana milkshake. I lay back on one of the deck chairs. I started to live.
