Long Haul

After 5 hours of flying and sitting we display an assorted redundancy a sanctioned paraphernalia. Rumpled files of sartorial inelegance squeezed shoulder to shoulder. A night flight, the tube is wheezing tainted air. We are a junkyard for travelers moving not by our own motion but brought together in economy class because we are all out of other options. The French have terms for these sleeping arrangements: 'Maisones de flop', or 'asiles de nuit' only we are airborne, we sleep with our eyes open aching to be somewhere before a threadbare daylight exposes us to our own bleary inspection.