Marooned on the tarmac for the 4th time on as many flights. My companion, to my right, wasn't talkative at all. I thought to myself - "That's a dead fly trapped inside a triple glazed window on a plane that is."
My thoughts turned to how it got there.
If you know the little windows on an aircraft like I do then you will know every tedious inch of them intimately. There is no way in or out. They don't open and nobody gets to clean inside them. There is a tiny hole to level the pressures in the triple glazing and stop them from misting up but apart from that it is a walled vacuum separating wildly different worlds on either side. Freedom - Boredom.
The border of these two worlds now patrolled by a dead fly.
What to make of this? It was in many ways sad and in just as many ways intriguing. While it had lived it would have witnessed different (and often) very odd folk staring at its erratic activity - inside its cocoon. Many of them wondering how it had got there perhaps? Well maybe. All of them horrified at the proximity of a fly no doubt. And in Business Class too!
This stowaway would have seen much more of the planet, inner space, holding patterns, vast terrains and the insane external architecture of airport terminals and heard more lame excuses and announcements than most flys. And perhaps most people. It deserves the name 'fly'.
It would probably have been delayed more times than many flys. But probably not as many times as I. I'm no expert on flys and so I don't know how many flights it could have crammed in during its lifetime on board. But it made me think about that lifetime. It seems that it must have somehow got in via the little air hole. Far less than a millimetre in diameter. It would have been whatever they call a baby fly, maybe even an egg? It must have been a perfect roll in along that micro-vent. Clever.
It must then have found tiny fragments of food upon which to live. That must have come from outside as no quality food exists on the inner world.
So I Googled the life expectancy of a fly.
Let's say it's 3 weeks. The route upon which I met my fly happens 4 times a day and is approximately a 2 hour flight and each1278.73 miles. Knowing how they run these devilish 'fly-ing machines' they could use the thing through the entire night too for all I know but let's say that's at least 107,413.32 miles and 84 astonished people. 30+ delays. 168 hours of flying while also flying – as a fly.
What then did it die of? Old age? Highly likely given the increased/exponential rate of decay travelling by air these days? Disease? Unlikely as it is a vacuum in there - unless air from the cabin could get in and then highly likely as an airline cabin is worse than a hospital in the league of least safe environments within which to live. Broken heart? Possible. It would have been summarily dismissed many times by deliberate blind pulling. People with no time for malingerers - definitely no ticket or valid documents for travel. Unless it had eaten it of course.
Malicious attack? Hmm. Could be. The disgusting airport security system is so stupid that 'fly killers' and 'suicide moths' could get in easily. While they scan and pat down ordinary people and search us for land mines, AK 47's and lethal Kenny G albums it is highly encouraged that we get enough deadly substances on board to end it for a fly. All anyone need do is to put it in a little plastic bag and put it through the belt. Kaput! They even give us the bags. Genius
But no, my theory is they just lost its bags. It has no possibility of survival as its bags are in Albuquerque and me and the fly are now in Dallas. Oh it's gone again.
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