I read it in the tea leaves

by Hannah Erglis (Australia)

A leap into the unknown Canada

I’m midway through my sixteen hour flight from Phenom Penh to Vancouver. I’m stuck in the window seat; covered head to toe in a flaming itch that I acquired in Cambodia. Between my intermittent scratching I’m being force fed tray upon beige tray of airplane food. I’m beyond the point of sleeping, and coincidently had spent most of my time onboard watching the attendants make their rounds — slinking like cats between other patrons and food trolleys. I was flying straight into the bowels of winter with a backpack full of summer dresses and bikini’s. A week prior, my partner was coming to terms with the fact that he might be arriving in Canada with a checked black garbage bag that contained; one carton of cigarettes, a single persons’ duty free allowance of alcohol and two sets of clothes he had bought at the local market for “best price, only for you lah!”. You could say we came unprepared but the silver lining of losing luggage was that we acquired new knowledge. Always keep the stub off the bag tag! Four tuk-tuk rides later and he had his bag back. Despite this victory our hot climate specific clothing was still a pressing issue. “You’ll freeze, Hannah! You’re so stupid!” Mum frets on the end of the line. I play it off, “It’s fine Mum, you know me. I’m hot all the time…I want this, the heat is crushing my soul.” She sighs as I pace around my apartment in Bangkok. It was true, the heat was diminishing my will to live and the only way for me to regain control was to have a cold winter. If you know me well enough, you will sense a dynamic shift in my personality depending on the seasons. In summer I’m an asshole. I don’t want a bar of anything and I will make it my goal to not leave the house. If you don’t sweat, I don’t trust you and we better not be taking the stairs. I’m not everyone’s tall glass of iced-tea in the summer. I sat staring at the flight path in-front of me, toggling between screens. For the most part there was hardly anything to see outside until suddenly the whole sky sparkled like an amethyst. I watched as a small jet-plane skied on the blanket surface of a lower candy coloured cloud. In my sleep deprived state I thought it was a speedboat, jetting across the water and if I reached out of my window I could have skimmed my fingertips along the same surface. It was this moment, in hindsight that I decided to write this record. I have been in Canada for two weeks and I’m finding everything just a little….off. This isn’t said with distaste but rather, this feeling is cemented in my mind by the range of peculiar circumstances I’ve found myself in. With each instance, the feeling builds that I’ve slipped through a loosely held veil; where the atmosphere is tinted with a different hue and the going’s on ebb and flow like a tide at an unfamiliar beach. It’s not Deja Vu or occult its something else….something…extramundane. Yes, I’m still on the plane of course; because this is where it all begins. I’m tucked into the window with only my thoughts. I’ve taken over a dozen planes in the past year but my mind always seems to wander down the dark hole of “I’m going to die.” I didn’t want to make this particular thought about dying so I turn my focus towards the topic of medical emergencies. The alternative narrative is far more entertaining to ponder than the carnage of death in plane crash. I started to wonder if there was a medic on board. I was halfway through a long haul flight and realized this was the perfect time for a “situation” to arise in the script. Suddenly the overhead speaker crackled and a man’s voice echoed my thoughts; “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, is there a medic on board? Please let yourself be known to the flight staff. Thank you.” Silence. My gut knotted and my eyelids twitched half shut.