Alvin’s grandfather was a pilot, now this meant he knew a great many things. Not of course, because he was a pilot himself, but enough ride-alongs at the front of the plane meant something, right? He even pulled one of the leavers when he was barely the height of a suitcase, once upon a trip. Alvin had now, in the prime of young-adulthood had flown on many planes, quite proudly in fact, but even he, having travelled to places that only cocktail stories could embellish correctly, had not been to New Zealand.
When a pop-up presented itself to Alvin at a discounted return rate his heart took over control of his body and secured the deal before the computer might get a chance to change its mind. If you happen to be like Alvin and know a thing or two about flying, you know it takes roughly 13 and a half hours to get from Los Angeles to New Zealand.
New Zealand, as it turns out, was one of those places that still a whole lot of people didn’t fully believe was real. Preparing for the trip Alvin and his old friend Dennis found a cartographer who swore till he was red in the face that, “on my oldest map, and truly, let me tell you, that New Zeeland, it’s not a real place.” Being only fair to the man, none of his maps indeed had the place pictured. He just seemed, misinformed. It would only be right for someone as kind and lovely as Alvin to help the man by bringing back some photographic evidence.
Kodak in hand, he was prepared for the scenery, the vistas, the views. He had to do his duty as an American, to prove, without a reasonable doubt, that New Zealand was a real place, it did really exist; you could in fact go there. For, as Alvin found, the suspiciously low price of 348 hours of living the American dream. The price was not without reason.
Solo flyers in the golden age of travel, this is your final boarding call for the centre seat between two larger than life depictions of the breadth of the human physical spectrum. You will be squished the entire way, please have your elbows ready- on your knees -and your neck prepared to be in pain for the following three days. Yes, it was every flyers worst fear. The middle seat. But as Alvin flew a lot, he didn’t get flustered, he had sometimes encountered this problem before. He knew his way around it, he knew what to do.
So even 9 hours into the trip, while everyone else was stealing the winks of sleep available, Alvin sat cross-eyed and depraved of that he most desired- a gentle rest. It was in that moment, or one thereafter closely that his request was answered. Everyone else froze and in front of him appeared a sky genie.
The sky genie raised his hand he put it between Alvin’s eyes and gently pushed his head back to the top of the seat. And after that, he was gone.
Ahh, rest. Alvin thought. Finally. But what was this? His hand was still on his cheek, his elbow still on his knee. His forearm had but doubled in length! What had just happened? What was he going to do? Surely it was all just a bad dream.