[YD6-61(TRTa) Chapter Code] Eluding Paris: In Aetheria’s Mirage, A Glimpse Through Pretty Woman

This story is an unfolding suite of chapters clarifying my book, The Code: Horizon of Infinity—a philosophical memoir exploring how the universe sculpted our minds. Through Aetheria, the lens of consciousness, aware of her need for a body to reveal herself and exercise her wishes, the narrative leads to her birth and the name she will claim: Sunshine -- Step into this journey of becoming, where the cosmos whispers its secrets, and identity blooms like dawn.

A cryptic summons pulls me to Paris, and I feel at the leash of Aetheria's volition, being threaded through the eyes of a needle, the fabric of strange encounters. A bewildering interview, a mad dash to an aircraft’s closing door, then flight. The film 'Pretty Woman' on board mirrors, a symbolic tapestry woven by Aetheria, its full meaning still hidden from me.

 While Ingrid -- her Moon in Sagittarius, darting bullseye, her Sun in the Rooster, preening -- moves with the efficiency of raising a home with five children, plus one, Rico. She hands me a flimsy envelope. I pull open a drawer, pick a kitchen knife. 

By the window, La Vue Des Vosges unfolds -- an autumn sky perch on an areal telephone cable, stretching over neighboring houses, across the forking street, cascading downhill to an exurb’s rooftops. My eyes drop to my hands. I slit open the envelope, pull out a telegram. 

‘Do these things still exist?’ The words, stark and urgent, demand: “APPELEZ COGEPLAN EN TOUTE URGENCE -- CALL COGEPLAN IN ALL URGENCY . . .” 

Sparing a sense. ‘No one has ever asked me to call an employment agency in all urgency.’ I read again, searching for a polite double negative, not finding a flip meaning.

In the morning, I dial the number that followed the message. A woman’s voice, says, “Je vais vous transferer -- I’ll transfer you.” after a silence for a brief up. A recruiter’s clipped voice answers. After a brief greeting, “How much notice do you have to provide your present employer?” 

“I’m not sure right now -- weeks, I guess?” I articulated.

Abruptly ending the call, “Can you come on Friday?” The line dies, and I hang up. With a quicken pulse. Reality rears a beast shaping sculpting in the cloud of my mind -- ‘What am I doing?’ 

Excitement shreds hesitation. By evening, Paris is a micro-adventure unfolding. Passing Rico, the slight hunched over paperwork scattered at the rounded end of the stretch table, further after dinner, I drop a thought -- “I need to get myself a bag from my laptop.” A glance, nothing more. His executive suitcase to no use for him. Later, my NEC UltraLite slips into Rico’s black leather bag. 

On Friday morning, Ingrid pulls up before the Belfort railway station, right ton the edge of time, betrays my easiness en route. I step out, tug my laptop along. “Dagh -- Buy,” we exchanged in childhood Flemish, overlapping, my gratitude and her wishing me a good trip. Then, switch to French as she reminds me of the train’s arrival - Smack - the car door closes. I walk to push the door, with a glimpse of the distancing Fiat Uno.

I headed to the ticket window. “Un simple pour Paris -- a single for Paris?” Unstirred by my voice, the hunched woman behind the glass, locked in ritual, indifferent to my urgency. Though the SNCF uniform badge marks her service. I slip a 200 French Francs, trading for my ticket. I walk away into a flurry of people across the hall towards the shadowed platforms. 

The announcement rings out. “Le Train pour Paris entre en gare -- the train to Paris enters into station.” Her rhythm with clockwork lee time to the platform. I reason, while mine stumbles between the past and the future. 

Every step feels wading through the unseen, tug me back, for operating the mechanical post - clack - punched. I push the door onto the platform, unease rising. Offside, a hatch to the underpass, yawns open, as a silent omen of potential mishaps.

After emerging from the underpass, I wait in a sweeping draft. The train from Mulhouse glides into the station, a shining steel wall of windows whispering against the platform edge. A scattered crowd stirs, and vacates the platform, as I step abroad. Meeting again some earlier figures, among passengers in the aisle to sit. The station shelter slips behind, onto opening the valley past Evette-Salbert’s exurb, into the rolling countryside, westward through the punctuated rhythm of stops, fields blur, town rise and vanish. Reminiscent of Troyes, as a land surveying base, Hours later, we ease into Paris, the iron lattice of Gare de l’Est unfolding beyond the window. 

I stretch my legs on the sidewalk, find the building, step inside. Ushered into the office, I faced an interviewer behind the desk. His eyes flick to mine, then shift -- curiosity sparked. The ushering man mirrors him. Their gaze settles on my NEC UltraLite, my latest toy. 

I lifted the lid. The blank screen gapes black. My mind flutters, restless -- twiddling with fleeting ideas: learning, recording, forgetting. Across the desk, the interviewer’s arm’s stretch drawn his shoulders, to a blind drawer gliding open, raising at hand a sheet of paper, onto gliding in diagonal across the desktop. Landing on the opposite corner with a hand spin followed by a pen before me. I tuck my laptop into Rico’s black bag, hand poised -- then sign the contract.

Aetheria, unleashes me, casting me into the unknown, where consciousness, unbound, mirrors the zodiacal forest -- creatures stirring, spooking me forward into the wings of my destiny. The employment agents withdraw -- fait accompli -- their role complete. They show me the door, and the doors that dissolve into the streets.

I walk, but I’m sinking -- dissolving awe into the veins of Paris, losing myself in the city’s rhythm until the path converges at Gare de l'Est. A passage unfolds. I step onto the train, the countryside streams past, stations punctuating time like constellations marking the sky. Five hours could vanish, but they insist on form, and Belfort gathers me back.

Duty reasserts itself. BIS employment agency -- where the Cancer woman, a fleeting chance of something more. A surveyor, always in motion, never settling -- what warmth could I offer? My presence chills before it lingers. 

I leave her storefront window, molting the moment, knowing another will walk through that door -- another seeker, another story for Clerget’s office. 

A bus ride across Belfort. I step off, cross the railway tracks, walking up the winding the road. Ingrid’s home, a quarter-year cocoon, already fading into the past. I pack, thanking Rico. She drives me down to Belfort station. Another train ride through the valley, I spare a thought to their kitchen window, as Paris reclaims me.

I’m clueless… yet destined, bushwhacking a path through the zodiacal jungle on the day of my departure. I leave the hotel with ample lee time -- enough to keep panic at bay. 

Paris hums, traffic threading through ancient veins. Within its weaves, I step into a villagey square, terrace tables crowded with morning figures steeped in sunlight. Duty keeps me from straying into leisure. My mind sharp, refocusing. I cross the street, Now, to find the number. 

A wall hedges my path -- warped, settled like the gnarled roots of ancient trees, A mass of whitewashed brick stretches blind, holding its silence, guarding the unseen. A castle, perhaps, lost in time, its forest brimming with whispers that don’t reach my ears. In my strides, the notion raises -- glad I left my luggage at the hotel. Light-handed, I step in pursuit of my course into the unknown. 

Then, as the ancient wall relents to rows of workmen's houses, a glass tower poke the sky the city’s seven-story limits. 

I am baffled -- yet not -- by the architectural jumble. The plaque confirms: “TRT, Telephone, Radio, Television.” Cogeplan placed me here, numbers matching. 

I stand before the glass door, Aetheria’s sunlight coaxing over my shoulders. 

A reminder lingers -- how my interview at Cogeplan ended: “You’ll be getting on-site training.” 

The glaze shadows my backdrop, a buffer merging my reflection, and beyond the glazed confusion sinking in -- ‘I’m here for my mission.’ 

I press the calling button. A buzz unlatches. I push the glazed door, in the swing, distilling confusing shadows, to the hollow of the airlock.

A maze of glass unfolds. The airlock door whispers me through, shifting reflections to the hollow of a reception hall. 

To the right, a turquoise-smoked security glass window stretches, dwarfing the head of a security agent in a white uniform, enclosing a shallow security vault. 

I stand before the man, waiting for his attention. I search, and along the frame, count three layers of laminated panes. Crossing my mind, ‘better to leave the break-in to the professionals.’ 

He glance up at me, “Bonjour -- Good day.” I say. “Je suis ici pour mon rendez-vous --  I’m here for my appointment.”

The man remains unfazed. Stingy on words, his eyes reveal nothing -- no flicker nor spectacels to reveal a control desk, scanning a panoply of live screens. Even imagining it feels futile. I stand irate, facing the soundproof booth, waiting. 

Through the intercom microphone, I urge him. “I have a flight to catch.” 

The security officer’s eyes skim the countertop, never fully lifting, rising from his seat. He rest his knuckles against his cheek, peeking a mouth and ear shiny cup. I strain for a whisper, a hint that he is addressing my request.

Lowering the handset, his voice distorts through the hallway speaker. “Avancer -- Go through.” A simultanuous door buzz, speaking for him, tethering me to the glazed confusion. The signal kicks in -- I step forward, deeper into the entrance hall, push the door, at crossing the reception lounge. 

Neither a buzz nor the maze of reflective glass carries me through. No security agent approaching the door to lead me into a boardroom, where men ought to welcome me onto the team and instruct me. 

Instead, the lead door leaves me confronting a maze of shadows and reflection, my path dissolving into uncertainty -- no chaperon arrives. 

I twirl, scanning by space, caught in the lock-lounge. Irritation mounting with the delay. 

I waver, frustration steering me instead toward the only magazine on the coffee table, stark in the disorienting light. 

I step forward, pick up the magazine, and flip through the pages, but the text refuses to settle in my mind. Relenting, my eyes skim past a meaningless back-page financial report -- my thoughts too turbulent, too fixated on catching my flight to absorb a word. Flipping forward -- images of telephone stations, telephonic hubs, cable runs from satellite dishes, antennas perched atop a pylon. 

Scattered words jump out. ‘Am I supposed to understand this?’ Spanning long-distance networks, maneuver through a spectrum of transmission technologies – Synchronous and Pleiosochronous Digital Hierarchy -- layered across data communications:  multiplexers, modems, X25, Frame Relay and multi-protocol systems. 

Unaware, I am already on a premonitory guided tour of my mission, and lower myself to perch on the edge of the couch, anxiety soaring. I hear the tick of my Citizen wristwatch, unspooling against me, tomb dead, and seeing the hands of the dial speeding to the hour.

The security officer emerges around behind the glass partitions, peeking around the door where I had stood, ready to shake up any person, demanding, ‘What’s going on here?’ 

Instead, with quiet pride, he delivers: “Voter taxi sera ici dans cinq minutes -- Your taxi will be here in five minutes.”

I nod. “OK.” But baffled. “Wait a minute. . .” I stutter. ‘What about my mission?’ But the figure slips out the crack of the door closing. Regret grips me. I should have stormed the doorway, demanded my mission explained.

In a blur of time, security reappears. “Voter taxi est ici -- Your taxi is here.” He drops off a Masonite case. 

I jolt upright, stepping forward as the doors unlatch. Across the airlock, a white Mercedes pulls up. I step outside, slip behind the rear door into the idling car. Addressing the shaven egg-headed, bodyguard-chauffeur in a dark business suit, I feel a hint of discomfort -- as my mission conjures the wild, the untamed Tarzan allure. 

“Charles de Gaulle, mais d’abord mon hôtel -- Charles de Gaulle, but first my hotel,” I say. The egg-head chauffeur, weary, chews his words. “C’est loin d’ici ? -- Is it far from here?” giving him the address. 

Sitting behind the front headrests, I watch the whitewashed wall stretch past, leading to the corner café’s terrace tables. But then, my path from the subway blurs, slipping away as we leave the third borough. The taxi weaves, the ride stretching unrealistic long through the Paris’ old narrow streets. My nerves edge against the bulk of time lost underground -- although -- though I had left the hotel with the birds chirping in the foliage of street trees. 

We crawl in the traffic, unveiling the shaded corridor where familiar brick pillars leap into arches, supporting the overhead Metro. As I’m tracking my trip against the clock, my eyesight dart ahead. There, tricolored lights toggled wildly, locking traversing traffic. My gaze snaps back -- cars creep from the shadows of the cast-iron riveted arch, looming over the underpass. I hailed the chauffeur, “Stop — Wait here. I fetch to fetch my luggage.” 

Leaping into the thick of traffic, I'm jaywalking through the choked street, weaving toward the flurry of people in the square, where a yellow post office drop-box planted against the wall. Earlier, I sidestepped, before heading to the Metro station. My month-end expense account -- Friday, September 28th, 1990 -- had slipped into the slot, addressed to BIS, for J.F Clerget in Belfort. 

Now, I dart toward the right corner, into the evanescent side street. In a doorstep, I press the glass door open. Across the reception hall, I lock my eyes on the hotel attendant, He meets my gaze, nods. I step up, bend behind the reception counter, tug the grip, hoist my calf-bloated suitcase, Halfway to exit the door, I launch a last, “Merci --Thanks.”

The narrow, stiffened side street opens into a flurry of people crossing the sunny square and pulsing with traffic. A spike of anxiety shot through me -- the white Mercedes was gone, bare to curb-stationary vehicles. 

Churning in my mind. ‘The taxi driver wouldn’t have abandoned me. . . as a runaway passenger. . . it was TRT’s call. . . their Samsonite equipment in the taxi?’ Less and less likely left deserted, I scan the flickering trickle of cars. Edging forward along the shadowy wall of pillars as brick arches leap the Metro viaduct’s flank. 

Until, at a traffic crawling traverse from the viaduct’s iron ribs -- flickering, breaking out of the shadows. A dark figure emerges, spinning to silhouette, calling to reflect the white stationary Mercedes against the blurry brick quarry. 

I step down the curb, jaywalk through the stream of cars, cutting the intersection’s corners. My anxiety draining through my weaving footsteps, fixating on the breach -- the chauffeur, posed in a bodyguard stance. Noticed my daring approach, he pivots toward the trunk, lifts the lid. With a sighing effort, I swing my bloated suitcase into the deep compartment. We turn away - smack - the trunk lid shut.

I circle the tail fender, meeting the chauffeur’s egg-head through the white leather backrests. Sliding into the seats - smack, smack - doors shut and pulling off. My route coaxes into the threads of single-lane crawl, sticky traffic, past the tight press of curbed vehicles. Above, a skimpy sky breaks through the fenestrated stone rows of facades of the classic city.

Unquestionable -- the chauffeur knows the shortcuts, allowing me to reminisce about my Rivoli Street domicile before choosing New York. 

When my territory pulsed with the city’s rhythm -- around the Louvre Metro, where cinemas lay in the profound subterranean, doughnut-shaped shopping complex of Les Halles. An echo of ultra modernity, sharing a strange architectural lineage with the nearby pipe-scaffolded Pompidou Center. 

But right now, I’m just trying to outrun the boroughs. 

Breaking free into fresh arteries, weaving through disorienting roundabouts, Paris unspool in apparent contradict -- road signs sending me mixed signals, my mind slipping between the past and present. 

No sooner did I say, “C’est Châtelet -- Is that Châtelet?” that I felt dumb, as I read the sign-pointers, breaking the upholstered stillness, too quiet for comfort. As the Chauffeur angles for the on-ramp, joining the tail of a sluggish procession. He cast a glance up. “Oui -- Yes.”

Through the windshield, I trace the chauffeur’s path -- a serpentine branch of chocking traffic so obvious leading onto a highway on-ramp. Yet, I appease the Tarzan in me, tempted to grasp at swinging escapes, but I remain silent, seated in an executive comfort, driven by a chauffeur familiar with the terrain. 

I resist the doubts gnawing into my buffer of time. In a gradual creeping, the single lane, we crest the on-ramp at zipping into a four-lane congestion as far the eye can see. Unfazed, the chauffeur, threads us into the Parisian Peripheral beltway.

I lean forward, between the white leathered, of an interior that cocoons me, and frames the lounging chauffeur bearing a bodyguard silence, assigned to deliver me safely to my destination. Parroting the words that echo in my mind: “Serons-nous à temps avant le départ de mon vol? --  Will we be there before my flight takes off?”

“Oui -- Yes,” He answers curt. But his glance flickers to the forgotten dashboard clock. Confidence wavers. His voice, shrinking, less reassuring: “Il y a encore du temps -- There is still time.”

I hold my silence. Paris, seems to share the same idea -- fleeing early Friday midmorning, caught in a cattle drive. As I find myself trapped in a pool of flickering reflections, among the undulated sheen of sleek bodies and glass, shadowing expressionless drivers. Then, unmoved, I don’t share the Portuguese Chauffeur’s confidence as he attempts reassurance: “Devant la circulation. . . s’allége -- Further ahead, the traffic will ease.”

I glance behind -- headlights flare bestial eyes, radiator grilles snorting through brand-name muzzles, eager to burst loose, yet holding their cool, trapped in the creeping gridlock. My restless gaze leaps over the median concrete barrier, onto the free trickling lanes -- an opposing current sweeping past, reaching further. Shadows the source of cars emerging from a gapping hollow tunnel, as reality holds me captive. 

As a jumbo jet taxis across my field of vision, my mind spirals into fantasy. I grapple with the sheer, unreal scale of the aircraft traversing the overpass, while we’re toyed in cars creeping in an undulation mass of rooftops, swallowed by the cast shade.

 As the tunnel portal’s roof comes sitting low over the windshield, and the tunnel’s darkness stretches, pressing down. Hopeless. ‘If a fire should break out? Where would I run?’ My thought spiral, tracing nonexistent escape routes. 

The chauffeur sits sturdy, unfazed, hands on the wheel, a faint frown the only tell, I wish for a stuntman. Daring to break us out, morph the Mercedes into a four-by-four monster, but none will get us a ride out the tunnel to catch up with the landed aircraft.

My eyes drag onto the ticking Francs, rising faster than the slipping minutes on the clock, exasperating my dwindling buffer of time. In my Stoic chase, craving egress from the entrenching concrete bunker, cars grind forward -- reaching for the glow, but not fast forthcoming. The odometer’s silver needle remains stubborn, never breaching the 20 Km/hr notch -- mocking urgency with inertia. 

Anxiety mounts, pressing my ceiling of tolerance, Then -- sunlight spreads wings, unfurling wide as we emerge from the tunnel, spreading wider afield, as the traffic remains a sluggish tide. I glance behind, pitying travelers, those whose lee time is even shorter than my three hours. ‘Their fate sealed’

The chauffeur holds firm to his lane, even when the highway relieves pressure on the traffic, augmenting the flow. A gantry sprouts overhead, to a splitting the “Brussels” signboard from “Charles de Gaulle,” and the iconic airplane continues appearing through the unfolding lanes escaping the stream of traffic. Finding ourselves in a fraying trail of cars, to desert lanes as fast-rising shelters line the fields. 

Following the overhead “A,” from the crotch of signboards, splitting ways. Distant sprouting terminals -- reverence in a wide circle, their afar-embracing curtain walls. As we come around, I brace for a jump. The white Mercedes’ flickers alongside, halts, I burst out, stepping onto the curb. A shoulder strap to bear the weigh of my laptop bag. I meet the chauffeur opening the trunk -- I reach in, tugging my calf-boated suitcase from the dark depths to the asphalt. I return swiping the Samsonite case to my shoulder hook the strap. In a low sit-up, I heave my boated suitcase, and dash off for the door to the airlock. 

Inside, I stride -- half waddle, half-rush -- over a roughen terrain of the gleaming concourse, heading towards Lufthansa’s luminescent fascia. A few strides before the front check-in counters, she emerged in her turquoise skirt -- a ground hostess, locking eyes with me. Until, at speaking distance, she blurts, “Are you on the flight?” 

The ground hostess’s question lingers. My response --  ‘Off course!’ -- barely escapes. Her beauty catches my breath, only to volatilize in a strangling atmosphere, pivoting away in a voice laced with blame. “You’re late.” As she targets behind the check-in counter, a ground crew member standing tall clad in pants on the conveyor belt. He lifts a walkie-talkie to his cheek. Mutters a few words. A crackle voice bleeds through indistinct. He throws me a glance. In a German-accented voice, he delivers a blow: “Vous n’avez pas de temps -- You have no time.” 

My shoulders loaded, my heart jolted -- Panic -- from thinking, ‘What am I going to do. . .’ 

The ground crew words land senseless: “You have to board with your luggage.” 

At a leash, my suitcase-pet tugs behind me as I push toward the backend of the concourse. The man’s voice trails off -- “… A boarding pass will be given on the plane.” 

Ahead, the familiar crystal tollgates rise -- a barrier reflecting shifting shadows, fractured in a maze of Paris’ frontiers -- clears the bust of the passport control officer’s stern gaze, while flickering shades through across the threshold to the international world. 

With my Belgian passport, I slip by the figure and through the interstice of glass cubicles like an oil slick --  only to be stalled by the sluggish line ahead. My patience nibbles away, frustration tightening my gaze, willing the sluggish woman in front of me to reach the security belt. 

I shrug off the strap, lay my laptop bag onto the conveyor, “My laptop — the camera. . .” I call to the idle security officer, unresponsive, leaving my thoughts. ‘… Are they going to get destroyed?’ -- foreshadow a warning should anything go wrong. 

Paired with the Samsonite case, my bags vanish behind the strip curtains, swallowed by the scanner. I heave my calf-bloated suitcase off the floor, to repose on the belt, and push myself alongside through the walk-through scanner. 

My earlier words, the security officer’s approach, overlap asking, “Is the bag yours?” 

I emerged on the other side, as his muttered response trails behind me -- “Magnetic impulses…” To his uniformed hand gestures, “May I?” His voice follows. “Open the case?” 

“Sure.” I shrug. “It’s not locked.”

Suspicious eyes flick between me and the Samsonite. The lid lifts -- opens to scrambled, a compass, a clinometer, a twin of cubic altimeters, and a wide lens camera. 

My hand dives forward in a Tango sweep -- I snatch my falling spectacles before they shatter on the gleaming floor. Rising, I step forward, collect grips and luggage straps, onto slogging ahead.

On a trot. My calf-bloated suitcase rubs off against my leg. Shoulder bags jitter with each step, rising the rhythm with my urgency. I weave through the duty-free gauntlet, shelves spilling their kaleidoscope of curiosities. 

Ahead, the broad, deserted walkway stretches -- gleams washing beneath distancing flanks of filtered daylight, clashing the ceiling fluorescence. Realizing I wasn’t catching up, pressing on, into the perpetuating hallucination.  

Pain chafes my palm to the bone, forcing a shift in grip, but the metal shaft bites back, demanding a pause. The culprit -- an encrusted leather grip, unsticking, betraying its duty. My fingers roll through my palm at every step, seeking relief. 

As if haunting my mind, the man with the walkie-talkie echoes in my skull: “You have no time.” Sparks leap from burning skin, increasing a change of grip through curled fingers a fleeting exchange -- brief relief from blood-hot stings. 

I squeeze onto a conveyor walkway, speeding past still walls. The illusion of flight fades behind me, as the gleaming marble floor drifts along. Rico’s leather bag yanks and, cutting deep into my shoulder. In an attempt, to shed weight, finding myself drag along clinging to laundry -- last week’s clothes, old sneakers worn from rough terrain, remnants of a topographic surveying -- refusing to be left behind. 

Meanwhile, the Samsoniteite, tortoise-shelled and relentless, bumps against my hip bone, whispering, ‘That all you need!’ as the strap slips from my shoulder. 

At the end of the fifth moving walkway -- plus a stretch farther -- two silhouettes rise in the blur of light, resolving into bright turquoise outfits, staunch postures, to see their grim faces and hawk-eyed Lufthansa ground crew watching my approach.

I had no humor left for a witty remark, to educate them on what I’m enduring. A charcoal two-way radio releases from the slighter man’s cheek. as he stops speaking, he addresses me. “Aller droit -- Go straight through.” Then, back to the radio: “Il y a un autre qui vient -- There is another one coming.”

Pushing forward, my shoulders bearing the weight of a Chinese carrying pole pressing down on me. Lufthansa’s feathery uniform -- a skyborne azure -- their sentinel stares locking me in an intimidating limelight of my approach. The woman at the gaping gate, her hand sweeping me toward the fluorescent tunnel. 

The telescopic boarding bridge, meets a sliver of daylight frame the fuselage door, ingress into a heavenly gangway, I meet an angled wall of beautiful figures. Their faces hold the quiet judgement of a scofflaw’s tribunal. Their eyes flick in sockets, peeling each other apart. Until -- until -- Firecracks, “Ca ne vient pas -- That’s not coming with.”

I freeze. My invisible comfort zone, the last threadbare layer of defiance, dissolves. Fingers feather from the suitcase handle, a back of my hand wipe over my face’s hitches, wipe sweat beads roll from my temples. My body heats, to transpire. 

A petite blond air hostess thaws from the waxworks of figures. She steps forward, her voice dart, “Laisser vos bagages ici --  leave your luggage here!” 

I spin, to meet the military gaze of the ground crew locked onto me. I throw a glance between the ground and air hostesses, pleading. “But you can’t do that.”

A voice hisses -- ‘Obey them, if you want to fly.’

The air hostess forces a plastic smile, an impatient pause hanging between us.  

A pair of hands rips my luggage from my grip, leaving me to feel naked. Obliging, my gaze unsticks, My feet retreat from my suitcase. Crossing the threshold. Free to backtrack, to reclaim my pet suitcase -- until, among the wax figures, the Captain thaws. 

The Captain’s voice melts the rest of the aircrew into a slow unfurling motion of obedience. Unveiling beyond them, the scrupulous peer of First-Class passengers, eyes filtering through backrests, through the dissolving turquoise wall of the crew. And, Behind me, a hand reaches the aircraft’s giant door handle grip.

An air-hostess snatches my hand baggage, swift, stacking the bags in a gangway cabinet. While the Petite hostess’s eyes ushers me forward, I catch a glimpse -- the ground hostess tugs at my calf-bloated suitcase -- the weight yanks her down, bending her over. Reassuring -- she releases her grip, hails me, “We have your ticket. It will follow.” onto eyes flicking behind, calling to the slight man for help. 

On a second thought, the petite blond air-hostess turns around, asks. “What class are you booked in?” Holding her stare for a response. While alongside me, the aircraft door - Whoof-clack-hhhhhhh - seals into the airframe to the cabin. I snap back, exalting in the sight of her waiting stare. “I don’t know.”

An irritated male voice slices over my shoulder. “Bien! Montrer voter ticket -- Well! Show your ticket, then?” 

I turn, curt. “Je ne l’ai pas -- I haven’t got it.”

The steward blinks, baffled. “Ou est t’il -- Where is it?”

“L’hostesse l’a pris. Elle ne me l’a pas rendu -- The ground hostess took it. She didn’t hand it back to me.” 

In my periphery, the ushering hostess strides ahead leading through the Business Class, past the sectioned partition -- thwarted by a galley service divider -- onward into Economic. Her gaze flickers, scanning rows, hunting for a vacant seat. She pauses. Her German accent, yelps, “Ici -- Here.”

As the ash-blond air hostess turns away, distancing down the aisle. 

Sinking into my seat, I watch her turn away, distancing down the aisle. Up front, she spins -- gaze unfocused, locked onto space. Then, performing security gymnastics. Side steps, slipping into a seat, buckling herself back-to-front.

The air-hostess, picture angelic in her seat, framed against the partition hush, My mind flickers -- earlier distractions, the rush before the deserted check-in counters. Sharing the distant portholes, the terminal drift past, swallowed by open fields. Taxing, then a pause. My thoughts track back, I wiggle strapped by my safety belt, tearing from my back pocket, my ticket. 

Then -- a whistling wind-up. Jets engines winding, their air-thrill embrace of my body. Quarto-thrust, release a floor vibrates, the undercarriage trotting forward. The distant terminal a pivotal closing to vanish behind, Earth’s strip surrenders -- soaring, smooth into air. My body presses into the seat’s fold. 

Donald Duck quacks on screen -- ‘How can I not watch?’ A laugh well-placed, sparing me from thoughts of TRT in Paris, their expense account snuggled into invoices, settled by the French Government. 

My body pressure easing in my seat, settling onto a cruising course. The petite blond hostess rises from the Cabin Attendant Seat, stepping into the aisle. She passes by me, behind, sharing instructions with a hostess approaching from the rear. Upon her return, I hail her down. “Excuse me…” I hand over my ticket. She flips open the travel agent’s folder, scrutinizing the red carbonized ARC coupons beneath the cover. Her eyes widen -- unable to mask her surprise. “Sorry. . .”

“How do you know this isn’t the class?” I ask, feeling stupid.

“The code,” she says, driving a quiet thrill voice, in her knowing -- my worth beyond an Economic Class seat. She gives me a choice to resettle. By my weary body, comfortable sunk into a bucket seat. Dawns on me, exchanging a First-Class berth for an admiration -- headrests rising like a sea of crowned silhouettes.

I lose myself in the petite blond catwalks down the aisle. She vanishes into the partitioned galley of class and service. Returning to the front row of passengers, her delicate features hover behind a trolley. She ducks right, then left, bending over laps -- pausing, questioning preference. Back again, she leans, offering drinks. My eyes shy away from her advance -- until her hands bring forth a bottle of red wine, with a glass. 

As if Aetheria sulked me, vanished from my dreams, from mirages in sunlight of her presence. Until -- Pretty Woman. The film flickers, an omen already planted by Lufthansa's in-flight magazine -- a miniskirted girl, wrapped around a groomed man, smiling with foxy eyes.

I'll note this later, when I’ll sit with my laptop screen lifted, fiddling away what on my mind -- Lufthansa flight, September 29th. 1990. "Well!" I’ll stretch my legs. 

The luxury hasn't had a chance to be appreciated yet. Oh, well -- ‘I'll watch it again. A second time, flash the mystic attraction.’ Distant thoughts. The draft still chilled me. In the light of personalities -- ‘Mon Petit Moineau -- My Little Sparrow. . .’ The Aries in her. A tinge of meaning -- ‘Do as I tell, don't do as I do!’ Aetheria spills a hint, whispering through the frames of the film -- to anchor no regret. The profession! 

A voice hums over the intercom, threading through the cabin; “In fifteen minutes, we will be landing at Frankfurt.” My eyes roll away, catching the air hostess passing, tray in hand, collecting empties. Beyond the porthole, through scattered flocks of clouds, Earth’s quilt rises -- cuneiform landscape stretching into straggling architectural compositions, The silver wings unfurl in slow ascent. I listen, attune, sensing the aircraft’s wheels bracing for touchdown. Whoosh - air brakes rouse. 

My body surges forward, caught in a vacuum. Stiffen shoulders spike with pain. Jolts -- eyesight snapping. Passengers ahead drain into the aisles, funneling toward the exit. I trail from afar, veering toward the doorway, where aircrew stand ready, my bags already in their hands. An unspoken exchange of grip. Stepping on across the floor crack, I enter the leading telescopic bridge.

I worm walking through scattered figures in the perpetual gleaming floor wash, approaching officers splitting the flow, to a couple in Lufthansa azure-sky uniform, skirt and pants. Tall Europeans, in their majority, stride straight ahead, while untangling Asian complexion and petite figures branch off left. 

I sight, relief settling, reassuring, A confirmation voice repeats ahead. “Singapore.” And on such an occasion -- rare -- to tame my Warthog in symbiosis, Gemini. To lie low the wild little boy’s ball of nerve, To mind less at being herded -- on a no-return course -- entering my destined gateway, seated in a waiting first class zone. To experience a flight, without doubt. Jakarta. My destination.

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