Journeys Beyond the Front Door

by James Hastings

  With vague fragments of time and memories of consuming baconless burgers, we soon found ourselves roaming the beach front in search of tables and chairs to continue the consumption of smuggled vodkas and bootleg moonshine stirrd into bottles of soft drink. We bypassed a couple of hotels on our quest before finding one that had not put away their furniture and so we took the liberty to make ourselves at home. We were soon joined by a small group of Iranian guys, who quickly found themselves engrossed in conversation and other oral activities with the females of our small party. As I found myself outnumbered and highly inebriated, I took this as an opportunity to relieve myself in the ocean that swayed lazily under the moonlight before us.

  As I approached I kicked off my thongs and waded knee deep into the warm tropical waters, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other, I contemplated swimming. But in a moment of clarity, a sixth sense if you will, this was quickly disregarded and instead I continued on my intended path of urinating into the sea under starlight whilst overlooking the islands and sporadic dance of the lightning in the distance. It was in this lucid moment that I noticed a bonfire burning some way down the beach and being in a conversational state of complete inebriation, I found myself drawn to it like a moth. I stumbled my way forward to find a large group of young locals swigging back Jack Daniels and Coke and all manner of other assorted local moonshine. As the light of the fire washed over me and my presence became obvious, I made pleasant introductions and enquired if they minded if I sat and drank with them by using highly elaborate hand gestures. These disenfranchised youth of the islands welcomed me into their group and we exchanged embellished stories of travels and forgotten cigars for laughs and it occurred to me that I was still in my charming drunkard state and had thankfully not reached the definitive line where I become a complete shit dick. This in itself was no doubt a blessing.

  We continued to drink around the small fire as talk moved through the standard motions of early morning hour politics and philosophy. Whilst we were on the beach of a hereditarily Muslim country, this group that I now found myself engaged with was evenly divided between atheists, Muslims, Hindus and Christians. I suspected I may have won over portions of the crowd with my stance of believing in nothing, whilst having a blasé acceptance of those who believe in morally suspect folk law as well as my attendance of Muslim wedding festivities. Surely the extra cigar found in the pocket with the broken zip didn't hurt either. As the night drew out and the fire dwindled, the group began to gather their things and prepare to head home, unfortunately their decidedly non-sober driver started in a panic as he realised the car keys were now somewhere in the sand. We all searched our respective patches of sand in vain for the elusive set of keys until it became quite clear that they really were now stranded and the collective mood now darkened. I wished this troop good blessings and luck and bid them farewell as I made my way back up the beach, through the gardens of a random hotel and onto the main street, in a fruitless attempt to find a taxi home. What I had not realised at the time was that the islands taxi services had ceased hours ago.

  I emerged from the beach to find the streets blacked out and deserted and grasped the folly of my predicament. Having only arrived the day before, I would now have to rely on my internal compass and hope that I had paid attention in the two 20 minute drunken car rides that we had taken and find my own way back to the hotel. I followed what I had imagined would be the general direction for more than half an hour until I came across the only shop with a light on, which was thankfully also a small convenience store. With a glimmer of hope, I enquired as to which direction I should be going, but alas, they had not heard of my hotel. So I resupplied on chocolate, chips, cigarettes and a mystery can of flavoured ice tea and then I was on my way down once again down the trail of the unknown. I continued down the road for the next hour or so, shuffling with my thongs in my hands and now inevitability sober and absent mind, until I realised that I had passed a billboard and decided to back track. With a sigh of relief it was a billboard for the hotel . . . down the side street, two kilometres.

  I continued past the fields and the small fishing village and was soon standing outside the hotel, with only a moderately-sized gate to scale. Summoning the last remainder of my strength and will power, I clumsily made my way over the fence only to find that it swung outwards but nevertheless it proved to be the last hurdle as I stumbled my way down to find the door of our tubular sanctuary still unlocked and the long awaited comfort of crawling into bed was achieved. With eyes burning and both head and legs throbbing, I was half heartedly awoken at some point in the late morning by Sarah enquiring if I would be attending the pre-appointed massage session back in town. I gurgled out discouraging murmurs and was left to my own devices with the gentle sounds of the ocean pounding its way through my subconscious. I managed to drift in and out of obscure consciousness for the next few hours until the pangs of hunger drew me out of my darkened den and into the tropical heat of the deck. As I partook in, and struggled to keep down, a large Hawaiian pizza, it occurred to me that I had also missed out on the 'Eco Pirate

  Adventure' that the hotel put on in the mornings. It entailed riding out on the small pirate ship docked out front, out to the surrounding small, deserted island and scour the beaches for rubbish . . . which could then be traded in for beer. With the booze slowly working its way through the pores of my skin, I began to recognise the time constraints that existed for this final day of travel. Whilst I had spent the day wallowing in my own filth, it was clear that we did indeed have a flight to catch and soon . . . and Sarah was no where to be found. The sense of urgency that I should have been experiencing that would have made me pace back and forwards was non-existent. Instead I found myself rolling around on the bed attempting not to throw up. I still had not re-packed my bags nor made any attempt to clean myself. With only a couple of hours untill our flight, Sarah and Alicia finally arrived back from their massage and shopping expedition, relaxed and refreshed and ready to continue on to the airport whilst in a state of self pity I fisted my things back into their respective bags.

  Chapter Twenty : Customarily Disheveled

  We arrived at the airport in Alicia's car and pushed our way to the check-in counter. As it turned out, Alicia's ticket included a pre-check in option where she only had to walk through the security with a wave of her print out and wait for the plane. Unfortunately for us, we required the usual custom of lining up for an hour to check in our stowable luggage before making our way through the various security check points. We found a trolley for our bags and as a result of intense questioning of the staff as to where we had to be, we found ourselves shunted into another long line of disgruntled passengers.

  As we stood patiently, if not slightly swaying, a staff member walked the line and notified us that the first portion of the check-in process was performed further down the terminal at a small computerised mechanism where we would have to scan in our passports and tickets. With sweat beading down my brow, I elected to check us into the machine and made my way down the terminal, leaving Sarah to hold our place in line. Thankfully and with many blessings to the omniscient ones, the machines with long lines stood before the public toilets to which I made a much needed detour to expel as much of the filth of which just body had been storing for the past twenty four hours.

  With sweat pouring out of my body and now the fragrant aroma of vomit emanating and wafting, I took my place in line and finally signed Sarah and myself into the system and staggered my way back to the line to deposit our luggage. As we slowly made our way forward in the queue, I found the sense of urgency rising once more in the depths of my being and disappeared again for a bathroom voyage, no doubt looking like a hesitant drug smuggler carrying the spoils of war in their bowels. In a vain attempt to compose myself, I washed my mouth out and splashed my face with water and once more went back to the slowly moving line to find Sarah looking increasingly desperate near the front. As we took our turn at the register, we deployed our baggage
onto the conveyer by the kiosk and the hopes of being passed through without incident was quickly dispelled by the curt young lady behind the desk who was simply doing her job.

  It appeared that in our wisdom to find the cheapest possible flights we could with Internet magic, excessive baggage – in fact any baggage at all - was not included in the price of the fare. If we had any intention of bringing back any of the items we had with us, there would need to be a hefty fee. With some discussion and urgency it became apparent that if we both wore another seven kilograms worth of clothing and stuffed our carry on luggage with as much shit as possible, we just might be able to avoid the three hundred dollar excess by the smallest of margins. We made our way off to the side of the line in the open foyer and equipped ourselves with multiple clashing jumpers and as many urine-stained, faeces-covered hippie pants that was physically possible onto our bodies until thankfully we were able to just nudge ourselves under the weight limit and avoided the majority of the extortionate fees. During this debacle and much to our delight, the intercom began belching out a statement about how a flight - our flight - would be delayed for an hour, which would thusly make up for the ludicrous amount of time spent arsing around checking in. We could make this flight yet!

  And so eventually we made our way onto the awaiting aeroplane . . . only to find that our allocated seating would be well spaced out over the aeroplane for the short ride back into Kuala Lumpa. Upon landing, we made our way out of the terminal to find some food from the various restaurants located out the front of the terminal, if only to make up for the abortion that was served during the flight. I made my way towards a generic knock off chicken burger bar while Sarah and Alicia opted for the healthier option of salad rolls which in the benefit of hindsight was a much more sensible option. With no more than one bite into the grease and sludge infused monstrosity, the folly of my impulse purchase became blatantly obvious and would ensure that I would now have to supplement my starvation with cigarettes. As we chain smoked in a gutter, it was with hugs and blessings that we bid farewell to the sassy Alicia. Kuala Lumpur was her home town and so it was here that our whirlwind friendship would come to an end. We watched this bubbly nymph disappear like a hurricane into the night, never to be heard of again and then slowly made our way back into the terminal for our connecting flight.

  Once again our seats were split around the aircraft. I took my seat towards the front between two overtly skinny males whilst Sarah found herself situated between a tiny Chinese business man and undoubtedly the fattest most obnoxious bogan on the entire aeroplane. I found myself looking backwards down the cabin to see this majestic she-beast in all her glory, face down in her bag, passed out to the spell of copius valiums while wedged unceremoniously between the uncomfortable looking Chinese business man and the huge, monolithic figure that resided on the other side of her. Once again, the situations that this creature could find sleep in continued to amaze me as I could do no more than stare at the chair in front of me for the following six tedious hours. As the lights of the craft went dim to reinstate the fact that we were flying on the red eye, my inability to sleep in any condition that was not pitch black and quiet ensured that I would continue to study and memorise the assortment of guides, travel warnings and emergency procedures in the event of a fiery crash that was allocated to my seat. Thankfully, after an extended period of time, my body began to succumb to the strenuous conditions that I had levelled towards it and the exhaustion crept up onto my eyes. Unfortunately. it was at this moment that the intercom kicked back into life and announced that we were descending into our final destination . . . home.

  We made our way out of the plane with ear drums unpressurized and down the concourse into the awaiting duty free shopping bazaar for the last chance offerings of tax free contraband. The clinical lighting and polished surfaces played havoc on the already diminished and overloaded senses as exhaustion alone guided my hand along the lines of whiskey contemplating and discerning the two for one deals against selected branding. With my inability to hear much more than the dim roar of tinnitus, communication between the she-beast and I were at an all time low and as we tried to find the tobacco stall, we split out in search of our individual purchases.

  I wandered around the isles struggling to function as I acquired what I had deemed a sufficient supply of whiskey and chocolate but I could not find the tobacco counter. In frustration and resignation, I bought what I had and with extra bags in tow made my way around the isles once more to find Sarah. Whilst I continued to wander aimlessly to no avail, I came to the assumption that she must have continued through the gates without me and so in turn made my way to the next security check point. There were two options at this stage. Option One entailed taking a position in a long line to go through the humanised security or Option Two was to use the brave new world of electronic scanning technology . . . which had no lines. Being one for efficiency and misanthropy I took the most obvious route and passed quickly through the machines to the next section. As I made my way down the stairs to the baggage collection and waited by the carousel, it became quickly apparent that I had left Sarah behind. Our bags arrived quickly and were placed on the trolley that had been previously supporting my decrepit frame and was thusly stashed by the stairs as I made my way back up to the previous area in hopes of finding Sarah in a forgiving and tolerant mood.

  However, as I reached the top of the stairs and caught sight of the end of the slow moving line to which she had attached herself, the mouthing of foul words and curses was clearly evident. She had instead been in the distraught stages of a panic attack and it took much begging of forgiveness and calm words to sate the fires within. Once we had been reunited with our belongings and our continuing friendship, we once more took our turn in line to pass through the final security point under hushed tones of extra medications and smuggled glass Ghurka knife bottles of bootleg alcohol. As we progressed to the front of the queue for our turn to be fisted by customs, I produced the card of declaration and offered forward the wooden mask that had been strategically planted at the top of our bag for inspection. With such formalities out of the way, we continued on and passed through the final doors and into the arrival lounge without fanfare.

  The journey was over. The adventure was complete. Spiritual awareness had not been attained. And with that, we shuffled out of the doors in our smelly layers of urine-stained hippy pants and pungent ponchos back into the abyss. The return to mania and anonymity had begun.

  * * *