The Written Podcast: New York (Part 15) - Coming Home

Have you ever tried to sleep on a plane? There are two types of people; those who can fall asleep immediately, allowing them to sleep anywhere at any time, and then you have those who struggle to sleep in any condition. Give me a dark room with no noise I’ll happily close my eyes and drift off to sleep at a steady pace, but put me on a plane then it becomes a different story altogether. 

On the plane ride to New York, I need not any sleep. Sure, I woke up at midnight and had already been awake for 9 hours before my flight took off, but I was remained awake throughout the flight. I kept myself comfortable and entertained throughout, only having to get up out of my chair to let the woman beside me go to the toilet. It was a pleasant experience. 

The plane ride back, however, wasn’t so nice. It should have taken off at 11PM, but it didn’t leave the runway until 2AM in the morning. I’m normally in bed by 10 – 10:30PM most nights, so come 11PM, I was shattered and ready to close my eyes. With the looming stress from the possibility of a very long delay hanging over my head, I grew even more shattered. By the time the plane took off at 2AM Friday morning, I was the most mentally exhausted I’ve been in a long while. My eyes were hurting from tiredness, and my vision was slowly fazing in and out. I needed my sleep and I needed it immediately. 

Unfortunately, I found myself in the group of people who cannot sleep on planes. The chair on the plane coming was comfortable because I didn’t need to sleep. The chair on the plane going home was uncomfortable because I needed to sleep. I could not find a suitable position to properly relax. I close my eyes and the strange awareness of trying to fall asleep kept me awake. The noise of the plane itself was loud, my chair just didn’t go back far enough to accommodate my increasingly aching back as I was in a constant state of flux with my positions. I’m surprised the people either side of me didn’t have a go at me for moving so much, but then again, they were fortunate enough to drop into a deep sleep. I was the only person in my row who just didn’t get a wink throughout the flight. 

Hour after hour went by and I tried my hardest, but nothing worked. I was stuck on a plane for 7 and a half hours, exhausted, being kept awake by my own inability to sleep, and then breakfast was being served. I watched as the trollies were pushed down the isles towards the first class where the stewardesses would work their way up the plane, serving everyone breakfast with a refreshing drink. Confused, I checked how long we had before landing at Heathrow and discovered there was only 3 hours remaining. I must have jumped forward a few hours because there is no way I had been struggling for 4 hours already. I must have dozed off. My brain must have gotten so tired it just shut down. That explains why my back and legs and neck were aching, because I had slept at an awkward position due to my brain just shutting down. I don’t feel any better than I did before dropping unconscious. I could’ve argued I felt worse, but hey, breakfast was being served. There was only 3 hours remaining. Time to watch something. 

The food was genuinely nice, though. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I wasn’t going to turn it down. As I write this article a couple months after my holiday, I can remember may details, but I cannot remember what I had to eat on the plane ride home. My inability to sleep and what happened when landing overshadowed breakfast by a wide margin. Nearing Heathrow, we were given the usual orders of putting our seats upright and keeping our seatbelts on at all times until given permission to unbuckle them once fully landed and at our terminal, I was eager to get out of the plane and get back on the coach which would take me to Ipswich where my dad would pick me up and take me home.  

It was foggy and windy. As we descended into Heathrow, the entire plane got tossed around with high turbulence. Looking out of the window, due to the fog, none of us could see a thing. The weather conditions outside was incredibly tricky, our pilot had his work cut out for him. Any pilot would have gone through a training simulator where they would have had to land a plane in much worse conditions than this just to say they can, meaning landing this plane would be a piece of cake... 

Not entirely. We were shaken around a bit, but we touched down on the runway. But before I could sigh with relief, the engine kicked into high gear again and we found ourselves taking off again. Due to the difficult weather conditions, we had landed too far along the runway to give us enough room to slow down safely, giving the pilot no choice but to try again. We climbed once more, until we levelled out at 4,000 feet, where we circled back around and went for round two. 

It was even bumper this time round, which didn’t give me much hope considering what happened last time. I had strong visions of doing this a third time, but amazingly the pilot managed to land the plane perfectly, at the right point on the runway so we were able to slow down safely and then we collectively sighed a sigh of relief. We had made it. We were late and the stewardesses did apologise for being so and announced that the company had been working around the clock alongside the airport to arrange new connecting flights to those who’ve got further to travel. For me, all I missed was the coach taking me back to Ipswich. I’m sure National Express would be sympathetic towards me for being late and help me out... right? 

Thanks for reading 

Antony Hudson 

(TonyHadNouns)