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| Sunday, 14 July 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Pardon me, but I'm still looking for the night of the 27th of November last year. It seems to have slipped out of my Time Cycle, who knows, maybe even to the Great Beyond. Let me go over the facts one by one and maybe you can help me solve the mystery. Here I was on a plane, travelling eastward, on my way to the New World - (that sounds romantic) - Well, to San Francisco, if you must know. I left Colombo at the civilized time of eleven in the evening and then there was this six hour stop in Tokyo, the next day. So far everything was going to schedule. It was the morning of the 27th. It was here, I tell you, that the mystery began. At seven in the evening of the 27th, when we boarded the 'plane for the final leg of the journey over the Pacific, the light outside the airport was just beginning to fade into twilight. It was the kind of time people begin to think of dinner and a good night's sleep. At least, that's what I was thinking. Once in the plane, after the usual preliminaries, dinner was served and cleared away. The young man in the seat next to mine. yawned loudly and spread his blanket out. All around me, people were settling down to sleep. Well, I thought, I suppose I should think of bedding down too - though, as anyone who has ever travelled in an airplane knows, this is putting it in a ridiculously optimistic way. But, I ask you, who can complain when one is 36,000 feet up in the air and at the mercy of a pilot and cabin crew? So, I unfolded my blanket, lowered my seat and started to put my pillow at the correct angle, when I chanced to look out of the window. That's funny. Far from getting darker, the sky was indeed lighter than before. "Hm," I said to myself. "perhaps the plane is taking a wide turn backwards before starting on the long flight over the Pacific". I adjusted my pillow as the cracked voice of the Captain came blaring out over the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "our flying time will be nine hours and fortyfive minutes before we reach our destination", which was fine by me. I would reach San Francisco the next morning after a good night's sleep. I looked again out of the window and up at the sky, hoping to see a few stars and even the moon riding high. But instead, I see what looks to me like an ever brightening dawn. It seemed to be getting brighter by the minute. All thoughts of sleep vanished from my mind. How could I think of sleep in broad daylight, I ask you? This was the time I usually wake up. My body-clock was utterly and completely confused. Gone haywire, in other words. The man next to me had begun to snore quietly. I put my light on and tried to read. From time to time, I looked out of the window hoping to see a darkening sky. But all I could see was the rays of the sun coming up over the horizon, tingeing the sky with the most marvellous shades of orange. At any other time I would have reveled in the changing colours, but here, I felt, was a mystery that was deepening, by the minute. My neighbour had come awake with the approach of the drinks cart. "Look, can you tell me something? About this dateline business, you know....". I knew there was something there I had never quite figured out. "Oh yes, "he sounded utterly jaded. "We cross it at about 3 a.m." "And then what happens?". "Oh, we lose a day or gain a day or something like that. I'm going back to sleep, anyway," and he promptly closed his eyes. But how could I sleep? I need the velvety darkness of the night, with the soft twittering of birds settling down in their nests; or the gentle soughing of the night-wind with the soft light of the moon spreading its radiance on my pillow.... look, I need some, if not all of that before I am enveloped in the oblivion of sleep. Am I asking for too much? Instead of which, here I am, staring into a light-filled void with the dreadful humming of the plane's engines in my ears. How, in Heaven's name, could I even think of sleep? I had to wait for the darkening sky, at least - let's forget about the twittering of birds. And I waited in vain. Hours passed. My eye-lids were drooping, and the light was getting brighter and brighter and brighter. This dateline business had always mystified me, but I had never come face to face with it before. All I knew about it was what my mother had told me about the days when she and my father travelled in the old steam-ship. Then the Captain would throw a party on board and the festivities would rise to fever-pitch as they crossed the date-line. People turned their clocks backwards (or forwards, I can't remember which), tore out their calendars and generally behaved as if they were seeing a New Year in. But, it seemed that things had changed over the years. Far from making inspirational and uplifting comments over the intercom, the Captain was inscrutably silent. The stewardesses were nowhere to be seen and every other passenger was fast asleep. No-one seemed to care, except myself, staring out at the crackling sunlight. DAMMIT!, I shouted silently, I want the night of the 27th - and in the right place! How else could I go on to the morning of the next day? But the Powers Above, no doubt sitting nonchalantly on that blasted date-line, smiled pityingly in their omnipotence. "Night must follow Day, you say? That's what YOU think. Here, chum, Day follows Day. Take it or leave it". And that was that. I had to take it. But I shall go about for the rest of my life, gnawing at my fingernails, looking for an answer to my question. Where, in heaven's name did the night of the 27th go? |
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