Damien: Message to Jess

Yo Yo Yo, what up dogg?

Jess: Seriously?

Damien: Fo sho

Jess: Okay, I'll play along. Howz it hanging Lil'Dame?

Damien: Fo Shizzy shorty. Just sitting on the plane waiting to take off. YO!

Jess: Cool. I'll call when you're no longer possessed by the spirit of Tu-Pac.

Damien: See you in Thailand.

Jess: Have a good flight- don't be sippin on Cristal big mac daddy.

Damien: Send my love to your ho.

Jess: Hahaha. X

Okay, maybe I needed to stop listening to the Hip-Hop music channel on the plane. But I'd been flying, and or in transit for over 26 hours already and it was the only thing keeping me awake. And to make matters worse, we were running late. The plane was still waiting on the tarmac for some latecomer to arrive. Boredom had officially descended in full fucking force.

I opened the tray table and closed it again. I opened the in-flight magazine and flipped through the pages, why were they always trying to sell you perfume? I closed the magazine, looked at the semi-naked women on the back cover for a second or two, another perfume ad, and put it back. Those women always looked the same, like perfect carbon copies of each other. There was nothing interesting or original about them; stick insects with big, pouty lips. I opened the tray table again and drummed my fingers on it.

I heard a throat clearing noise next to me and turned. The woman sitting to my left looked like she'd just had a shot of Tequila and was now sucking on the lemon. Her eyes scrutinized my hand and I stopped drumming. They moved up my arm, lingering on my tattoos for a moment and then finally came up and settled on my face.

"Hi." I said, trying to muster a warm, yet natural looking smile. Apparently, I don't have the friendliest smile. What does Jess call it, my 'fuck me' smile. (She has such a delicate way with words!)

"Do you mind?" The woman glared at me. I don't think my smile was working.

"Sorry." I pulled my hand away, closed the tray table again and crossed my arms. I looked up the aisle but out of the corner of my eye, I could see she was still looking at me. Glaring. And I knew what she was thinking...

Women like her were always terribly suspicious of 'delinquents' like me- just because I had a few tattoos and didn't give a shit if my shirt had a hole in it. Maybe I should have dipped into my trust fund and flown Business Class after all. I could be drinking Champagne right now and reclining in a bed with fluffy pillows and a big LCD TV screen, and not this tiny little thing.

When the hell were we going to take off?

I had the sudden urge to drum my fingers again, but didn't. This was the last leg of my journey- on the plane anyway. Once I landed in Thailand, that's when the real adventure was going to begin. This had become an annual tradition for Jess and I, to meet up every year at the Burning Moon party. Our reasons for going are totally different, though; for Jess it's the party, for me, it's the moon. There's nothing more amazing than watching the usually silver moon turn blood red. It drenches the world in a kind of supernatural glow. No matter how many times I see it, I'm still as blown away as the first time I looked up through a telescope at the stars.

If you think life is crazy, wait until you turn your eyes upwards. The universe is the wildest, most dizzying place- stars spin at a million miles and hour, the gravity of a black holes traps light, atoms communicate with each other instantaneously from across our universe. The more I learn about it, the more normal I feel. And I've never really felt all that normal. Jess was probably the first person that made me realize I wasn't mad- or maybe she's just mad too?

We met at school, sort of. My parents sent me to one of those pretentious boys boarding schools in the country where guys wore cardigans, played Lacrosse and high-fived each other enthusiastically in the corridors. I was not enthusiastic. I did not play sport either, and you wouldn't catch me dead in a pale blue Polo shirt. At some they opened a girls boarding school next door and Jess got sent there.

The school was enormous, and at the very end of the grounds stood some old abandoned stables. I would often sneak out at night, climb up onto the roof and watch the stars for hours contemplating those deep, meaningful things that only a geek would contemplate, while all the other guys were contemplating how to get into the girls panties. But one night, someone was there. I didn't see her face at first, it was shrouded in a thick cloud of smoke as she desperately puffed on a cigarette.

It only took us about thirty seconds and about five sentences to realize that we were kindred spirits. And from then on we met there a few times a week and told each other everything- I think it was the only thing that kept us sane through high-school. We held each other's hands through the toughest times, when my sister died and when she came out as gay. I was actually her final test one night, we still laugh about the incident-

"Okay, so you're like a hot male." She said one night.

"Thanks Jess."

"You are though. You're the kind of guy I would go for. "

"I'm flattered," We were puffing on her hand- rolled cigarette, which tasted like hell and caught in the back of our throats.

"Okay. So kiss me then." She said leaning in.

"Huh?"

"If I kiss a hot guy and feel nothing then I'm definitely gay. Final test."

"Cool." I shrugged and moved in for a kiss. It lasted all of three seconds before we both pulled away at the same time.

"How was that?" I asked.

"Nah. Didn't feel a thing. You?"

"Like kissing my sister,"

We both looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"So I'm definitely gay then," She said putting her arm around me, "and this cigarette really sucks."

I smiled at the memory and decided to send her another message. We still rip each other off about that-

Damien: Message to Jess.

P.s You kiss like a lesbian.

Jess: When I make the speech at your wedding one day, I'm going to tell everyone how we used to make out at school.

Damien: Wedding? That means I'd need to find someone to marry me.

Jess: Oh you will. Trust me... You're gonna make some lucky ho very happy one day.

Damien: Not anytime soon.

Jess: I wouldn't be so sure about that. Who knows, maybe the lucky biyatch is on that plane right now... duu, duu, duuun (*dramatic music)

'Sorry!'

I felt someone bump me and looked up just as someone—no, something walked past. Something fluffy and pink. And not your average, normal pink either, the kind of pink that blinds people. The kind of pink that can only be found in the psychedelic Acid hallucinations of hippies. I turned to follow the pink apparition that had disturbed my darker shades of black. It was a woman, or something that resembled one at least. I could only see the back of her.

She was wearing- drum roll please- a bright pink onesie. Her hair was blonde, and looked like it could be harboring a fully grown stowaway- it was that big. She finally stopped walking and turned and that's when I came face- to -face it.

It looked like she'd been crying, a lot. The huge rings around her eyes and black lines of mascara running down her cheeks were proof of that. She looked flustered and there was something so desperate and sad about her. Despite the wild appearance, she looked so fragile. Breakable, like a small breeze could break her in half. I felt a sudden stab of deep sympathy for her.

"It's about bloody time." The women next to me muttered as the air hostess finally closed the door. But I didn't pay her any attention, I couldn't. There was something about the girl in pink that was just so... I couldn't tear my eyes away.

I watched as she shoved her bags into the overhead compartment and sat down. She buckled her seat belt, let out a loud breath that sounded like she'd been holding in forever and then sent a text message.

Did she realize she was wearing that onesie? I scanned her from top to bottom and then...

I came face-to-face with two pairs of googly eyes, attached to large fluffy bunny rabbit slippers. I felt myself smile, and heard and involuntary chuckle escape my lips.

Did she realize she was wearing slippers?

"What?" A strong, feisty voice came flying out of her and it made me smile even more. I don't know why, but in that moment, I decided she was the most fascinating person I'd ever met. A billion contradictions bundled into a fluffy, pink ball of bad hair and even worse make-up. There was nothing boring about her, and she was no one's carbon copy.

She looked at me and something twisted in my stomach. Her eyes were a brilliant blue, and underneath all the make-up she looked, beautiful. She was strangely breathtaking and imperfectly- perfect in every single way.

I smiled at her and my eyes automatically drifted down to her slippers again. I heard her gasp and watched as her face went from total shock to pure horror. Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson and she slapped her hand across her mouth. She turned away from me quickly and looked like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her.

I felt an instant, intense stab of guilt. I'd just made her feel even worse about herself. And judging by the look on her face right now, she didn't need that, she already seemed to be doing a good enough job of that herself.

Fuck!

She looked alone and broken. And I had just made it worse. The plane started moving and I looked away, but I knew I needed to do something to make up for it.

Don't ask me why, but I needed to help her.

I reached for my phone and was just about to turn it off when I typed Jess one last message.

*Behind the Wheel- Depeche Mode (One of the sexiest song ever written- I think)