I BELIEVE IN JOY

(In transit; Changi Airport, Singapore, 2137 local time)

There were people who, upon discovering that I was flying out the same day as finishing nightshift, gave me a look. This look quite clearly said, "you're a lunatic." Start travelling while apeshit and exhausted? Where's the sanity in that?

But Sir Tessa knew what she is doing. Sir Tessa had a plan.

Sir Tessa was so freaking exhausted by the time she shambled onto the plane, that she had curled up and closed her eyes well before taxiing began. Sir Tessa was so out of it, her body was too run down to bother with the whole plane sick thing, and just put her in a coma instead.

I'M NOT SICK. I FEEL FINE. THIS IS A MARVELLOUS THING.

There were also people who insisted that cabin crew will wake you for your meal. Sir Tessa would like to advise the world that this isn't the case.

I feel fine. Really. Not even mildly sort of off feeling. From now on, all flying happens after nightshift. OARSUM. This excites me far more than it should. Bring on the next leg, I say, bring it on.

(Oh wow, that guy looks just like my uncle. But that's not my family he's with. No, he has too much hair to be my uncle.)

Changi is surreal. It's clean, and modern, and organised, and things work. It's one giant shopping centre than just goes on, and on, and on, over this strange green carpet. I'm sitting in front of a travellator, watching people speed past. Better than sitting on trains, this. The security guards amuse me, in their black uniforms and their black caps and their semi-automatics pointed at the carpert and the lazy way they slide past on the travellator. They polish their boots, but only the toe. Their toes shine like the best of them; the rest of the boot doesn't.

I'm not sick. I feel fine.

Is this how normal people feel when they travel? What tyranny have I been labouring under? Why, motion sickness, why?