1.2 | Highway of Lights ✓

01 | collide

01
c o l l i d e

Las Vegas
August

I DRAG MYSELF onto the plane and slump into the seat next to the window. Digging my hands into my jean pocket, I take out my phone and glance at the illuminating clock.

5:02 AM.

Waking up at three in the morning just to catch a flight is certainly not wise—even though this is not my first time doing it—but I smile at the thought that after five hours, I will be waking up in my homeland.

New York City, my home.

Part of me can't help but worry—will New York still feel like my home? After a year of travelling around the States, I've come to the conclusion that NYC is, really, a metropolis. I haven't taken the subways, driven on the Brooklyn Bridge and wandered around apartments for ages. And I definitely haven't seen my mom for a long time, too.

Even though I'm getting used to the life of moving from motel to motel, I know that returning is inevitable. Here, Las Vegas, will be my last stop, and I have to go back home for graduate school.

Sweeping away my unsettling thoughts, I snuggle up against the window and drift to sleep.

The first thing I expect to see when I wake up is the sunlight that blankets the skyline. But instead, my eyes are exposed to the same airport runway as I look out of the window.

I look at my phone's clock skeptically.

6:09 AM

What the hell? Shouldn't I be soaring in the sky by now?

A voice suddenly cuts through the airplane, "Dear ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to inform you that the LaGuardia Airport has just confirmed about its temporary closure due to the inclement rainstorm in New York City..."

Did I hear it right? I woke up at three and dashed to the airport just to be informed that my flight is cancelled?

The next thing I know is that I'm making my way through the crowded airport, with over three hundred passengers of my plane simultaneously trying to figure out where to rebook the flights. This is what happens when you take the United Airlines—the crews are even more oblivious than the passengers when dealing with flight cancellations.

I swivel my way through the sea of bodies to check-in aisle C, just for them to tell me that I have to use the airline phones to reschedule my flight by myself in aisle S which, for the sake of airport design, is on the other end of the airport.

As I shuffle on the floor, I feel my heart ricocheting through my chest. When I finally arrive at aisle S and slow down to catch my breath, I gape at the insanely long line of travellers.

Seriously, they only have six freaking airline telephones?

I feel my patience slowly fizzling out of my body. I decided to stride back to aisle C, the ground crews have to know something.

"Excuse me," I ask a uniformed lady in aisle C with my labored breath, "my flight got cancelled, are there any other ways that I can rebook my flight?"

She smiles enthusiastically and answers with a Russian accent, "Aisle S has—"

"I know, I know, any other ways?" I ask desperately. I'm not part of the business class gang, a single second late in rebooking can result in hours of waiting for me.

"There are also rebooking services in aisle F—"

"Aisle what?" I interrupt before she can finish.