In all the spy and superagent and honest-cop and determined scientist-rescuer films, the travel from one exotic location to another goes largely unremarked, even though it takes up more real-world time than the dramatic confrontations, clandestine revelations, fight sequences, mind-blowing plot twists, and near-death experiences.
You can probably guess why this is particularly vividly on my mind this morning (US)/afternoon (UK). Yesterday morning I got out of bed in Abingdon after a fretful night’s tossing and turning (every raindrop that fell called out to me, ‘We’re going to flood your house while you’re away!’) at 4:15. I dressed, closed up my baggage, strode purposefully to the bus stop on Abingdon High Street, caught the X3 (I always forget that my magical ‘ride the transport system free’ card doesn’t work before 9:00 in the morning), changed for the Heathrow Airliner at St Clement’s, arrived at Heathrow around 7:40, checked my bag, ate a hearty airport breakfast, did an errand, made my way to the gate, at 11:30 or so took off for Boston, landed and made my way through passport control and customs rapidly (once bags started arriving), waited for and caught the 15:35 Concord Coach to Portland, changed at Portland for the 18:15 coach to Augusta, arrived at the Augusta Transportation Center (a designation that conjures a busier, more expansive enterprise than this humble depot), where Nate picked me up and brought me to our hotel at about 7:30 — meaning that I’d been more-or-less awake for twenty hours, most of them spent sitting in an airplane or coach seat. I had eaten breakfast, a reasonable in-flight lunch-dinner, and one of those peculiar savoury pastries that planes serve you to avoid giving you anything that resembles earth food. I devoured a serving of takeaway fajitas and Nate had already picked up.
I was in no fit condition for a dramatic confrontation, clandestine revelation, fight sequence, or a mind-blowing plot twist, though I wouldn’t argue if you suggested that it all amounted to a near-death experience.