A Craving for Milk

The entire cabin shuddered as the tires of Delta Flight 167 left the tarmac. The plane rumbled with the heft of a metallic beast unfurling its massive wings, a whale swallowing its meal whole. That meal being us, the 280-or-so passengers enroute to Haneda from Seattle-Tacoma. Despite the immense speed at which we were jetting into the surrounding dusk, I felt less of an admiration for the technological ingenuity of the aircraft shepherding me to my destination, and more of an impression like someone absently admiring a marshland duck, furiously paddling to stay afloat.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I once read a statistic somewhere that the most likely periods for catastrophic error while on a plane are at two distinct times: during takeoff and while landing. Since we had successfully progressed past the first failure mode, my mind could now rest assured that we would be alive for at least another nine hours. The floor of the plane vibrated beneath me as the wheels retreated back into the landing gear bay, like a bird neatly concealing its feet for a long-haul migration.

I had lucked out on this flight. There was an empty seat in between me and my fellow flight companion: a young girl, around seventeen or so. Probably finishing up high school, on her way to visit family back in Japan. She didn’t seem to be traveling with anyone else, and hadn’t spoken a single word to me. Rather, the only gesture she made was pointing at the chair nearest to the aisle during boarding. I nodded in affirmation, giving her the OK that she could use that seat. I was at the window. To put it matter-of-factly, the girl was stunning. She had a slim bob cut of dark brown hair that rested flush with her chin, with soft cheekbones that lined her face like two crescent moons in a tight embrace. The eyes of all the other passengers seemed to follow her wake as she strolled through the aisle, as if with each step she left behind ghostly apparitions that inspired awe in her onlookers. She lugged a small yellow suitcase behind her, suggesting that either one, she wasn’t staying in Japan for a long period of time, or two, she was heading somewhere that had possessions lying in wait for her to use. Even more peculiarly, she wore a black pleated skirt that spilled down to her ankles, piling around her shiny loafers, and a padded blazer that gave her top half the semblance of an astute model, someone you would expect to encounter on some cobbled street outside a dim bar in Paris or Berlin. Someone a little too daunting to approach, that you would hurry past from the sheer weight of the air that clung to them. There was not a drop of color on her outfit. I could not tell if she had just arrived from a business meeting, a fashion show, or a funeral. Perhaps she had the occasion to attend all three. A sharp contrast to the countless passengers clad in gray athleticwear.

Other than her exceptional mode of dress, however, she seemed relatively normal, even nice, handing me the paperback book that I had clumsily dropped by her feet with a faint smile. If she had any distinct impression of my appearance, her gaze offered no suggestion of what that may be. Every motion of hers was deliberate. She exhibited a great economy of movement, wasting no effort after I grasped my novel to turn back to her normal seated position, and close her eyes. My eyes traced the flight path on the seatback screen in front of me. I watched the minutes tick down on the flight timer. Someone, somewhere, sneezed. Attendant carts swarmed through the aisles, eventually stopping at our row.

– Hey sweetheart, what would you like to drink?

– Just cranberry juice for me.

– And for you, miss?

The girl seemed to not register her question. Her eyes remained shut as the attendant stood awkwardly bent over our row.

– Is she asleep?

– I have no idea. I don’t think so.

– Excuse me, miss? Would you like something to drink?

The girl’s right eye opened, as if it was a doorman representing the rest of her body, to confirm that she was in fact the person who was being addressed. The rest of her figure followed suit. Her left eye opened, and she wrinkled her nose with her hand. She slinked down into her chair.

– Miss? Something to drink?

– Do you have milk,

She posed her inquiry with no inflection that would suggest it was a question. The words tumbled out of her mouth mechanically in a manner reminiscent of a librarian’s narration, someone reading a children’s book out loud to no audience. The word ‘milk’ trailed off abruptly.

– We have 2%, but not whole. Is that okay?

The girl stared back up at the hostess, blinking like the varieties of milk at her disposal did not exist in our standard lexicon. Funny, made up words. I shifted awkwardly in my seat, attempting to ignore the exchange, and continued to watch the minutes count down on my mini screen. Eight hours, twenty-three minutes left.

Being an international flight after all, the hostess shifted her language to Japanese, but the response was the same – two blinks. A wrinkled nose. There seemed to be some supernatural barrier between the airline employee and her customer. These two women interacted like they did not exist on the same plane of existence, and continued to stare blankly at each other. Suddenly aware of the time this one conversation was taking, the hostess placed the carton of milk onto the tray table. The girl’s eyes followed the carton the entire time, transfixed, from the moment the attendant’s hand reached inside the metal cart, arcing the beverage through the air, to the exact second that the purple container descended upon the corresponding surface, wobbling gently after being sent down to its destination.

The hostess did not seem to mind this herself. I’m certain she had experienced far stranger (or unpleasant) occurrences on the flights she has accompanied. Plus, the girl she was interacting with was extraordinarily cute, which undoubtedly added a great cushion to what would normally be an irritating exchange. The attendant continued to push her cart down the aisle, and asked the rows behind us questions a flight attendant would ask.

The girl was staring at the milk carton, sizing it up like a great predator looking down on the final moments of its cornered prey. With great care, she slowly peeled back the flaps of the carton, taking her time to expose its contents. Subtly licking her lips, she grasped the purple container with both hands, then peered inside. I could not help my gaze. The vigor and intensity with which she consumed her milk was a feat in itself. She tilted her head back, lips parted wide open to receive the drink, which spilled gently from the creased spout. Her eyes were closed in utter admiration of the act she was performing, like she was the centerpiece of a Broadway musical’s grand finale.

I glanced around if anyone else was witnessing this communion unfolding in front of my eyes. The light of her mini seatback screen bathed her performance in a blue glow amidst the dimmed cabin, each gulp of milk a framed painting. Tilting the carton until it was upside down, her throat pointed skyward, absorbing every last drop that soared in midair onto her tongue. She wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. I sat motionless, stunned at her display. Glowing with satisfaction, she placed the carton back onto the tray, then slinked back to sleep.

---

Growing up, we had a pet cat named Hibi that my mother adored. Every day I made sure to feed her religiously. The reason for this being my mother was extremely particular about the cat’s diet – allegedly, our cat would only eat green olives, goat cheese, and spinach. She would not touch anything else, even fish. I was unsure of how true this dietary restriction was, although on one occasion I tried presenting her a can of wet food – top shelf stuff too, I may add – and all she did was give it a passing sniff, which she followed up by turning her head and waltzing away.

Truthfully, I think our cat ate better than I did. I brought up this fact to my mother one evening after school, as she reheated a frozen pizza for me while she unwrapped a bag of fresh spinach and a carton of goat cheese for our cat. It was a hot summer evening, and I sat on the floor of our living room, watching our ceiling fan spin round and round.

– Mom, why do we feed Hibi all these things?

She continued to pour the spinach into a bowl, not looking up.

– Well, why not?

– Don’t you think it’s funny that we treat her like a human?

She paused for a moment, glancing up at me from behind the counter. It seemed as if the possibility that our cat’s dietary preferences were peculiar in any way had never crossed her mind.

– I suppose it is. But if you were Hibi, wouldn’t you prefer to eat normal food?

– Hmm. I guess so.

– And who is to say what Hibi was in her previous life?

I stopped asking about Hibi’s diet after that. She brought up a good point. Ever since that conversation, however, I started to think about what everyone could have been in their past life. In particular, I started to wonder about what I could have been. What kind of person was I? Was I a person at all? I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to imagine myself as some sort of animal, or even a plant. Maybe I could have been a frog or something. At the age of twelve my cheeks puffed out like they were stuffed with balls of cotton. I liked to swim in the small lake by my house in the summer.

Hibi continued to live for a long time. Maybe it was the diet we were feeding her, but she lived for nearly twenty-three years, well through the time I had finished university and began my first job. To my knowledge, all through her life she ate only green olives, goat cheese, and spinach. My mother made sure of that.

---

It was quite late in the airplane cabin now. The dim screen in front of me displayed the time one-forty-seven AM. Personally, I don’t believe in sleeping on international flights. For one, you just end up jet-lagged at your destination, laying in bed with your eyes glued to the ceiling. Staying up avoids that. But even if I had wanted to, flights make me uneasy, so I always end up watching the little tracker as the plane moves inch by inch over the map anyways.

Nearly all the other passengers had nodded off to sleep by this point, or were glued to some kind of device as the drone of the plane’s engine swallowed the silence. All around me were heads of various shapes lolled off in a variety of directions. Some slumped forward onto their laps, others tilted at a forty-five degree angle onto their shoulders, a slight film of spit forming at the corner of their mouths as they hugged the complimentary airline pillow to their chests. I looked over at the young girl next to me. She appeared to be in a deep slumber. With her eyes shut, her face looked as if it could have been the famed beauty that Orpheus saw in his final moment of uncertainty, gazing back down those steps to the underworld – a glowing reminder of a past charmed life, a love that could no longer be reconciled due to a fatal, irretrievable mistake.

The girl stirred suddenly in her layers of black fabric, squirming and sinking further into her seat. Her eyes remained shut, but her face suggested she was caught in some sort of dream from the way that it contorted itself tight, discomfort washing over her expression. Without waking, she reached down and removed the loafers from her feet, unbuckled her seatbelt, and tucked her knees into her chest, like a large dark egg. She lifted the left armrest of her seat, and with the grace of a snowbank gliding down a hill, conformed her body onto the shallow depression of the empty seat in between us. Her black form sprawled out, tucking her head gently in the bend of her elbow, which grazed the side of my right thigh. She then stretched one leg out, extending it at the knee, and flexed her foot in its black wool sock with a small yawn, finally settling back down on her side, curled into an oval. I could feel soft warmth radiating from the tip of her head. Her body tenderly expanded with each breath she drew into her lungs.

I fidgeted in place. Not that I feel particularly uncomfortable dealing with women, or anything like that of course, but one generally has set expectations when they board a flight surrounded by strangers. When you set foot on some form of publicly available transit like a plane, or your local metro train, you expect certain norms to be maintained, you see. You expect these individuals of unknown origin to keep to themselves. To maintain a sense of privacy, and to not encroach on the pre-established norms of personal space. Similarly, in this scenario, I did not expect such an attractive girl to practically curl herself up to me, nor did I expect to feel the air around me grow warm with the newfound tension I found wringing in my heart, striking me as a bolt of lightning cleaves a oak tree, tall, and susceptible as a conductor due to its high volume of water content.

The girl continued to rest soundlessly to my side, just below my arm. How strange it is, to be so easily swayed by these primordial urges, these reactants with the potency to immolate our feelings at the drop of a hat. How do we manage to function? We board trains, boats, and all sorts of automobiles, encountering countless passersby in order to carry on with our daily lives, yet for the most part it all functions seamlessly. The trust we hold in each other is astounding – the capacity for us to restrain our true thoughts even more so, to don a new disguise day after day, hiding from one another, in all sorts of public places. I held such thoughts in my mind as she clutched herself in the middle seat, 48B.

From time to time I watched various passengers rise up out of their rows and stroll down the aisle to the restrooms at the rear of the plane. And each time I would glance up, hoping to meet their gaze, and have them reciprocate my eye contact, or maybe even a thin, reassuring smile that conveyed the understanding that I, too, would like to use the bathroom, yet am presently unable to, for fear of disturbing the rest of my nameless companion, dozing to my right.

I decided that I contained the willpower to bear my burden for some time longer, and would not rise from my seat. The clock on the seatback read two-forty-five AM. Maybe the moon is out, I wondered. As I lifted the window shade open, I found my answer. Soft light poured through the clouds with each inch I raised the covering, gradually illuminating the sleeping girl next to my lap. I began to shut it – I did not want to wake her, but she seemed to react to this, like the type of flower blooming best when bathed in moonlight. Stirring once again, she slinked closer to me. The girl unconsciously lifted the armrest. I found her soft head resting partially on my thigh, as she lay sideways with her hands tucked between her knees, bunched to her stomach.

A person coughed somewhere on the plane. A seat a few rows in front of me turned on their reading light. Something in the shadows idly flitted its tail. The seatback screen read: six hours, forty-two minutes left. Only a short portion of our journey had elapsed, yet the plane felt like a chamber journeying through time, sailing out across the nocturnal sea that stretched around us. I forced myself to calm my surprise. Here we were, strangers lit by the pale glow of the moon at forty-thousand feet in the sky, but there was an odd sense of familiarity with our arrangement. Like a crinkled old photograph you find in your desk drawer. How long this went on for, I can’t recall. At some point I decided there was nothing left for me to do and lay back in my seat. I gazed out the window, and was reminded fondly of my cat, Hibi.