Seychelles – The Great Adjustment

Raging Around the Indian Ocean

In the waiting area for the tiny plane to the private island, i’m slugging from the Grey Goose bottle i just panic-bought in the overpriced duty-free shop, upon landing. All around me, people are joyful; i remain remotely rigid. Smiling into the neck of the bottle, i thought of the beaming, young Qatari women who wished me a great stay. One of the pair had been here before. She motioned to her partner – “It’s her first time. You’re really in for a treat.” Once the big plane had landed, they shed their abayas, their aloof demeanors, and the burden of hiding their love. Habibti.

Our plane was late. Or in need of repair. “That was supposed to be your plane.” The manager showed me the mechanic working in the little hanger. “We are waiting for two more passengers. If they make it, we’ll be over our weight limit, so each couple will leave one bag behind.” Huh. Why had we packed so sparingly – so very irritatingly mathematically, weighing and re-weighing our small duffels, only to be displaced by some tardy honeymooners? I went back into the lounge and took another pull of the vodka, not really bothering to hide it anymore.

Years spent in the oft-touted-wealthiest-country-in-the-world can make a girl brazenly entitled. It had been four years of seemingly-limitless abuse and struggle in a furnace of nation and now our first break since surviving an impossible project. Entitlement and her sister, Disdain, almost always roll downhill. As a middleman, i had reliably superior aim, and, for my husbands happiness, i am a lioness. My dad had just died. I hadn’t saved him nor given him all the experiences he had still had a taste for — and i’d be damned if anything was going to get in the way of giving the man i had left everything he deserved.

My finely-tuned InshAllah seemed enfeebled by a fleeting and baseless sense of influence over the course of life’s events. When one’s relation to life loses the slipperiness of accepting everything, the resulting friction can be nearly lethal. With this hot antagonism, i greeted the holiday.

Meet the Riches

I just had to throw my weight around when our flight companions finally arrived for the transfer. An early-balder from the UK and his bambi-eyed¹ bride. They had done nothing wrong and are, i assume, good people². 😂 Exhausted and more than a little drunk now, Disdain was enjoying her party.

I have a rule – or superstition – about getting into helicopters recreationally. It just seems like an effective way to kill people off through privilege. The plane we are eventually ushered to looks smaller than the copters beside it. I always said this was a good way for rich people to die, and i am cool with not being that rich.

We are four adventurous flyers now, but i am incapable of mustering any camaraderie. Suncripsed and afable, the faint cheeriness of our companions was easily oppressed by my mood. With British-born manners and likely warranted fear of Disdain, Mr. and Mrs. Rich politely defer to me to climb in first.

When i don’t speak it’s difficult for people to profile me as American, which is mostly all we do in these parts. That is, until i open my mouth, which can be jarring for unsuspecting profilers. I visibly recoil from the offer to board first. “Put the kids in the back,” i command without eye contact, skills honed through my Covid-in-Arabia identity. Early-balder lent his hand to the freshly-minted Mrs. Charlotte Rich. I didn’t catch his first name from the manifest.

Loaded-on, strapped-in, headsets in-place, we synchronously tense as the engine strains to get up the force for take-off. The plane is more Hyundai than Porsche – not so much the elegant send-off i had designed. The pilot, probably Sri Lankan, smiled wordlessly. He looked nearly 15 years old. We were off.

Lala Kent, VPR, Season 7, Episode 15 ↩︎
Donald J. Trump, Las Vegas Campaign Announcement Speech 16 June 2015
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