Snow Liu's Web

In the Aisle Between Time Zones

Flight: Emirates EK215 | Route: Dubai (DXB) to Los Angeles (LAX) | Aircraft: Airbus A380 | Crew Rest: Behind Row 60

Somewhere over the Arctic Circle, Leena refilled her cart for the fifth time. The cabin lights had been dimmed, passengers nestled under Emirates blankets in various stages of restless sleep or binge-watching. It was Flight EK215, a 16-hour marathon from Dubai to Los Angeles on the upper deck of the Airbus A380, and she was five hours into her shift.

Her name tag was polished. Her smile professional. Her lipstick—Emirates red—still perfectly intact. But behind it all, she was exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that seeps into your bones when you’ve crossed more time zones in a week than days off in a month.

She moved through the business class cabin, offering top-ups of Chardonnay to passengers in seats 10A through 20K. Some nodded gratefully. Others didn’t look up. A few murmured “thank you” with sleep-heavy voices that told her they wouldn’t remember the interaction in the morning.

She didn’t mind. This was routine.

Behind the curtain, near the galley, she stole a moment to stretch her legs and sip water. There were always a few minutes—just a few—to lean back against the wall of the plane and feel the quiet hum of 38,000 feet above the world.

Leena had been flying for seven years. She could set up a drinks tray with her eyes closed. She knew the layout of every cabin by muscle memory. She knew how to fold a baby bassinet at record speed and could discreetly handle a drunk passenger without disturbing seat 17G’s midnight movie.

But even now, with hundreds of flights behind her, there was still a strange loneliness in it. A loneliness that didn’t come from being far from home, but from always being between places.

Her life was a carousel of cities: Doha, Sydney, London, São Paulo. Glamorous to some, yes. But Leena knew the truth—hotel rooms that smelled the same, 3 AM wake-up calls, WiFi passwords scribbled on hotel envelopes, FaceTime calls ending mid-sentence because of poor connections. She hadn’t spent her birthday in the same country two years in a row.

Still, she loved this job.

She loved how the world shrunk at 900 kilometers per hour. She loved catching first glances—children peeking out airplane windows at snow-capped mountains, businesspeople rehearsing pitches in seat-back mirrors, honeymooners holding hands under the shared glow of a movie screen.

She checked her watch. Three hours until landing. She had one last round of service before break.

Back in economy, the scene was different—more cramped, louder. Tray tables were littered with wrappers and half-finished meals. One woman had fallen asleep mid-sip, a plastic cup of apple juice resting dangerously close to tipping. A teenage boy was flipping through the entertainment system, earbuds dangling from one ear, unable to decide between Marvel or a Bollywood drama.

Leena made eye contact with a middle-aged man who gave her a small smile, the kind people give when they want to say thank you but don’t have the energy. She returned it with one of her own—the kind you train your whole face to give.

As she moved down the aisle, she gently helped a mother calm her toddler. She offered an extra blanket to an elderly passenger whose feet were tucked up in socks. She quietly took away the meal of a young woman who hadn’t touched her food—too anxious to eat, maybe, or perhaps just deep in her own thoughts.

In a job where she was supposed to disappear into the service, these fleeting human moments were the only ones that grounded her.

Finally, her colleague tapped her shoulder. Break time.

She walked to the back, through the galley, and slipped behind the curtained door to the crew rest area—a narrow, bunk-filled space above the passenger cabin. She climbed into bunk #3, unfastened her red scarf, and pulled a thin blanket up over her knees.

Her phone had no signal, but she opened her notes app anyway. A half-written grocery list. A reminder to call her brother. A draft of a message she never sent—“I miss you. Do you think we could ever make this work again?”

She didn’t delete it. Just locked the screen and lay back.

Above her, the hum of the engines was constant. Around her, twenty-three other crew members were moving, working, sleeping. And below her—hundreds of strangers dreaming, watching, worrying, sleeping, loving, flying.

Leena closed her eyes, her body swaying ever so gently with the movement of the plane. For now, she would rest. In another few hours, they would descend into California sun, and she’d be back on her feet.

For now, she was weightless. In between time zones. In between lives.

And for a moment, that was enough.