We exited through a door to the Guangzhou tarmac and squeezed onto a bus with fogged windows.

The driver took us in a slow loop past parked jets and service trucks, then stopped at a plane sitting alone in the distance.

People stood shoulder to shoulder in the aisle as the bus lurched and braked.

They loaded us in waves. The bus emptied, came back, and emptied again.

By the time Dani and I climbed the stairs, the cabin smelled of recycled air and damp coats.

We didn’t get seats together. I slid into a middle seat beside a British woman in her sixties. Dani was five rows up.

The woman turned and smiled.

“Hi” she said. “I threw up four times on the flight from England. I hope I’m not coming down with anything.”

Then she unfolded an airsickness bag and set it neatly on her lap like it was part of the ticket.

A man took the aisle seat. He opened his own airsickness bag and held it with both hands. His palms shone with sweat.

Ahead of me, Dani had turned in her seat to look for me.

I waved, but her jaw hardened.

“Are you okay?” She mouthed.

When a flight attendant came down the row to shut the bins, I lifted a hand and asked if I could move. She scanned the cabin without slowing and told me to go back to my seat.

I kept my face forward.

I breathed through the collar of my shirt.

And I tried not to imagine the next few hours.

The woman stayed pale but steady. The man didn’t look sick at all. After a while I saw what he was doing: he used the bag as a tray for his phone and keys, pinching the top shut each time the plane bumped.

I let my shoulders drop. I watched the seatbelt sign. I waited for the pressure change in my ears.

~

As we descended, light filled the cabin. Everyone clambered to the window for a better view, The whole cabin shifted to the left as it banked.

Gasps erupted from the crowd.

A wall of mountains broke the haze—hard edges and bright snow, peaks stacked behind peaks until they looked unreal. The Himalayas held the horizon, and below them, India spread out under our wing.

Beside me, the woman reached for the bag.