Worst. Person. Ever(31)

“Who else is on this plane?”

“Just us for now. They’re sending it to pick up a group of network executives.”

I looked out the window: ocean. My stomach cramped … food! “Neal, I haven’t eaten since I don’t even remember. Get me some food.”

“Right, Ray.” Neal lifted one hand, and the sleekest, most kitten-like flight attendant I’d ever seen appeared. She had a velvety smooth, unravaged face, and a name tag reading ELSPETH. She scurried to me with a tray of dainty little triangle-shaped sandwiches, no crusts, each triangle a different flavour—just the ticket. “Here, some nice posh sandwiches for me favourite patient. Fancy a moistened tow’lette, luv?”

I grabbed the whole tray of sandwiches and set it on my lap. Elspeth made ever so tiny a flicker of a face at Neal, then scurried away to fetch some tea. It hit me: “Neal, you’ve already banged Elspeth, haven’t you?”

“Well, you know, Ray, what with you being here in the cabin laid out like a corpse—it made young Elspeth and me want to do something to celebrate life rather than be overpowered by the stench of death. You were wheezing something awful the first hour, too, and it terrified her. So to lighten things up, we made love and we also made an iPhone film of what we thought was your death rattle and posted it online. Amazing smoking hot Wi-Fi this jet has. Let me show you …”

Neal picked up an iPad, typed COMICAL GEEZER DEATH RATTLE into a search box and held it up to show the results. “Look at that!” he said. “Your death rattle clip is already the number four comical GIF on the West London Morning Shopper’s website! You’re a star, Ray!”

“Give me that fucking thing.” I looked, and there I was, death warmed over on the gurney. “Make it go away.”

“Too late, Ray. Don’t get angry. Enjoy the moment. I’ll ask Elspeth to make you a steak Diane or something fancy.”

On cue, Elspeth arrived with my tea. “Elspeth, guess what?” Neal said. “Our clip of Raymond’s death rattle is the number four comical GIF on the West London Morning Shopper’s website.”

Elspeth squealed with delight. “I’ll have to email me mum. She’s getting a gastric band put ’round her stomach next week. News like this’ll give her a lift. Poor thing. The council agent had to jackhammer her out of the bedroom. So humiliating. Hasn’t set foot downstairs since before Simon Cowell started on TV and brought so much sunshine into our lives. How rich d’you think that Cowell is, you reckon?”

Elspeth’s council estate accent was like three raccoons trapped in a Dumpster. I was trying to tune them both out when our jet made a sudden downward lurch. Elspeth squealed anew and ran to the cockpit for information.

Neal looked out a window and said, “Ray! Look out the window—you can see the Pacific Trash Vortex!”

“The what?”

“The Pacific Trash Vortex—that continent of plastic trash you’ve been reading about for decades. Good Lord, it’s big, isn’t it? Travels clockwise. The largest manmade object on the planet. Makes you proud and disgusted about being human, all at the same time.”

“I’m not going to look out the window at garbage, Neal.” But, of course, how could I resist, especially as the jet keeled westward. I actually couldn’t have turned my head away if I’d wanted to.

Against the g-force, Elspeth shunted back into the main cabin. “We’ve been ordered to land.”

“Land? Land where? There is no fucking land to land on.” Was I squealing? Maybe.

“Wake Island.”

“Where?”

Wake Island is a coral atoll with a 12-mile coastline in the North Pacific, located 2,300 miles west of Honolulu, and roughly two-thirds of the way to Guam. It is an unincorporated territory of the United States, and all island activities are managed by the United States Air Force. Access is restricted. Wake Island also contains a missile facility operated by the United States Army and features a 9,800-foot runway.

I asked, “Who has the authority to make a plane land in the middle of nowhere?”

“The U.S. government,” said Elspeth.

“Fucking Americans.” I craned my neck to try and see it. “Where is it?”

“About ninety minutes away.”

LAX to AWK = 9h, 5m


The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also called the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean. It is characterized by high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris that has been trapped by the current of the North Pacific Gyre.

Reports have estimated that the patch extends over an area larger than the continental U.S., but recent research sponsored by the National Science Foundation suggests the affected area may be twice the size of Texas; a recent study concluded that the patch might be even smaller. Data collected from Pacific albatross populations suggest there may be two distinct zones of concentrated debris in the Pacific.