I mimed lifting a cup to my mouth and drinking, then jumped around a little to signify the rush of caffeine. She seemed to understand, and nodded her head somewhat in resignation. I think she grasped what I was trying to achieve.
I pulled her in to the restaurant and found a coffee machine behind the counter. It was a proper Italian one, made of shiny gold brass, and I had absolutely no idea how to operate it. I flicked a switch and it started making boiling noises which I figured was what it should do, and it had a grinder built in with some beans ready to go. After some messing around I produced a thick black cupful of coffee and made Akari drink it, which she did with a look of disgust on her face. I wondered if she’d ever had coffee before in her life.
The action of getting her to drink some caffeine seemed to calm me down a bit, as if I had subconsciously awarded her an extra few hours of life by preventing her going to sleep. We stood there in the café, her looking at me curiously to see what my next absurd move was going to be, and me racking my brains to come up with some sort of plan.
My mind kept whirring back to the idea of a boat. I had entertained the idea before, whilst in the marina at Playa Blanca and during my three day bender, of appropriating a vessel and attempting to sail it to Fuerteventura, or further. I dismissed it purely out of technical difficulties. I had never sailed a boat before, had no idea about jiving or booms or whatever the other terminology was. If I couldn’t get a car to start the likelihood that a boat would go using the same fuel was non-existent. If it even did use the same fuel, which of course I didn’t know. The concept of jibs and spinnakers and staysails and headsails was anathema to me as hotwiring a car, and although I’d given that a go I had miserably failed (and almost been killed) in the process. I had therefore given up on the sailing boat theory almost as quickly as it popped into my mind.
I had kept it at the very back of my brain as almost a last-resort situation, to be resurrected should I get down to the final few percent and still have no idea how to get off the island.
Well, it wasn’t my final few percent we were talking about, but it was Akari’s. I turned to her and mimed a sailing motion.
“Can you sail a boat?” I asked her, moving as if I was hoisting a sail. She looked at me in confusion. For all she knew I was asking her if she could bell-ring, and she shook her head slowly.
“Shit!” I shouted, and she recoiled a couple of steps. The futility of it all suddenly hit me, and I considered the idea of just finding a bar and drinking whisky until she expired. Maybe have a dance and at least enjoy ourselves watching her final sunset.
But something in me wanted to beat this place, and whoever it was who was responsible for forcing it upon us. I resolved not to go down without a fight, and after downing a shot of coffee myself the seed of an idea began to germinate in my mind.
I had passed the airport on my cycle into Arrecife from Puerto Del Carmen four days previously. What if, I thought as Akari and I cycled back along LZ-2, there was a way of getting a plane to fly without the need for fuel? There must be human powered craft, or some form of electric motored thing that could cover small distances, that might allow us to get at least an aerial view of the island… perhaps get us across to Fuerteventura or even further? From my estimation, Lanzarote only sat around 70 or so miles from mainland Africa…
My mind was racing with the potential of getting off the island somehow, as if it were Lanzarote itself that held us in its sway, and if we could escape its boundaries then it might just slow, or even halt the inexorable countdown of our respective percentages.
What if?
It was another longest of long shots, but I was prepared to take any risks necessary now to ensure our survival, and what exactly did we have to lose anyway? Akari might only have a few hours left to live. Any idea, no matter how farfetched, was surely worth pursuing. After all, the CB radio experiment had been arguably an even greater long shot that what we were now attempting, and we had pulled that off hadn’t we?!
I had no idea of what we could expect when we arrived at the airport but the enormity of the forces that would have to come together in order for something to work started to dawn on me as we approached, only 20 or so minutes after we’d hauled ass out of Arrecife. Akari was obediently in tow on another hijacked bike as I pedaled frantically through the outskirts of the city.
The fact that I’d never flown a plane in my life or even been on anything other than a commercial airliner wasn’t deterring me at this point. My only thought was reaching the airport and assessing our options as they presented themselves.
I didn’t know what I was expecting. Would there even be any aircraft there? Obviously I hadn’t seen or heard any take-offs or landing since being on the island, but as with everything else that indicated the presence of humanity here before my arrival – cars, food, hotel guest lists – I knew in my heart that there would be planes there.
I was hoping that there would be a variety of small hangars set aside for private planes. Those of amateur flyers, or charter planes that did aerial tours of the islands, or even rich folk who had their own base on the island that came and went by private plane.
There had to be something there that we could work with! Perhaps aviation fuel had different properties than regular automobile fuel and would have retained some components of combustion? I seriously doubted it, but then it was possible wasn’t it?
New peaks of optimism were worming around inside my brain as we continued through the zona industrial outside Arrecife and the airport came into view. I had been cycling so hard I didn’t realise how out of breath I was, and had to pull over to compose myself just as we pulled up to a sign reading Terminal de Carga. Akari pulled up behind me and attempted to sign something to me.
“We are… fly?” she managed.
I nodded vigorously. Having tried to explain to her my plan whilst hunting for a bike for her back in Arrecife, I had been blabbing so fast I doubt she had any idea what I was trying to get across. It was a testament to her character that she had followed me thus far, not knowing where we were heading or what was going through my mind. I wondered if she was following me purely for company, or if she really believed I had a plan that could save us.
When she smiled at me I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling that everything was going to be all right. As long as I had her trust I felt we would get through this somehow. Her face seemed to light up at the thought of flying, and I got the distinct impression that she’d had the idea all long. She said something in Japanese that I couldn’t gather, and pointed towards a large cargo building in the distance. I nodded, and we set off again in its direction.
Airports have always had a strange effect on me. It’s the impersonality of the places, I thought as we cycled along the deserted tarmac roads. Thousands of people every day passing through the same place with the same ultimate goal in mind – getting somewhere else – but never knowing the people around them. You might be standing next to someone who was travelling to exactly the same destination as you or flying 20,000 miles in the opposite direction, and you would never know. And it was the emptiness of this place that struck me even more. There should be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of separate journeys happening every day here. I had seen my fair share of abandoned outlets since I’d been on the island, and I felt I had a pretty good handle on the whole abandonment concept by now, but this place that should have been bustling with commuters, holiday makers and staff going about their daily business seemed to hum in its neglect.