Chapter 2: The Crossing and the Concrete Jungle
The flight across the globe was not a journey; it was a slow, agonizing suspension of reality. I sat in a middle seat, pressed between a man who snored like a chainsaw and a woman who insisted on reading a thick, existential biography with an incredibly sharp-edged bookmark. As we climbed higher, the cabin lights dimmed, casting a sickly, artificial twilight over the rows of passengers. Every time the plane hit a pocket of turbulence, a jolt of primal fear raced up my spine. This is it, I thought. The universe has decided my ambition is a personal insult. I clutched the armrests, my thumb desperately tracing the cold, stubborn geometry of my father’s ring. The gold band was the only anchor I had. It felt like a tiny, glowing ember in the dark, reminding me that even if the plane decided to become a submarine, I was a man who carried a legacy. I spent hours staring at the seatback screen, watching our digital plane crawl across the map, feeling like a speck of dust blown acros...