Rahul's flight so far had been uneventful. The week-long company retreat had been exhausting, but more than exhaustion, he was suffering from boredom.

Some comedy Rahul had never heard of was playing on the in-flight entertainment screen in front of him. He had browsed through the available collection of movies, and this one had caught his attention. He had picked the last two in the same semi-random fashion and had lucked out on two surprisingly good thrillers. Unfortunately, that luck had run out and the third movie had been disappointing.

Rahul had been watching that comedy for an hour and hadn't once come close to laughing. Resignedly, he pulled his earphones out and turned off the screen.

How much longer?

Rahul thought as he checked the time on his smartphone.

11:38 AM

So, he had killed about five hours since the flight had taken off from Tokyo, but had as many left till they landed in San Francisco.

Five more hours!

Rahul looked to his left and saw rows of his colleagues blissfully sleeping those long hours away. They would wake up when the captain made the landing announcement, and find themselves already back home. Perhaps the serving of meals will wake up a few, but they would eat and go right back to sleep.

Rahul, unfortunately, could never sleep while sitting upright, and today was no different.

As he debated turning on the screen and rewatching The Dark Knight, Rahul belatedly felt the beginnings of a headache. Five hours of staring at the screen must have strained his eyes. A quick nap usually fixed these Computer Vision Syndrome headaches, but that of course wasn’t an option here.

So Rahul just massaged his temples and looked outside the window. It was a clear day and the light blue skies above looked majestic and unending. Below he saw the alluring deep blue waters of the Pacific. Then he stared off into the horizon and was mesmerized by the slight but visible curvature of the earth.

The cloudless sky and the pristine ocean meeting at the horizon made for a very soothing sight. Slowly, Rahul’s expression relaxed into a smile and his headache grew dull.

Soon, both his irritation over the lack of sleep and disappointment over the humor-deficient comedy subsided.

Rahul was lost in memories.

He thought back to his last week in Japan, spent with his colleagues on a company-sponsored retreat. He remembered the maid cafe visit on Friday and all the awkwardness that ensued! Definitely not the best place to have lunch with your manager and colleagues. And that crazy day when they had all gone to watch a sumo wrestling match live. The company had ridiculously decided to book the entire venue! Rahul was certain that 160 employees of an American software company were not the wrestler’s typical audience.

Yeah... he certainly had quite a good time on the retreat.

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Rahul had been working with his current team for the past year and had started getting less formal with them. Turning from a colleague to a friend. This retreat completed the transition. Rahul had bonded with his team in ways that were impossible in an office environment.

As Rahul went over the blissful memories, his smile grew wider, and the headache was forgotten.

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An unassuming blip of land off in the distance caught Rahul’s eyes and interrupted his trip down the memory lane. It didn’t seem like much, but it was still an aberration breaking the monotony of the otherwise featureless ocean. On any other day, Rahul would have dismissed that sight, but today he had little else to do, and curiosity got the better of him.

Which island is that, and how big is it?

Rahul narrowed his eyes and scrutinized the island, trying to estimate its size. But at this distance, all he could tell was that it was neither tiny nor massive. Somewhere between those two extremes. That wasn’t saying much, but was the best he could do and so he moved on to the other question.

His headache forgotten, Rahul once again turned on the screen in front of him, this time to check the plane’s location. Exactly halfway between Japan and California, somewhere in the North Pacific Ocean.

Alright, which islands are situated in that region of the Pacific?

The map in front of him wasn’t interactive, so Rahul couldn’t zoom in and locate the island. He didn’t have internet or GPS on the flight either, so that ruled out Google Maps. Finally, he decided to go back to the basics and recalled his geography lessons from school.

Rahul pondered for some time before he grudgingly accepted that he remembered perilously little high school geography. Definitely not enough to name an island based on its general positioning in the Pacific Ocean.

Why am I even thinking about all this? Rahul asked himself. It’s probably just some unnamed and unpopulated island.

So dismissing the island, Rahul went back to daydreaming about his past.

This time, his thoughts drifted further back, and he reflected on the last three years of his life. His journey since graduating with a major in Computer Science.

Rahul recalled his college friends. He was still close to some, but most had drifted apart due to time, and more recently, distance. It was last November, exactly a year ago, when he was offered an opportunity to work in his dream company at its headquarters in Mountain View. He had immediately packed his bags, leaving behind his home, family, and friends.

All to pursue his ambitions.

Coming from humble beginnings in a small town in India, Rahul had climbed many steps of the ladder to reach this place. And at 25, he was now in one of the best places in the world for a software engineer to be. All around him were peers exceptional in their work, and experts doing cutting-edge research in their domains.

Here, for the first time in a long time, Rahul felt ordinary. He had pushed and pushed and grown and grown. He had propelled himself to a place where all his peers were as ambitious, as skilled, and as hardworking as him.

Here, he wasn’t raising any bars or breaking through any ceilings.

Here, he was content performing to everyone’s expectations.

He had overcome many many challenges to get to this point.

Now, he thought, he would learn to enjoy it.

He would stop moving.

He'd simply be.

Life had other plans.

One moment, Rahul and his 160 colleagues were cruising through the air at 41,000 ft and 900km/h on a Boeing 737.

The next moment, Rahul and his 160 colleagues were still all there, cruising through the air at 41,000 ft and 900km/h, but there was no Boeing 737.

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