13 hours later

As the engines of the Delta Airlines Air Bus roared to life, the 300+ other passengers and I settle into our seats, the cabin lights dimming for takeoff from Beijing Capital International Airport. The local time is 4:00 PM, and the realization hit me: due to the 13-hour time difference and the 13-hour flight to Chicago, I’ll land at O’Hare International Airport at roughly the same time I left, 4:00 PM local time.

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Departing and arriving at the same clock time feels like a glitch in reality, a magical sleight of hand that sparks my goofy inquisitive mind into overdrive. The thought of time folding in on itself becomes a theatre of a one-man soliloquy on stage delivering wild musings that are blending science fiction, comical smirky comments, and imagination.
 
I have made this flight many times.  Each time, I would tell my travel mates that if they ever wanted to live a day over again, they could do so when we arrived in Chicago.
 
My mind drifts to the sensation of being suspended floating above the earth in a landing holding pattern, neither fully in Beijing’s evening nor Chicago’s. It sort of feels like a plane is a time capsule, hurtling through the atmosphere while the clocks at both ends remain eerily synced. I imagine the aircraft as a vessel navigating not just airspace but the fabric of time itself. What if this flight exists in a pocket dimension, a bubble where time doesn’t progress? The passengers, the crew, even the bland in-flight meal that’s either chicken, or pork, or vegetarian—all of us are caught in a loop, living the same hour over and over until the wheels touch down and reality snaps back as we walk off the flight of Air Twilight Zone.
 
But my thoughts pivot to a more introspective angle. The symmetry of departing and arriving at 4:00 PM feels like a metaphor for life’s cyclical nature. We leave one place, journey through chaos, and arrive somewhere new, yet somehow, we’re still ourselves, carrying the same baggage—literal and emotional. I imagine a character, maybe a writer like me, using this flight to reflect on their life. Each hour of the flight becomes a chapter, a meditation on a year or a pivotal moment. The 13 hours mirror 13 turning points, and by the time they land in Chicago, they’ve woven a narrative of self-discovery, realizing that time doesn’t just move forward—it loops, revisits, and reframes our very existence.
 
My creative mind then toys with a more creative perspective. What if the plane is a giant clock hand, and the Earth below is the clock face? As we fly, we’re not just crossing continents but tracing the hour hand’s arc, defying the linear progression of time.
 
The flight’s monotony—cramped seats, recycled air—grounds me momentarily, but my imagination takes off again. I think of the International Date Line, which we’ll cross mid-flight. It’s not just a line on a map but a threshold where in a second of time yesterday becomes today. My mind wanders and starts to think of the stories of people, and lives, and families, and everything under God’s creation is below me. And the people below? They don’t know that this aircraft and these 300 plus people even exist.  And yet on the airbus, most of the passengers are asleep or distracted, and only one passenger, with a childlike imagination I make a wish that alters the course of the flight—and history.

As the plane descends into Chicago, the city’s skyline glittering against the 8:00 PM dusk, The sunset barely above the horizon is glimmering off the John Hancock building and the ubiquitous tower formerly known as Sears.  As the cabin speakers start their familiar directions, “Ladies and gentlemen please secure your seat belts, put your tray tables in their upright and locked positions and prepare for landing,” my creative mind conjures a final image: two versions of myself, one boarding in Beijing, one disembarking in Chicago, waving to each other across the 13-hour chasm. It’s as if time has folded, letting me glimpse my own departure and arrival simultaneously. This flight, coupled with a quirk of modern convenience called time zones, becomes a reminder that time isn’t just a line on a map—It's a story we tell about people, their past experiences, and the endless possibilities that lie ahead of each of us in life. And they lived happily ever after – Goodnight!

P. S. - Here's another interesting fact about time zones and traveling back and forth through time: Despite spanning five geographical time zones, China follows a single standard time across the country. So, if you were to cross into Afghanistan from Western China through the Wakhjir Pass, you’d be going 3.5 hours back in time in a matter of seconds. It’s the sharpest time change of any international frontier.

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