✈️ The Pilot — Episode 1: Wheels Down With Nothing But Hope

The first step into a brave new world

The wheels touched the tarmac on the 19th of March, 2009.

It was his birthday.

Dark already. People buzzed outside LAX, loud voices, bright lights, deals happening on every corner. Everyone is selling somebody, something.

The young man smiled to himself.

He was loving every second. This was the promised land. The place of dreams. He could feel his future breathing here.

He waited for the nearest yellow bus, hauled the backpack that carried his few precious belongings, and rode toward his luxurious new accommodation, a broken-down Motel 6 near the end of the runway.

He bought himself a Bud Light and lay down on the worn-out candlewick bedspread. As the mattress sagged underneath him, he smiled to himself. Today was his birthday, and the future was his to grab hold of…

Planes roared overhead. The paper-thin walls rattled, but he didn’t care.

That Bud Light tasted like possibility.

Tomorrow, he’d start. He didn’t know exactly what, but something. He’d walk the streets. Meet people. Make it happen.

Because this world, surely, was full of others like him, brave souls chasing their dreams, in their own creaking beds, believing in a future they could not yet see.

What he didn’t yet know was how long the search would be.

How many wrong turns, wrong people, wrong promises he’d say yes to, just trying to belong.

But tonight?

Tonight, the air smelled of jet fuel and hope.

Sometime later that night, he fell asleep with a smile, a mile wide written across his face…

The phone “jangled loudly” at 4:00 AM. He fell onto the floor, scrambling around in the dark until he found it.

“Hello, who is it?”

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I’d love to hear: Have you ever landed somewhere new, full of hope? Drop a comment below.

Much love,
G. x