Everyone accepts that air travel is unnatural. No living creature, human or otherwise, has evolved to traverse this world with the speed we can by plane. Before this week the longest flights I had been on were to North America; but then I was a child, so the spacial absurdities of air travel had taken a backseat to the prospect of uninterrupted movie marathons. Since becoming an adult I have only flown in Europe. But Europe is small, and only when you leave it do you begin to grasp the enormity of the world.

It takes only two flights to reach New Zealand from the UK. We left Edinburgh at 10pm GMT on a Monday night and arrived at 10am NZT the following Wednesday. An A350 to Dubai, followed by an A380 to Auckland. The atmosphere aboard the first, whether due to time of day, crowdedness, or clientele aboard, was prickly. Even the drilled cheeriness of the flight attendants appeared strained. Emirates prides itself on its service, but the unavoidable fact of air travel – hurtling across hemispheres jammed into an aluminium tube – prevented us from fully relishing the cramped experience. Our discomfort was compounded by a particularly disagreeable co-passenger to our rear who began aggressively kneeing Ash’s seat after she put it into recline. Apparently this was ‘disrespectful’ to him and if it was ‘comfort’ we sought, we ought to have opted for business class instead. He didn’t seem to notice the contradiction in his own argument.

It was therefore a relief to reach Dubai. As we made a turn across the desert we experienced a real ‘not in Kansas anymore’ moment. Back home the cool air leaves distances crystal sharp, but here the dust and the heat drew a thick film across everything. Towers only a few miles away were barely visible, eery shadows looming in the yellow-grey light. The airport was sprawling and incomprehensible: we took a train to our connecting gate without ever leaving the same terminal. And opulence was everywhere, garish fountains framing the pristine white halls and diamond merchants, Dior and Gucci where all I’d want was a WHSmith and a Wetherspoons.

There was no time to explore: our A380 awaited, a double-decked enormity that looked too cumbersome to take off. With the end of the runway fast approaching, we tensed in expectation of disaster; and yet against all gravitational odds, the thing somehow lifted up off the tarmac. This time, the spacious aircraft was deliciously empty. Three seats to ourselves and noticeably more legroom left our spirits buoyant for the first time since our emotional departure from Edinburgh. Still, over fifteen hours stretched before us, an ungraspable wasteland of time.

Emirates do a good job of combatting jetlag. Only a few hours in the window blinds were forced down, creating an artificial evening. As a result, we felt our bodies beginning to work across multiple time zones. There was home time, where friends and family were; and Dubai time, where we had departed from. There was arrival time in New Zealand, which our artificial evening was attempting to mimic; and real time outside the window, unacknowledged. But mostly, there was plane time, imprecise and indefinite, a temporal void, a mobile liminal space. The day lost its contours; morning and night took on the same properties. Meal times were unpredictable and could not be depended upon to delineate one part of the day from another. Our solution was melatonin tablets, which loosened us into a dozy state where we could better embrace the uncertainty. No prolonged stretches of sleep though, only a procession of naps. An attempt at a film would be followed by a nap, then there would perhaps be a trip to the toilet along with a few stretches – followed by a nap. In this way, hours passed unlike normal hours, and the small plane icon on our screens edged imperceptibly forward.

Because we flew against the rotation of the earth, the 2nd September was lost – a non-day that never quite existed. To demarcate the beginnings and ends of that day is impossible: I travelled, but from where and to where, from when until when, is blurry. This takes its toll on the mind and body. By the time we were beginning our descent towards Auckland, even the steadfast pleasantries of the Emirates crew were being tested. Despite the onboard naps they were due, the stewards looked exhausted: the man who took in our blankets was puffy eyed and bed headed; the glamourous woman by the doors stared off into space, eyes glazed over. It was like prisoners emerging from solitary confinement that we all shuffled off, blinking into the freedom of the outside with the land of the long white cloud awaiting.