There are several reasons why someone might get up at farmer o'clock in the morning, but among the most cogent is being paid to do so.

This is what I try to keep in mind as I pry open my eyes and look outside at the grey and orange night-time cityglow outside the window. "Three hundred and sixty dollars," I mutter, my voice rasping like the undead.

You know those goofy little video presentations they play in airplanes, explaining what to do in the unlikely event of some kind of emergency? Well, my mission is to make one. To do so, I have to get up at this unholy hour to drag my arse to Pearson International to measure the interior of a 767 in order to replicate it in virtual geometry.

My wife is coming along, too. Nobody's paying her, though. She's in it for the love.


The sun has just started to rise when LittleStar and I arrive at the airport. There is a little patch of Coruscant sky above the terminal building: orange and pink with a ruddy sun, criss-crossed by flying trains and their doppler moans...

"Hey, Sleepy!" says my wife, snapping her fingers. "Over here."

I blink, and forget about Coruscant, rubbing the sand out of my eyes. Littlestar leads me briskly through the sliding doors and across the hall to the airline wickets. There we are met by two compact, crisp, heavily made-up ladies bedecaled with security tags. "You must be CheeseburgerBrown," says one.

I nod and smile. Hands are shaken. "This is my wife, LittleStar. She'll be helping me out."

"Yes, they told us you'd be coming. This way, please."

We are led away from the crowds lining up to be processed through public security, through an unmarked door into a small lounge serving as a staging area for the staff security check-point that beyond a metal door with glowing red lights on it. A bored-looking plump brown girl sits at a folding desk, and greets us listlessly. "These two need temp passes," explains one of our escorts.

"Oh. Okay. I'll call a supervisor," says the brown girl, pulling on her rumpled blazer and mumbling into her telephone.

We step aside as a gaggle of pilots parades through, nodding briskly to the security girl as they queue up to slide a card into a slot in the metal door, then type in a code. The light turns green, one pilot walks through, the door is closed, and the queue advances one space. In less than a minute, the susserussing choo-choo of flyboys has been digested through the chute and disappeared.

We stand around and drink our teas for a while. The security girl has gone back to staring into space. My wife yawns, and leans into me.

"Have you seen the new plane we just got?" one of our escorts asks the other, striking up a little professional chat. "The seats from Air France are really cool."

"Wow, that's awesome. I heard they have nice seats."

"It was a part of the deal."

"Is it another Seven-sixty-seven?"

"Yeah."

"That's awesome."

As I as drain the end of my tea an old janitor pushing a squeaking cart of custodial wares wheels up to the metal door, tipping his hat and mumbling something to the security girl. He parks his cart, and then steps up to perform the keycard/PIN ritual. He slips through the metal door once its lights turn green, leaving his cart behind.

"Must be a terror cart," I whisper to my wife.

"Shhh! Don't say 'terror'!" she hisses back, giggling.

But lo -- the old man's work is not yet done. For the section of wall directly beside the impregnable metal door comes suddenly unhinged, folding outward to create a wide opening. The janitor pops through, grabs a hold of his cart, and pulls it in after him. The free-swinging door flaps back and forth, eventually slowing and closing itself after him.

"Fort fucking Knox," I comment.

That's when the security supervisor, a lanky white boy with a crew-cut, shows up and sits at the official security desk, displacing the bored brown girl who takes to leaning up against the wall with her hands in her pockets. Our escorts hand a small stack of papers over to the supervisor, who in turn hands up two small pamphlets to fill out. "I'll need to see some photo ID," he adds.

The form asks me my name and address, and I tell it. It asks me what business I have in the airport, and I jot down an ambiguous line or two about surveying aircraft dimensions for the purposes of creating virtual replicas. My wife copies my form, and we lay the whole package along with our driving licences on the desk.

"The address on your licence is different than the address you put down," comments the supervisor.

"Uh, what did I write down?" I mention my current address, which is stupid, because it doesn't appear in either place. "We're just in the process of moving."

"Three addresses...moving..." he mumbles, frowning. I figure that in a flash of idiocy, I have pooched my own job by surrounding myself in a cloud of suspicion. My wife is elbowing me in the ribs, mouthing "What the fuck are you doing?" In the car, she had warned me not to flub the addresses. The supervisor would have to be a catastrophic moron not to find my story a bit fishy...

"Okay, whatever," says the security supervisor, ch-chunk stamping in duplicate our completed pamphlets and pushing our ID back at us. He gives us stickers to put on our jackets. Our escorts step up to the metal door, swipe, type and pull it open.

On the other side of the door is another security lady, short and stern. "Hold it," she says. Apparently, it is necessary for us to wait while she goes out to confirm with the other officer that we were indeed supposed to have been admitted through the door we just stepped through.

She pushes out through the swinging door the janitor used, and returns several minutes later to lead us four steps to a metal detector frame and X-ray machine, just like in the public security screening area.

The metal detector frame beeps as LittleStar steps through, so a short security girl with a wand steps up and swipes it quickly up her body. The wands meeps and grumbles at her waist (presumably sensing her belt-buckle) and again around her neck (likely a necklace). However, unlike in the public screening area no further investigation is performed. "Belt buckle?" asks the girl with the wand, and LittleStar nods. She is waved through.

The detector catches me, too, meeping at my belt and my pockets. "You have change in your pocket?" asks the wand girl.

"Yeah," I say. She waves me through.

Our escorts move through each check-point with magic laminated badges, which they compare and chat about. "Mine expires in 2007, isn't that weird? I mean, you'd think it would expire before that, wouldn't you?"

The other shrugs, her high-heels clicking. "Mine expires in 2009."

We move through halls and food courts and clusters of departure gates, coming eventually to a crowded lounge filled with sleepy-looking passengers. We walk past them, our escorts giving a curt nod to the steward at the desk as we sweep by and turn down the carpeted gangway corridor.

LittleStar and I board the empty Boeing 767-300ER. "If you need anything, just holler," say the escorts, retiring to the gangway to chat with a familiar baggage foreman.

I look around. The cockpit door is closed, but otherwise we have the run of the ship. The air cycles audibly, like a long, slow, continuous mechanical exhale. While LittleStar takes her clipboard and measuring tape to the business class cabin, I continue through to economy.

Starting at the rear galley and working my way forward, I methodically photograph the plane, taking in details I thought I understood but upon scrutiny revealing a new perspective. I capture the washrooms, the emergency exits, the passenger address system controls...

And, only because it is forbidden in any usual circumstance, I lay down on the floor of the cabin and stare up at the ceiling. I crawl around a bit. I loll over a bank of seats, and hang my head into the aisle to look at the airport upsideown. The sky has turned blue.

I try to take a pee with the door open, but I can't fit inside the lavatory together with the folded door. So I close it.

By the time LittleStar and I meet up again mid-cabin, the flight crew has arrived and is being briefed in the business class cabin. The senior steward is a stout gentleman with a pinched, serious face and a pronounced lisp. "What have I told you about the thalad and Montreal, girls?" he demands, sighing dramatically and rolling his eyes. "Don't therve the thalad before Montreal out from Toronto, do therve the thalad before Montreal in from Halifaxth."

As we're finishing, the escorts turn on the emergency lights for us, and show us how the doors open. "Can we make the slides come out?" I ask.

"No."

I sit down on the edge of the open door and let my legs dangle out of the plane. I take a picture of the lazily spinning jet turbine looming beside me. Two guys in coveralls give me a funny look. "How's it going?" I ask.

On the gangway our escorts let it slip that I'm going to be making the new passenger safety video for the airline, and the flight crew cheer. "Finally, we get a new video!" (I've watched the existing video, and I can understand why it embarrasses them to have to play it for people.) Others are amazed that my small digital camera can produce a whole animated video.

"Er, I haven't actually made the video yet. We're just capturing reference material," I explain.

"Ah yes," say the escorts, smiling and nodding. "Referencematerial."

LittleStar and I back away slowly, and leave. On the way out we pass a platoon of Israeli soldiers with automatic weapons slung on their shoulders, patrolling the mezzanine around the El Al gate and squinting at the crowd. "I feel suspicious -- does that make me look suspicious?" I ask quietly, and my wife pinches me.

(The modern airport would be a really bad place for someone with Tourette's.)

Outside the sunshine is bright and the snow has become slushy. I can't remember where the car's parked, but LittleStar knows. "Kiss me jetly, baby," I say. "I'm giddy on exhaustion and love. Let's get us some bacon."

She kisses me and starts the car.