untitled

[Sombra]

I came into the airport drunk. Which was good in a way and bad in a way. Harmonicas look like they might be a small single stack magazine on an xray apparently. Steel-toed boots are less than common. I look like I might be in the military or I might be a freak in my cargo pants and olive drab tshirt. You tend to drown out noise when you have a good buzz on. I didn't listen to any of the announcements coming over the speakers and the people all kind of blended together.

I found my gate fine, plopped down and tried to read a little but I think I was still too drunk to absorb any of it but I stared at the pages anyway. I watched and listened to some of the airport people. A voice was saying our gate might change and we'd have to move somewhere else. I waited and watched the gate screen to see if it did.

A group of middle aged people talking in my peripheral.
"I didn't hear what gate we're going to..."
"Me neither."
"Well I'll just follow you," one said to the third person.
"Ha ha ha." Ha ha ha. It's funny. Being a fucking sheep is funny. Or maybe they're laughing because it's not funny and they want to feel better.

We're preparing to board. I watch the A class people line up. I am in the B class. A girl walks past me. Dirty blond hair with a very nice body. 23 or 24 maybe. She gives me this look saying I know I'm hot and I know you'd fuck me if I let you, and keeps walking past. She is getting on the same plane. I don't attempt to talk to her.

Crawling away from the ground is always fun. The watertowers look like ripe mushrooms growing out of dead sun-baked fields. Watching the clouds from the other side, above, is a little weird. When you get a real thick carpet of clouds on a darker day it looks great once you burst through it into the sunny sky.

I'm on layover in Baltimore. I watch the girl walk away and then pick up some Chinese at an airport restaurant. I wander around for a little while and go back to my gate. Boarding the plane. I'm surrounded by a group of volleyball players about my age, traveling for a college game. I grab a window seat and two of them fill the seats next to it. The one right next to me makes a little small talk. I came across as polite but disinterested. Maybe the disinterest was what intrigued her.

Airport women are like one night stands. To me it seems like a colossal waste of time to strike up inane conversations with people I'm never going to see again. Even if they're cute women. I read my book through the turbulence and I never wear the seatbelt on airplanes from takeoff to landing. I'd cover my lap with a coat when the stewardess walked by so she didn't see that I never wore one. It seems very silly to put a little strap around your waist when you are going half a thousand miles an hour.