Planes

He paced back and forth on a track that only he could see. Up three tiles, left one, down three tiles, left one, up three tiles, and so on. The brand new loafers that pinched his feet (pain was beauty, yes, but more importantly, pain was success) tapped angrily on the linoleum as he paced, letting the rest of the passersby in the vacant, little airport know that he, Paul T Calhoun, was upset. The watch face gleamed on his right wrist, catching the fake sunlight that was pumped through the wide, white halls, periodically blinding those poor, unfortunate souls in the seats next to him. What did he care? Their comfort was of no importance to him. A mother in the corner was making faces at him, exaggeratedly rolling her eyes and turning to her son, no doubt teaching him life lessons about the importance of caring for others in a voice that she hoped that would carry over the incessant tapping of the shoes on tile. However Paul had Very Important Places to be, and if this plane didn’t arrive soon, he wasn’t going to make it to them. 

“Young man, if you don’t stop that pacing soon, you’ll wear a path in the floor.” The voice wasn’t immediately identifiable. The mother was still engaged with educating her offspring. The balding businessman off by the side was staring vacantly out the window like a cow left out to pasture. The handful of returning vacationers gazed mournfully at their bags of souvenirs at wept for good times gone by. That left… what appeared to be an old woman swaddled under a pile of fabric. It appeared as if she hadn’t moved in years. Her voice was kindly, knowing; her face that of someone who has seen it all before. A smile somehow appeared out of the map of wrinkles that creased her face and she gently patted the seat beside her. 

“Look, Grandma, I don’t have time for-” 

“You won’t get where you’re going sooner for having walked further,” she said, interrupting him. Maybe it was this that did it, this boldness that he hadn’t found in anyone in such a long time. She knew the extent of her authority and she held onto it firmly. 

“What do you want from me?” Paul asked, feeling something crunch in the seat under him. What he wouldn’t have given for a napkin or something, anything really, to put between himself in his good business suit and this disaster that the second rate airline called a seat. That smile that she flashed him again, the one that was slightly sad as if she pitied him, was really starting to get on his nerves. 

“Just watch,” she whispered, turning to the window over the runway. Paul craned his neck slightly to do just that, wondering what was holding her attention so while also wondering why he cared. A good chunk of him wanted to get up and keep walking. He had seen airplanes take off before. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said softly, more speaking to herself than to him. 

He wasn’t sure what he expected to come out of his mouth, but he was bored, so he left it up to chance. “It’s not exactly new to me,” was the final result. That smile again. He hated it. 

“Of course it isn’t. You’ve seen everything. You’ve done everything. You’re the king of your world, aren’t you? That’s why you’re stuck in a dirty airport with an old thing like me watching the planes take off.” For once in his life, Paul was speechless. “Do you know why I love airports so much?” He didn’t know this woman. What was he doing here? There were so many clocks around, the one that he carried on his wrist practically screaming for his attention, reminding him that his flight was late his flight wAS LATE but he couldn’t bring himself to look at it. It was like the old woman was staring directly into his soul, reading what was written on that crusty, little thing, and speaking to it instead of him. He mutely shook his head, unable to summon the word. 

“Picture of confidence like you has to have some idea, wouldn’t you think? Nothing? Ah, that’s disappointing,” she said, barreling on. “I love the ambiguity of them. Who knows where those people are going? Who knows what they’ve seen, what they will see? Who knows what you’ll see, what I’ll see?” Paul knew what he’d see. That knowledge sunk him like a stone. He would be in some of the most beautiful places on Earth and all that he would see would be the same gray walls, the same conference rooms that looked exactly alike no matter where you were on the planet. They’d be filled with the same people that were everywhere, at every meeting. They’d be doing the same thing that he had spent his whole life on, and he didn’t even particularly like it. 

“Imagine that. A whole plane full of people traveling the world, going to different places. They are living out their stories, their lives. No two of them will get the same experience from that one trip,” she said. “We, here, get to watch them leave. We get to wait to start out own journeys. The things that I’ve seen in my long life, boy, you wouldn’t begin to believe. You don’t believe me now. But here we are, talking to each other, as we sit and wait for your plane.” The chair creaked under her weight as she leaned back, suddenly seeming to carry a lot more weight than she had when Paul had first sat down. The lines etched further into her face. She looked at him expectantly. 

“Yeah, um, that’s-”

“Oh, hush if you have nothing to say,” she said, interrupting again. Paul fell silent, watching this aged matriarch turn to the window once more. Another plane took off. She was watching so intently- the way that the plane (he supposed that it was quite massive even though it was a tiny thing in comparison to most of the other ones that he had flown on) slowly curve around the bends on the runway, the way it began to pick up speed (he could almost hear the noise), the way the nose tilted up (he could have sworn he could feel a slight pressure in his stomach), the wheels left the ground, and the plane was gone. He was almost sad to see it go with its cargo of passengers off to live their lives while he sat and watched from behind the glass. 

He almost didn’t notice when the flight attendant came on to announce that they were boarding. He barely heard the grumbles of ‘about time’ from the other passengers around him. His eyes were on the plane that was rapidly disappearing in the sky above him. She was right- it really was beautiful, wasn’t it?

“Are you coming?” he asked her, bag tucked over his shoulder. 

“No, I’m not going anywhere yet,” she said. “There are still more planes to watch.” 

He settled into his new seat on the plane, almost sad not to see that old woman and her condescending yet knowing smile to his right. However, there was always more work to be done. The laptop screen gleamed in the relative dark of the plane’s interior, spewing the same fake friendly notices from his boss and bitter emails from his colleagues. Off he went, starting his journey to the same gray boxes that existed somewhere in every country, at least, all of the ones that he went to. He vaguely hoped that that crazy, old woman would be watching as the plane took him away.