Later

I stumbled along the narrow aisle, crammed into a line of fellow passengers shuffling toward their seats. Up ahead, a man was struggling to fit his oversized carry-on into an overhead compartment. He grunted in frustration as I squeezed past him, muttering an apology. I shoved my bag next to his and slid into row 17.

Middle seat. Just my luck. At least I could hope the aisle seat would stay empty.

The window seat was occupied by an elderly lady. She looked like a character from an old storybook: her slate-steel hair twisted into a neat bun, a soft blue handwoven shawl hugging her shoulders, and a silver-gray ball of yarn with knitting needles resting in her lap.

She turned to me with a kind smile, her delicate, tissue-paper skin crinkling around her eyes.

“Traveling alone, dear?”

“Yeah, just heading home. And you?”

“Oh, I’m visiting an old friend,” she said, her voice warm and nostalgic. “It’s been a long time since we last saw each other, and I thought it was time to catch up.”

I nodded, tucking a folder stuffed with documents and a worn notebook into the seat pocket in front of me, then settled in and powered on my laptop. There was always something to do: emails to reply to, spreadsheets to update, deadlines to meet—it never ended.

I started typing while the flight attendant performed the usual pantomime. Soon, the click-clacking of knitting needles joined the tapping of my keyboard, weaving a calm duet.

“Working?” the old lady asked, glancing at the screen filled with endless rows of soulless numbers.

“Yeah,” I said with a crooked smile. “There’s always some pesky task my boss needs done yesterday.”

The click-clack of her needles stopped. She leaned in, smiling like a co-conspirator. A faint scent of old books and incense curled around me.

“You’re not really fond of this job, are you?”

“No, not really,” I chuckled, “but it pays the bills.”

She shook her head and resumed knitting, the rhythmic clicking punctuating the monotonous hum of the engines.

“And what do you really want to do?”

I hesitated. It was a simple question, but it felt too personal for a casual plane conversation. Yet there was something about her—something comforting and familiar, as if I'd known her all my life—that made me want to tell her.

“I draw,” I said, pointing at the notebook. “Mostly during boring meetings. Paint sometimes too. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, and I even wanted to study art, but going to business school was the more sensible thing to do…”

“Was it now?”

“What?” I blurted, caught off guard by the question.

“Is it a sensible thing to spend your whole life crunching numbers in a job you not-so-secretly despise? If you have talent, you should use it.” There was a firmness in her voice I didn’t expect from such a gentle old thing.

I shifted in my seat, suddenly feeling like a student trying to justify a half-finished assignment.

“I… I have ideas, projects I want to work on. But between work and everything else, it’s hard to find the time. I keep telling myself I’ll get to it later. You know how it is.”

She hummed, her hands moving with practiced ease as she looped the yarn around her needles. “I know all too well. But I find that later is a place most never reach.”

Her words lingered in the stagnant cabin air, sinking deep into my mind.

I let out a breathy chuckle, trying to shake off the weight of her words. “Yeah, well… I hope I get there someday.”

She met my eyes with her knowing gaze, lowering her knitting. “I truly hope so too.”

She held up the silvery thread, letting it sway between her fingers. “You see, dear, time is a bit like this yarn. It seems like it’ll never run out, but it does. You can weave it, stretch it a little, twist it into something beautiful, but sometimes it snaps when you least expect. And when it does, it’s not always easy to tie it back together.”

I stared at the shimmering silver yarn, unsure how to respond.

“But for now, you should rest,” she said. “You look tired.”

I wanted to protest, to say I had work to do, but my eyelids grew heavy. The plane was warm, the hum of the engines ceaseless. The soft clicking of her needles blurred into the background, lulling me to sleep.

A violent jolt yanked me awake.

The plane was shaking. The cabin was filled with startled shouts from other passengers. Overhead compartments rattled, a few of them popping open. I heard the dull thump of something heavy hitting the floor, followed by the clatter of loose items rolling down the aisle. The seatbelt sign chimed relentlessly, and the overhead lights flickered.

And then—

Everything around me went silent.

The roar of the engines, the shouts, the clatter—it was all swallowed by a strange, muffled silence. The only sounds were the frantic blood rushing in my ears and the steady click-clack of knitting needles.

In the stillness, the old woman’s voice, soft and clear, whispered in my ear:

“This time, your thread goes on.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, the air thick with the smell of old paper and smoke, and the wave of sound rushed back in—the frightened voices, the low rumble of the plane, the chime of the seatbelt sign. The shaking subsided bit by bit, the turbulence easing as suddenly as it had begun.

My hands were still gripping the armrests so tightly that my knuckles were white. I turned to the window seat, but it was empty. The shawl, the knitting needles, the ball of yarn—all of it had vanished, as if no one had been there at all. The stale, recycled air filled my lungs once more, now laced with a whiff of spilled drinks. The scent of old books and incense was gone.

A flight attendant was clutching the headrest of the aisle seat, steadying herself as she made her way down the cabin. She must’ve seen the shock on my face. “Don’t worry, sir,” she said with a reassuring nod. “Just some unexpected turbulence. We’re through the worst of it now.”

Confused, I glanced around. “The woman who was sitting here…” I began, my voice shaky. “Do you know where she went?”

She gave me a puzzled look. “What woman?”

“The one sitting next to me. Elderly lady, gray hair, wearing a blue shawl.”

Her brow furrowed as she shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir, but no one’s been sitting there the entire flight. That seat’s been empty.”

I swallowed hard, my throat dry.  “That’s impossible. I was just talking to her.”

The attendant offered a kind but dismissive smile. “Maybe you were dreaming and then got confused by all this excitement.”

I turned back, rubbing my weary eyelids. Dreaming? No, I vividly remembered her face, the pale skin gathering in tiny pleats at the corners of her knowing eyes, the hypnotizing movement of the needles knitting the yarn…

And then I saw it.

A single gray thread trailed from my notebook like a bookmark.

Frowning, I pulled the notebook out and opened it to the marked page. A note was scrawled in looping handwriting:

We’ll meet again.

Later.