Two Flights

Two flights landed at Heathrow Airport on that day in 2026, the story of one you should remember the other you would not. 

Lou had tired of on line dating over a year before. In fact, everyone she knew fell into roughly two categories, people who met their partner through on line dating and people who had given up.

It was fine though. As it turned out, Lou was a pretty big fan on being on her own and she had her friends. She didn’t have too many of those either, I mean where do you meet friends if you don’t have a partner, kids, or a dog? Still, she liked the ones she had and they kept her from turning into someone who neglected to shower. 

Ewan, on the other hand, did not much care for solitude. He’d settled down young with a great girl he liked a lot. They married. She left, found someone she loved. He spent all his time with warm and caring couples. Dinners, brunches and weekends by the shore. Skilled third wheel.

Lou was returning to London after meeting with a new author in New York. Ewan transferred from a flight from Toronto. They sat in seats 14 A and 14B, Premium Economy. A splurge for Lou which her company only supported when the author was really big. A necessity for Ewan whose 195 cm frame couldn’t weather Economy. 

If Lou noticed the tall man in the aisle seat it was only to consider how awkward a trip to the WC might be past all those legs. If Ewan considered the brunette in the window seat it was only an innocent regard for a shapely leg in their running tights. Lou tried to run, even on business trips, and she liked the flat stretch of Manhattan down the West Side Highway after a long meeting. She also liked having the comfortable clothes for the inevitably uncomfortable red eye flight. When Lou finally needed to leave her seat, Ewan rose to let her pass. She did notice, then, that they were watching the same movie. Ewan noticed that the woman, like him, did not even try to sleep. They both cycled through films, reading, a crossword and bourbon with ginger-ale. 

When Lou passed her tray over for pick up, Ewan helped and smiled. Lou had to notice the dimples and the deep brown eyes. Ewan thought that some sort of sensation met his finger tips as they brushed hers on the side of the tray. Neither spoke.

When they disembarked, Lou saw Ewan reach for a stick of gum but found only an empty pack. She handed him a piece. It was her method of rousing from the sleepless night as well. At the baggage carousel, Lou’s bag circulated on top of Ewan’s and she smiled at him when he pulled it off for her. They didn’t speak. At the taxi rank, the queue was endless and Ewan turned to Lou and asked “North?” She nodded and he offered to share an Uber. They laughed when their addresses were only streets apart in Highgate. Then they talked. They talked as if their words had been building up for hours, days, years. They talked of travel, politics, the environment, family and film. The Uber driver chuckled in the front seat. 

In the car, Lou invited Ewan to pop up for breakfast with her in her flat. They ate eggs and toast on the sofa. Lou brought blankets and they talked more until their voices cracked from lack of sleep. Then they slept, side by side on the sofa through the mid-day sun. When they woke, late-afternoon, they pulled open their suitcases and ran together through the park and neighbourhoods, a shared habit to combat jet lag. Ewan went home to unpack and shower but Lou came over an hour later for dinner. They ordered curry. When they laid down their forks and stood, Ewan pulled Lou to him and they kissed. It was the first kiss, electric and pulsing, sweet and desperate, but it was also the ten thousandth kiss. Familiar and right, like home, like forever, like love. 

The other flight, KLM 233, touched down one hour before theirs carrying Gisela Rodriguez, Columbian student starting a term at London School of Economics. You know Gisela, but maybe you don’t recall her name. If you are still alive, you probably call her Patient Zero. Gisela contracted H3 N6 whilst on holiday in Shangdon Province. Her Latina genetics combining oddly, impossibly, with the latest dog flu created an entirely new virus. Entirely deadly. Three hundred people were infected by first contact with Gisela during her travels. She died of respiratory failure, one week later. 

By then the virus had reached millions. Billions soon thereafter.

Ewan and Lou each took last minute leave from work. They packed bags and hopped in Lou’s Fiat. They drove down to Cornwall where they settled into a whitewashed cottage with pink shutters belonging to Ewan’s aunt. It was on the hillside in the seaside village of Portloe, population 203. They arrived forty seven hours hours after their flight. 

Seventy thousand people exposed.

Try though they might, neither could find anything at all that might inevitably annoy the other. No dubious political leanings. No fraught family dynamics. No incompatible quirks in bed. Their lovemaking was full of exploration, trial and error. Bodies learning one another. It was fun, it was happy.  

Ewan and Lou ignored their phones. They never wondered when they would have to return to their responsibilities. They were busy being in love. On the fourth day they cooked together and wrapped in only sheets they played Monopoly for five hours. 

Exposure reached every continent.

By the sixth day Ewan’s boss forgot about him, no more unread emails amassed in his in-box. Three partners at his firm and seven associates were out. Reporting on the infection hit the news. Lou’s editorial offices were shuttered without her knowing it. Lou and Ewan walked along the headlands in the mornings as the mist burned off the sea. They stopped at picturesque benches and kissed like teens. Once, they lay a blanket behind a privet hedge and made love. A first for them both. 

The deaths began.

On the eighth day, they drove to Truro to stock up on groceries, on bourbon and ginger-ale. The lady at the till wore a surgical mask. They fooled around in the parked car in the lot. That evening, after omelettes, Ewan looked into Lou’s eyes and confessed he didn’t want kids. Lou laughed and rounded the table to kiss him. She told him she had never wanted them and couldn’t actually have them. She reached into the shopping bag and chucked the box of condoms into the bin and then reached for him. 

Exposure topped ten million.

On the twelfth day they walked hand in hand into the village centre to the bakery. They found it shuttered. A sign taped to the outside read, ‘David Murray, Baker, RIP.’ The streets were empty. Ewan and Lou sat naked on the sofa, legs entwined eating cheese, crackers and smoked kippers. They drank a bottle of Pinot, maybe two. They talked about life, they talked about death. They smiled because neither was frightening together. The news coverage faltered, there was no one to report it, film it or broadcast it. 

Six hundred million.

On the morning of the thirteenth day, Lou plugged in her phone. They ran along the cliffs, they saw no one. They returned and Ewan put on the kettle for tea. They both preferred tea to coffee. Lou had two hundred and twelve texts. She skipped to the most recent. It read “L, It’s over. Mum and Dad passed last night. It’s ten million in England already. There is no where to go. Brant and I put them in the shed. No one is taking bodies anymore. We both have it. I don’t know where you are but I won’t see you again. I wish we could have talked. May God have mercy on us all. - Emily”

Lou looked up at Ewan, confusion and fear in her eyes. They clasped each other and fell together to the floor. All the while they’d been inventing love, alone in the white house with pink shutters, a silent enemy had been on the prowl, circling them, greedy for them. They made love there on the floor, rejoicing in their survival.

Ewan made them cocktails, cooling their bodies still flushed with love. Lou coughed, blood streaking the worn diamond jubilee tea towel she held to her mouth.