Down the Aisle (Part One)

I wasn't  planning on sharing this little piece of fiction anytime soon, but seeing as my life has been overrun by a horrendous cold for the past week, I figured now was a decent time to bring out something I wrote a while ago.  Let's just say that when a cold decides to nest with my EBV, it not only takes me twice as long to get over, but it adds twice the brain fog and a whole new batch of symptoms to my already long list.  New posts should be coming soon, but as I haven't done anything for the past week but eat soup, bagels and episodes of "Battlestar Gallactica,"  I'm at a loss for new material right now. 

One more disclaimer:  I don't pretend to be even remotely capable at writing fiction, but it was a fun exercise for me and here is the fist half of what I came up with.

The cabin was overheated.  This was the first thing that crossed Jeremy’s mind when he boarded the Boeing 747 on his way to Salt Lake.  Perhaps he wouldn’t have noticed it, had the frigid temperature outside not propelled him down the hallway toward the plane like a penguin darting for the ocean.  Now that he had arrived in the cabin, whose ceiling pummeled the top of his 6’ 3” frame, he slouched his way down the aisle toward his seat, cheeks flushed, with a ring of sweat beginning to form around his collar. 

A glance down at his ticket reminded him of the aisle seat his wife had procured for him-- the only form of comfort on an otherwise laborious flight toward his in-law’s.  It was a journey he took, at most, twice a year, and one for which he usually treated himself to a joint beforehand. 

Earlier that morning, he had nicked his chin while shaving and had to abandon his plans in order to blot the blood continuously seeping out of his freshly shorn cheek.  The spot was now but a faint scab hidden beneath an already forming five-o-clock shadow. 

Traveling without his wife scared him.  Due to the restrictions of his job as a modern dancer in New York City, he was forced to face the travel day on his own.  Normally his wife would be there to massage his thigh as the plane took off; a comfort that only she could bring. 

Gone were the days when they would try to shuffle down the aisle and sneak their way into the lavatory together-- marriage and two kids will suck the life right out of that one.  Now he could barely stand to brave the bathroom on his own, and it always left him wondering how he had managed to accomplish any comfortable position with another person in there.  Still, having her as a travel companion was a comfort that hadn’t waned in their five years of marriage. 

She was a vixen of sorts at 5’ 11”, with a body as long and smooth as a flagpole, hair that seemed to carry it’s own personal breeze, and a laugh that never failed to melt him, even in his sternest moments.  When she had called him earlier in the day, he felt his body surge for a moment.  But between juggling the tissue blotting his cheek, and eyeing the joint on the nightstand, he hadn’t been able to focus much on the voice coming from the other end.  All he knew was that after four days without her, he needed to see her face, even if that meant seeing his mother-in-law’s too.  The tone coming through the other end of the receiver indicated a crisis of sorts between his two children, but in his distracted state, that was all he had caught. 

As he nudged down the aisle, his bag caught on people like subway turnstiles.  He felt the hand of God (who he didn’t believe in) at work as he walked past a mother whose breast was out nursing a child.  The bald baby, much younger than either of his own, was treating it more like a needle, shrieking in horror, than anything of nutritional value. 

Next came an obese man whose waist overtook the middle seat, and whose wheezing cough spewed out germs large enough for the naked eye to see.  Past a few more toddlers, a teenager playing a portable gaming device, and a couple already wrapped together like a pair of parenthesis, asleep while the groaning of the luggage loading bellowed underneath their feet. 

The sole of his boot crushed the paper thin carpet lined by lighting tracks, and Jeremy began to realize that while he may be on the aisle, it was one of the last rows on the plane.  Between the smell of bathroom freshener and flight attendants buzzing with false importance by the coffee pots, he knew there would be little sleep.  He began craving his forgotten joint more than ever. 

46-C.  He had arrived.  After craning his head underneath the overhead compartments to scan the poorly aligned row assignments, he realized there was a sleeping woman in his aisle seat.