Passengers

Written 54-I21 [2023-03-22], Edited 54-I21 [2023-03-22]

Image credit: Twitter Twemoji

“Please place your bags in the overhead compartments or below the seat in front of you.” said the pre-recorded safety video.

Not like I cared, I never paid attention to any of this bureaucratic crap. I mean how likely was it that any of this was useful? I just kept scrolling through my Twitter feed through all of it.

While I was staring at a meme posted by my favourite billionaire (Elon Musk), somebody poked me.

“What do you want, kid?” I asked, confused. Some stranger, who looked to be a boy in the fifth grade, said “Can we swap seats?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not swapping anything,” I said. “If you wanted to sit here, you should have used the web check-in.”

“But my parents got this ticket at the last minute, and you aren’t even looking out the window.”

“It’s too damn bad,” I told the child. These youngsters can be so annoying sometimes, in a fanciful and naive way. No wonder the birth rate was declining.

One of the waitresses, sorry, flight attendants said “Sir, you’ll need to put your phone on airplane mode for the duration of the flight.”

“But I don’t wannaaa,” I said.

“It’s the law,” the flight attendant said.

I scowled and followed her instructions. Then I put my window seat to use by resting my head on the wall and falling asleep.

I woke to the smell of smoke.

“Ugh, that weed isn’t any good,” I said groggily.

Notes

This was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.