She locked herself in the seat tucked between the tiny square window on her left and an empty seat to her right. “I hope no one sits here,” she silently whispered to herself. The aisle is busy as passengers shuffle through to get to their designated seats, pausing to push their tiny roller bag into the compartment above their heads. She pushed her little bag in the space under the seat in front of her before she settled down. Impatiently waiting for everyone else to settle in their seats, still hoping no one would sit next to her, she fiddled about her area.
She took the flight guide tucked in the seat pocket in front of her, she read the illustrations of people doing things that could save their lives in case of unfortunate events. She replaced it back. The flight magazine on her seat was torn, folded, and obviously used. Someone else fiddled around in that same seat before her. Anxiety riddled across every page. She eyed the pages without pausing to read its contents. Then she stopped. Her attention was fully captured that she did not even notice the burly man pushing his traveler’s bag onto the compartment above their heads.
On the page it said,
“This time next year, this plane will stay on the ground”.
Messily scribbled by someone with a hand writing of a child.
She does not know what it meant. She does not even know why it’s vandalized onto the magazine. But it felt like a warning that something is about to happen. Her imagination took her to the worst; the images of September 11, she’s not going to lie, tickled her mind.
That was 2019.
It was now 2020.
She scrolled through news websites on her phone, as she sat safely on her living room couch in her home. Her eyes wide, jaw dropped in disbelief. News after news, she read, borders closing, flights canceling, airlines shutting. Clutched in her other hand, a torn page of a magazine.
