Seat 42
“Letters are the most intimate form of travel.”
Flying made Jack nervous. It wasn’t the typical fear of falling from the sky—it was the loss of control. No egress. No escape.
The turbulence made it impossible to sleep. Glancing at the watch he’d picked up in the shadow of the Black Tower in Prague, he was confused to see the hands flicking back and forth.
BAH! Antiques! He’d have to get it looked at—or maybe time was playing tricks on him.
The best way for Jack to manage his energy had always been sleep. When that failed, bleeding into his journal was the next best thing. Observation was always good fodder for the pages—but tonight, someone was on his mind.
He wrote to the woman in seat 42. She had caught his attention while boarding the plane—something in her eyes that spoke of defiance, something an artist or poet could understand.
And that lavender bag of hers. Who traveled with periwinkle luggage? Clearly a dreamer. Probably an artist herself. Maybe a fellow storyteller.
The stewardess interrupted his reverie, handing him a postcard. On the front was a cartoon wolf sipping a cocktail on a veranda with the Eiffel Tower behind him. The block type read: Having a HOWLING good time!
On the back, someone had written:
hello from seat 42. I noticed you boarding the flight. Something in your eyes—and that journal, it looks like it's seen some distant shores. Just some thoughts to get us through this waffling layer of air:
Amazing day.
Refreshing.
Salty.
Rocky.
He heard her voice in his head, it was the clink of a glass lifted to no one in particular. Odds... the voice wass echoing something about odds... but it was too feint to capture.
His own internal monologue was a without stop. One day, Jack thought, it'll drown me.
In his journal, he wrote:
'Hello, seat 42. Flying high above the clouds?
Can you see the moon? It's full at 8:12 tonight local-ish time. Hard to tell what local is at 35k feet moving 542 mph. I've been working through meetings and invoices trying to reach someone, but I don't know who.''My sentences keep slipping skyward, I'm unable to keep them grounded. Maybe you're why?'
His writing was frantic-looking, the turbulence shaking the words across the page. How was her penmanship so immaculate?
Looking up, he noticed she had nodded off—the full moon sifting its pale blue light through the portal, making the skin of her arm glow and shimmer ivory. A blanket of blue was folded over her, and the Atlantic folded beneath, like a secret.
He sent a prayer full of blessing, wrapped in goodwill. We need more goodwill toward men, Jack thought.
With that thought, he noticed the corner of something poking from the seat-back pocket—something he had missed before. Tugging it free, he saw it was another postcard. The front showed a smiling woman in a green-and-blue bikini beneath a lavender-and-white umbrella; NICE was locked behind her in bold, elegant type. On the back, in that same perfect script:
Madrid will open like a book to you.
Balconies, courtyards, lovers in doorways.
Look for the moments between moments.
Stop on the street and close your eyes.
Listen.
When you sip at the cafe, keep your eyes peeled
An octopus serving drinks. She gives generous pours.
Step through the lunar portal when it dawns
and I will join you there until it sets.
The dance and the music will change you.
Be ready for that.
Don't fear the night, be lost in the rapture of it all.
The mysterious postcard’s appearance didn’t faze him in the least. He understood the exchange; the mechanics were irrelevant. He was tapped into the muse—that tenuous golden thread connecting two minds across time and space.
He kept writing, his pebbles of thought growing into boulders.
Her replies drifted back like grains of sand.
Jack was eager to draw out his sleeping pen-pal, desperate to witness her dreams in real time as they happened. Interpretation was the kindest form of flattery. Perhaps there would be epiphany—some proof of meaning.
The thread became a shoreline—
his paragraphs crashing and receding,
hers washing over him in warm waves.
Volumes poured between them as the deep, cold ocean fell in love with the universe, as she did every night, as she always would.
A soft boonnnng-booonnnng was followed by a scratchy voice announcing descent.
Jack was shocked—they had only just gotten aloft! But when he looked at the dial on his wrist, no longer flickering between then and now, he saw that more than eight hours had elapsed.
'Have coffee with me before we go? Just 10 minutes. Please, I must know you.'
He scrawled quickly. But when he glanced up to see if more postcards were forthcoming—if that glowing creature was aware of his epistolary affections—the seat was empty.
And it remained so until he deplaned.
The whole affair was at once the most beautiful and the most logical thing in his life—and also the most bewildering.
Jack hitched his bag onto his shoulder and did the sideways crab-walk planes required down the narrow aisle. As he approached the exit, the stewardess handed him one last postcard.
On one side was a smiling baguette with the text “I KNEAD you to have a great day!”
On the back:
Be the storybook love you dream about.
And tonight, forget about me and go have fun.
You are enough. You are seen. You are loved.
If you stare into space, You might not find answers.
But if you look to find a trace. There will be chances.
And if I could be who you wanted,
If I could be who you wanted all the time.
I’m not here,
This isn’t happening.
I'd be crazy not to follow
Follow where you lead
Your eyes
They turn me
Turn me into a phantom
I get eaten by the worms
And weird fishes
Picked over by the worms
And weird fishes
He pocketed the final postcard, unsure whether to treasure it or mail it to himself.
Outside, Madrid glowed—a lavender dawn on wet stone.
He felt lighter than air. The spectral visitor had left him just a little less alone and a lot more whole.
#story # journal #poetry #wyst #poetry #100daystooffset #writing #story #osxs #travel
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