The Girl on the Plane

The girl on the plane wasn’t exactly conventionally pretty, but that’s exactly what makes some people beautiful, right?

She was seated just in front of me, to my right. She had beads in her hair, and her skin was smooth and lightly tanned. She wore a multi-coloured scarf around her neck and a simple bracelet round one of her wrists. The only ring on her fingers was on the wedding finger, but it didn’t look quite delicate enough to be a real engagement ring.

I had caught her eye a couple of times, and we had exchanged smiles. I even thought I had caught her looking at me on more than one occasion. We didn’t speak, but continued to catch each other’s eyes, smile, then look away.

And when the flight was over, we smiled one last time at each other while disembarking. I saw her a few times while passing through immigration; at baggage claim, and when I had moved back upstairs to check-in for my connecting flight and saw her from above at one of the desks outside arrivals.

Even when waiting at my gate for the next flight, I hoped that any moment she would turn up at my gate, destined for the same place as me. Then perhaps we could have laughed and made some joke about following one another.

But it didn’t happen. And now I’m 200 miles away, and the chances of meeting this girl again are all but zero. Got to keep moving; got to keep hope. One day, one day…