by Lawrence R. Dagstine

Brian Walsh lowered his head to peer out of the small window of the Jet Blue 737, his eyes attempting to pierce the vaporous clouds to see some sign of an approaching LaGuardia Airport. But there was nothing but pitch-darkness and he straightened again in his seat, his long legs jackknifed uncomfortably before him, his knees pressing against the back of the seat in front. Turning his head, the top of which almost grazed the signal buttons overhead, he regarded the man on his right who was reading a newspaper. The other passengers around him were all talking very loudly, raising their voices as if sheer volume would make him understand. Just now it was the man in the seat next to him, wanting to know if he felt ill. Before it had been the flight attendant, and before that the guard at Denver International who had directed him to his connecting flight.

It wasn't that he didn't understand them. He'd read their lips and understood the words being shouted at him; it was answering them properly that was difficult. Fatigue, confusion, sadness, terror-and a little something else-had robbed him of his natural voice at this late hour.

His journey had been a long one, begun at dawn in San Diego. And he still hadn't arrived at his destination. His soon-to-be ex-wife and children had come to the airport to see him off-a solemn party of four desperately trying to sustain the illusion of normalcy two weeks after he had been served with divorce papers. He might have been going off on a holiday, he might have been going off on business; it seemed more like a trip to stay with relatives.

Somewhere over the Midwest he had fallen into an exhausted sleep, but a sudden air pocket and some turbulence had brought him back to a terrified, trembling wakefulness that was not only strange but had persisted straight through to the East Coast. The despondent feelings that preceded this sleep had boarded the connecting flight with him, and now, as the plane prepared for its descent in thirty minutes, the weirdness of his surroundings threatened to overpower him.

"Your first trip to New York?" a flight attendant asked him, as she cleaned up the aisle and made her last rounds before touchdown. Brian nodded yes, but by this time she was no longer paying attention to him. After she left, he felt inside his jacket pocket and extracted a small object, looking at it with a benign smile. The object was a penknife, the tip of which was very thin but very sharp. Along its fine-edged surface was blood, staining the tip of the small but lethal writing utensil, and the single first name of his wife engraved along the ballpoint side of it: MARY. He clutched the top of the penknife hard in his hand, as if it were a valuable keepsake, while the pilot got on the speaker and told everyone to fasten their seatbelts.

"Are you all right? Are you feeling sick?" His seatmate was moving his lips in an exaggerated way, as if speaking to deaf ears. He was perhaps thirty-five, the man's size medium and average in every way, almost like him, only shorter, and he therefore fitted into his allotted space as neatly as a violin in its case. He was a businessman probably, judging by the fine brown suit and black suede shoes, and he knew he had meant to be kind.

"I'm fine," Brian motioned with his fingers, dragging the words out with a great effort. "Thank you."

Suddenly, a woman's voice sounded from somewhere around him at about the same time: "Yes, I'm fine," the voice said. "It's just that it feels like there's someone in my seat."

"Are you sure about that?" the gentleman asked curiously. "I don't see anyone."

"No, I'm fine, really," Brian said. But his seatmate threw him a freakish glance, as if there were some thing behind him. He turned around and looked out the window at the aircraft's wing. "What?"

There was nothing out there.

A woman's voice followed: "What do you see?"

Then Brian looked out at the wing again. "Dude, I don't mean to be rude, but you're really freaking me out. You remind me of William Shatner from that Twilight Zone episode. What do you see?"

The man rolled his eyes and went back to reading his paper.

Brian wasn't sure what he had done to alert the man-quivered visibly, grown pale, spoken a foreign language? He reacted to so many things now, things he might not have noticed a few hours ago when they were over the Midwest. The slightest unexpected contact, the slightest movement-people brushing against him in the crush of the aisle when going to the bathroom, the bump of a polyester carryon against his legs, the texture of the leather armrest-seemed a bizarre but dangerous assault to the senses. It had been a jolt from the back of his seat this time, nothing more than someone's tray table being slammed into place, but his reaction had been enough to once again alarm the man next to him.

He looked back at him now. "Are you sober, ma'am?" he asked Brian. "Or on some kind of medication? It's okay, I won't tell."

Brian dropped his lip in shock. "What did you say? Who the hell are you?"

And just like two minutes earlier, a woman's voice immediately followed: "What did you say? Who the hell are you?"

Brian was pissed. "Dude, first off I'm a fuckin' guy. Second, I ain't no drunkard nor am I a drug addict. Just because I have long hair doesn't make me a girl or some hippie bong smoker! You're lucky I don't cause a stink-"

"-and fetch the flight attendant!"

"Yes, yes, okay! I'm terribly sorry." The man seemed satisfied by the few words of reassurance and had returned to his newspaper, minding his own business.