I have two hours until my flight is supposed to depart. There’s not much to do in an airport but wait and ignore the people around you. You can read, listen, listen to music, sleep, eat, stare into space, but it’s all done with a few hundred people within throwing range. I’ve always enjoyed people watching at the airport. I give all of the interesting ones nicknames. I have a small obsession with naming things.

There’s Flower Girl across the aisle to the left. Who looks done up as if she is entering a pageant. Except she is also wearing ill fitting jeans and crappy running shoes. I judge people by their shoe choices. She looks bored as she twists some reddish brown hair around one of her stumpy fingers and chews on her gum like a cow chews on grass. She got her name from the huge red flower stuck on the side of her head.

Then there are the three Stoic Starers. Three people sitting in three chairs, creating a small wall of hopelessness and lack of emotion. The two men and one woman all sat in their seats at different times over the last hour, so they aren’t together. But the sheer emptiness of their gazes as their planes become more and more delayed will link them forever.

Next is the TDH: Tall Dark and Handsome. This one was nodding off for a while, so he decided to stand against a wall. Usually I would be impressed with this decision, but now I’m not so sure. It’s a busy day and empty seats are hard to come by. That means that the tall, tan skinned, blue eyed beauty of a man is now stuck with his fate of a numb ass from sitting on the floor, because his seat was quickly taken over by a large woman in a moo-moo covered with daisies. It doesn’t look like she is leaving any time soon.

Oh god, I just made eye contact with one of the stoic starers. I think she saw into my soul.

©C. O’Connor, 2016