Half Way There

3 Pages 846 Words

Halfway There


People. Droves of them, hustling off to their appointed gates with

seventeen suitcases strapped to themselves like pack mules. All scowling, furrowing their

brows. Hoping to get to where they want to go, and with all seventeen suitcases they

came with. Me? I only had two bags, but one of them was large enough to be a body bag.

Beside me was my cousin, a tall 16-year old, the jock type, with broad shoulders and

pimple covered cheeks. He, of course, got stuck carrying my oversized bag. As we made

our way past the ticket counter the automatic doors whooshed open, nearly sweeping us

away in a blast of icy air. It was close to December in New York, which means one thing:

cold. The kind of cold that hurt the skin, just breathing made people cough. As we zigged

and zagged our way through the seething maze of bodies, we kept looking down at the

flight information in my hands.


“Gate B-17, I’m sure of it” I said, none too convincingly apparently, for he

kept reading aloud the gates and their destinations. We reached a fairly quiet section of

the airport, and all the sounds became subdued. It had the feel of a library to it: old,

peaceful, and undisturbed. “Is that our gate?” I asked. He looked up at the monitor and

said, “Flight 182 to Pittsburgh, I think that’s us.” We stepped up to the woman behind the

counter and handed her our tickets. She looked up at us, crows’ feet at the edges of her

eyes, soft blond hair, and slightly delicate hands, a very attractive middle-aged woman.

She had a soft voice, meek and unassuming. “Right this way please,” she said. We

followed her down the steep incline to the plane. The closer we got the louder the noise

became, threatening to deafen us. I could see the pilots huddled over the glowing panels

in the cockpit, pressing a button here, turning a knob there, and making me feel secur...