l a p s e

the gray

The waiting room at the gate wasn't comfortable. Not in the least. I remember that's what I was thinking as I sat in the cold metal chairs and looked around for something that wasn't gray. The light above my head flickered, and I watched two moths court each other in mindless circles below it.

Nobody in the room was even vaguely interesting. They looked like normal people on a normal day, because that's what they were. And it was a normal day, no matter what I try to tell myself. It's strange to think that for some people their last day is just like any other.

It was a normal day for me, too, until it wasn't. Then it was the day my life changed. At the time, I thought the restlessness in me was because in less than twenty-four hours I would be onstage. Dancing in front of the largest crowd I'd have seen in my life. Blinded by stage lights.

Right then, in that uncomfortable waiting room, I already was.

Blind to what was to come. Blind when my father called and told me he'd seen the forecast for that night, told me to come back home. No, I argued. I need to do this. I was one step closer to the future I always dreamed for myself. I wouldn't even consider throwing that out on an irrational fear.

It was then, sulking from the argument with my father, that I saw you. You weren't anything interesting either, really, but you stuck out like a sore thumb, like none of the others had. You wore a blue hoodie; or was it green? I don't remember. When I saw you later on the plane, you wore a gray shirt. You were ordinary, one of those normal people living out their normal lives.

But I watched you, when you came into the waiting room. I watched you when you sat down with your dad and a girl who had the same black hair and black eyes. All the same; perfectly identifiable as a normal family. But you stood out.

I didn't know why. I still don't.

I only drew my eyes away when they called us to board, but when I got in line, seven bodies – I say bodies, because in two hours, that's all they would be, bodies inside the burning metal wreck – away from you, I was watching you again. And this time, you turned around to watch me - something I felt uncomfortable with, because usually, when people watch me, I can't see them. I'm blinded by stage lights.

There were no stage lights in the waiting room. There was only a flickering tube light above the doors, obviously at the end of its lifetime. That was another sign that I missed – that goddamn flickering tube light above our heads.

It's probably dead now, like my mother and everyone else.

After we got onto the plane and settled in, I saw the you jog back to the exit. I felt the light thumps of your feet in the fuzzy surface of my seat. You came back with your bag only minutes before the plane rumbled into takeoff. It was a black duffel that was as plain as the rest of you. You'd probably left it in that gray waiting room. You walked back to your seat, and that was the last I saw of you for a while.

Until we went down, that is.