A Collection of Stories

Waiting on Maggie

      Maggie always thought planes were disgusting. She watched as a new mother shooshed a screaming new born, laying him down on the cracked worn leather seats.
     There were still used tissues from the previous seat's occupier right next to his little head.
     "Maggie where's the backpack?" Maggie dramatically sighed, rolling her eyes she turned towards Max- whose face was wide in panic and disbelief- "relax numnuts, I have everything." And she turned back around, studying the hairs on the baby boy's head.
     "It's five-thirty Mags, we need to take our medicine," the way Max had said it sounded kind, as he always was, but she knew he left no room for disagreement. Still she replied, "just one more minute Maxy, I want to feel normal for one more minute."
     He brought a hand to his forehead, all of Maggie's constant rambling about being normal, 'feel this' or 'feel that' were giving him stress lines.
     He set the timer on his watch for sixty seconds anyways.
     Beside him, Maggie had started to hum. He knew the song, it's the institute's anthem, but he hated it. It reminded him of pins in his arm, and IVs in his veins: countless shots and pointless surgeries. So he blocked out the noise and focused on getting their supplements together. Waiting for the watch. Waiting for Maggie.
     Blue pills, pink powder, yellow chewy tabs, white oval small ones, and red stripped capsules twice bigger than his thumb. He checked the email: double dose for Maggie, triple for him.

    Maggie felt Max stiffen beside him; she turned around and studied his face. She took in his slightly widened eyes, parted lips, and cocked eyebrows. After deciding he was scared, she took the phone from his hands and read the screen.

    A very masculine grunt lazily pushed passed her lips.
"Bitches." She very bluntly spit, with another unusual rugged noise, she hefted up Max's log of an arm and grabbed the two water bottles in his lap.

     "Don't worry Maxy, it'll be over before we know it," and she took his wrist and set the watch for forty five minutes. Deciding not to wait the last fifteen seconds.

     Maggie began mixing the pink powder into the water, an acutely misleading sugary smell wafted up from the packet.
   This seemed to wake up Max.

     "If only that shit tasted like it smelled," his voice came out surprisingly throaty.

    "Ditto," Maggie's signature attitude had returned. She held up a peace sign and gathered all her sixteen pills inside her palm.

Turbulence had let the tablets dance around; allowing her nerves to dance around with them.

     "Have I gone mad, sir?"
Maggie unstrapped to turn towards Max. A convincing British accent covering her standard American lisp.

     He gave her a clever grin, "I am afraid so. You seem to have gone entirely bonkers!" Max recited back with an equally conceivable manner of speech.

     "But I'll tell you a secret," Maggie rushed to beat him to her favorite line.

     "All the best people are," Max finished before Maggie could.

She paused, only to shoot him a dangerous glare.
    "Well then," she huffed and turned around straight, "down the rabbit hole."

     Max watched as she swallowed all sixteen capsules.

Let the hell begin, he thought. Just as he swallowed his own twenty-four.

*************

"Please remain seated, I repeat, remain seated."

The plane shook, not from turbulence but from the shock of an angry Max's fists.
The lights flickered as Maggie sent a cart of refreshments airborne, smashing someone- or something- she couldn't care less.