Extra Human

4: Flight

Even though it is nightfall, the Charles de Gaulle airport is jam packed with people being dropped off and picked up. People are moving so fast to catch their plane or a taxi that all I see is a whirlwind of colors. A rush of air moves across me as they pass by. After I have enough with people cursing at me in French to get out of the way, I head over to the customer service desk to see the flight schedules to Philadelphia.

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle. Pouvez-vous parler français?" Faded red hair and yellow stained teeth greet me with no smile touching the woman's face. The lady looks like she never smiled in her life. There are no creases in her face that suggests otherwise. 

"Oui. But I would prefer English, si-vous-plait," I respond to the receptionist.

The forever-unhappy lady gives me a slight frown. On her navy jacket, a name tag reads Chantel. Chantel is peeved at me for making her use her brain for once in her life to do some basic translation. A scornful emotion fills her thoughts. That's not a good sign since I need to get an emergency ticket out of here.

"I need an emergency flight to the United States, preferably to Philadelphia. See, my mother and father just died. They were in a car accident and I need to get back to say goodbye to them," I lie. It's only half a lie. My parents did die, but they didn't die in a car accident. It was something much worse, but Chantel doesn't need to be bored with minor details. The receptionist is unamused by my plea. It seems a lot of people use that excuse.

"Oh how sad," she says with fake pity in her voice. "I am sorry, but our only flight out of here to Philadelphia boards in one hour and there are no seats left on the plane." It gives the woman great pleasure to give me the bad news, I can see in her mind. This is going to be a lot more difficult than I thought. 

The computer that the woman is checking is slightly facing me. I can read the words and numbers saying that the plane is filled to capacity. The woman isn't lying after all. An idea pops into my head. I never tried it before, so I don't know if it will work.

"Can you please check again, genre femme?" I plead opening my eyes wide like I'm a lost child. Without hesitation, the receptionist gladly turns her head to the computer to check again. With a flicker of my curse, I rearrange the black pixels under the number of seats to say 79 instead of 80. It's more difficult than I thought because the pixels are so small. I have to focus hard on them to move them around. Then, I change the number of seats available to one.

"Quoi? That is not possible! Just a second ago..." Chantel trails off in confusion. I take that as my special curse came through.

"What is it?" I egg Chantel on to tell me what I want to hear.

"It seems...um...your boarding pass is printing as we speak and I have charged your credit card. Make sure to have your passport out and ready. Thank you for visiting Paris, France and have a safe trip home. Au revior," Chantel says like a mechanical robot. She shoves the ticket at me like it's vexed as she is tries to get me to leave quickly.  I grab for the ticket and put it in my purse with my passport. With my plans suddenly changing, at least one thing came through for me tonight.

Terminal 2E is just around the corner from the security check I'm currently going through. It's 11:20pm and I have half an hour until the plane leaves. I keep a watch through one of the flight attendants at my gate calling people's seats.

The security guard doing the checks waves me down to step through the metal detector. I step forward taking my shoes off quickly and placing them with my purse in the bins to get scanned. I walk up to the detector waiting for the go ahead to step through.

Once the security guard nods his head, I step into the chamber. I hold my breath, remembering how nervous I get while going through one of these things. It's one of my childhood fears to get caught with something that isn't mine. The green light that is supposed to pop up by now remains dark. Of all the things to stop me now does it have to be a plastic box? I've come so far, something so simple can't stop me now.