When Time Ran Crooked

92 hours, 7 minutes, and 24 seconds Until

        The second I saw it, I knew that this was the place that I was going to die.

        Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. And, sure, maybe it's my fault for arriving at the airport an hour after I should've arrived to catch my flight. But, I mean, there's nothing wrong with wanting to stop for coffee (even if it's your fourth cup that morning), or going to pick up shaving cream at the grocery store because you don't have any even though you don't shave your legs in the winter and you aren't allowed to bring that sort of stuff on airplanes. It wasn't like I was trying to miss my flight.

        Maybe I should just drive ther-

        I shook my head, removing the thought. I hadn't invested the money and the time to find myself the perfect window seat, with just the right amount of leg room, just to chicken out at the last second. I was going to do this. I was going to get on that plane and have the time of my life if it was the last thing I did.

        Oh, man, I shouldn't have said (thought, whatever) that.

        Driving eighteen hours really isn't that bad, right?

        No answer reached my mind before, suddenly, I was spinning like a merry-go-around, circling my luggage again and again like one of those fucking pastel horses. And the next thing I knew, I was tasting day-old gum and rubber on my tongue, rubbing my jaw from the place it snapped against the ground, feeling the cool air on my toes and knowing that my faithless Birkenstocks had fallen off my feet. I glanced up just in time to see him

        Okay, maybe just in time was a bit of an exaggeration, considering the figure was stumbling through the crowd and knocking others down just as easily as he/she (I don't gender stereotype, thank you very much) had done with me. An annoyed murmur of complaints arouse from that general direction, and I could hear his (assuming by the voice) exasperated responses "out of my way" and "my plane was here first" like the chorus of a song with a bad remix. Yet he never stopped to give a proper apology and continued to shove his way to the front of the line.

        As I looked at him, I tried to remember what my therapist said about what to do when I was angry- something about counting down from ten. Ten-

        Oh, screw it, we all knew that guy wasn't going anywhere until I had given him a piece of my mind. I wished I could say that I felt this way because no one should treat others like that and expect to get away with it blah, blah, blah, but the truth of the matter was that no one could treat me like that and expect to come out of it with their genitals intact.

        I was back on my feet faster than I had time to think or the line (which, in all honesty, was never really a line but a crowd surrounding the desk) had to reform.

        He stood at the front of the line now, before the attendant at the check-in desk and next to a man who looked like he had been trying to check in myself. Based off the expressions on their faces, they were beyond annoyed.

        The guy who had pushed me over was speaking in a warbled tangent. Honestly, he could probably speak faster than Usain Bolt could run. "-I have to get through check-in now. My flight to New York is going to leave without me and then I'll be stranded here and my family will be angry and if they're angry at me than I'll feel guilty and I'll spend Christmas alone and I'll be sad and did you know that suicide rates are the highest during this holiday season? It's because people are alone and so they can't sad and they kill themselves and what if that becomes me and wh-"

        "Look, that's all very nice, sir," the attendant interrupted in a hiss. "But the fact of the matter is that there is a line that you just can't skip. If you needed to get through so badly, you should've arrived on time."