It isn’t the going that gets me. I enjoy the going. It’s the waiting. The funneling. The sitting still. The being surrounded. If I were more susceptible I’d have panic attacks. As it is it’s simply annoying. Most things are these days.

If I can’t have the window I’m in a mood. Time does this, the nurturing of entitlements. I want it and I get it.

“Pardon me.” The man in the aisle steps out but the woman beside him—his wife—she picks her legs up and lets me pass. We discover that my shoulders prevent me from remaining entirely within my own seat.

“It seems to get worse every year.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” she says.

“You can cuddle up to me,” adds her husband as he returns to his seat.

“That’s an idea.”

We all buckle our seatbelts.

“Of course,” she says, “I’ll be cuddling up to you as well.”

“You’re right. It can’t be helped.”

We sit and wait when I start to get anxious. My hand clenches and unclenches. I glance to the left at the PULL TO LIFT sign.

“I’m glad you’re sitting there. I told her I can’t do this. I can’t open that if we fall in the ocean.” She shakes her head and her hands.

“That’s alright. I’ll rescue us.”

I reach for the emergency pamphlet and look over the passive faces of the characters in the panels. The panel about opening the emergency exit displays a white male with dark hair, and beside him a blonde woman. The white male becomes me. The blonde becomes older and her hair gets shorter. The plane suffers catastrophic engine failure. We don’t break apart but her husband dies. I remove the door and pull her out onto the wing of the plane. I assure her she’s safe. Everyone else is dying when I return, but they receive no assurances besides the certainty of their next breath of air. For them I do what I can.