Writing Prompt Nummer Drie
"You're taking a business trip and, as luck would have it, you're upgraded to first class—something you've never done before. As you sit down in your new, more comfortable chair, you notice that the person sitting next to you is a famous musician. Write this scene."
After an excruciatingly boring 3 hour layover, suffering the indignity of being the ONLY vertically endowed person on the flight, and being constantly hounded for assistance in stuffing over filled carryon bags into miniscule cubbies, I collapsed, exhausted, into my too-small seat. Completely fed up with the horrors of travel, I put my ear phones on, crank my mp3 player to the maximum volume, and settle in to knit an intricate lace patterned scarf; I did my best to project an aura of "Disturb me and I'll stab you with my dull-ass knitting needle" to the countless newlyweds and happy families heading for vacation around me. It Didn't Work. Just as I was getting to a particularly difficult part of the pattern I felt a
*tap tap tap* on my shoulder.
Marking my place in the pattern, I make a big production of shutting off my mp3 and turning to the perky flight attendant.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“Actually I think I can help you!” He says perkily, “How would you like to be upgraded to first class?”
I scowl dourly at him, “How much would that cost me.”
Sensing me inherent crankiness, his fake smile fades a bit, and he says “It’s free.”
I look around at the various knitting accoutrements I have spread out on my tray, “I don’t think so.”
Perky’s smile fads completely, trying to stay chipper he says, “Well, we are slightly over booked, and you appear to be the only one travelling by yourself, so…”
“Do it or you’ll be a horrible person for breaking up one of these nauseatingly happy families, is that what you mean? Fine,” I feel a tiny bit bad about interrupting him like that, but I was being inconvenienced!
So, I pack up my things, try (and fail) to pull out my carry on without having the six other bags crammed into the cubby fall on my head, and follow the now cranky flight attendant to my first class seat. I put my carry on in to the nearly empty cubby and again settle in to projecting my “DO NOT DISTURB” aura. I don’t even look up when someone sits down next to me, in my peripheral vision I can see large hands with big nobly knuckles and a skull ring, he’s dressed somewhere between a pirate and a hippy, but it works for him. God he seems familiar, it’s starting to bug me, but I am too stubborn to focus on him further, or pester him for information about himself. I REFUSE to become one of those annoying people that travel so much they have to bother every person they sit next to for their life story just to have some semblance of human connection.
So I continue to knit, and he pulls out a note pad and starts jotting things down, this goes on for a few hours with a break for lunch in between; we still say nothing to each other but he looks at me oddly and smiles a bit every time one of the many Rolling Stones songs I have comes up on my mp3 player, I worry vaguely that the noise is bothering him, but I figure he’ll say something if it is.
Finally, after what seems like forever, I feel a tap on my shoulder, I look at my seat mate and shut off my MP3 player half way through “Make no Mistake”, he’s grinning at me, and sayss in a delightfully growly voice with an English accent “We’re landing in a few minutes,” and I KNOW I know who he is but I just can’t place him. In my frustration I sit back, do up my seat belt, and settle in for the landing. I hate this part, I can picture, with alarming clarity, the plane missing the run way and crashing into the ocean with all of us perishing, it’s not pretty. So I squeeze my eyes shut and mutter prayers to every deity I can think of.
We land safely but I keep my eyes closed, trying to force my breathing and heart rate back to something approaching normal, when something drops into me lap, I look up surprised to see my seat mate walking away from me, he looks back as he steps off the plane and waves at me. I smile slightly at the odd man, and open the envelope he dropped in my lap. Three things fall out, a folded piece of note paper and what appears to be tickets, I open the note first, my heart stops completely as I read:
“We sound even better Live, come have a look.
-Keith Richards
P.S. That’s a lovely bit your knitting, reminds me of something my mum would make.”
Sure enough, the two tickets in my hand are for the club show in two days, and I wonder if I can finish the black scarf I’ve been working on in that amount of time, I had just met the perfect recipient.
**** DISCLAIMER ****
In case it wasn't obvious, this is a complete flight of fancy (get it? flight? hahah-heh), as if I could knit a lace scarf.
