Flights of Fancy

Going through security at the airport this redhead gets in line behind me. She’s noticeably attractive, and roughly my age. A side glance is all it takes to activate the Single Man’s hottie-dar. Bogey! Bogey! Sudden and exciting such bogeys are also familiar and forgettable. And horrible – horrible in the way sunshine is horrible. Our radar screen is clouded daily by blips and beeps, some deserving of more attention than others but each a primitive calculation of want, need, desire, ego and frivolous but urgent sexual aspiration.

Of the millions just a precious few come in for a landing. The control tower remains eternally vigilant, alert and over-worked but all too often the ground crew sits bored and idle. So goes the airport metaphor.

Anyway, I’m collecting my coat, bag and shoes from the bin. Her items roll through right behind me. I look up at her. She’s already looking at me.

We smile. Both of us. At each other.

A good, healthy, eyes-first-lips-second smile, the real kind of smile. I get a better look at her. She’s beautiful. Warm, brown eyes, smooth skin, radiant red hair. She's beautiful in every cliché way. She's beautiful as defined in the hungry minds of poets and artists and soldiers. She's beautiful in the way a hand is warm. She's beautiful in the way water reflects light. She's probably beautiful when she cries. The moment ends as such moments always do: too soon, nothing said. Awkward but utterly delightful.

I’m putting my shoes back on, as is she. We're sharing a squat. “You always gotta wear your good socks to the airport,” I say.

She laughs, genuinely. She actually found my lame-ish joke funny. “Yeah, I never thought of it that way. No holes in these.” More friendly laughter. Her smile is like candy.

We stand. More banter. It's fantastic.

Then I violate every worthwhile instinct in my body. I put my coat on, grab my bag and walk away.

Why? Why? Why? Why didn’t I chat her up a bit? Why? I’d already done the hard part, the ice breaking. There was at least enough there for further conversation. There was at least enough to say “Hi, where are you going?” Fuck! She was hot. She laughed. She seemed intelligent. Maybe I could have gotten her email or her number or maybe a date or two or maybe sex or maybe one of the versions of love people seem to settle for. Or maybe the kind of love we all deserve.

Or at least another one of those honey smiles. One more smile.

I paused at the bank of arrival/departure TV’s not far from the security checkpoint. I stood there, my best “relaxed” posture on display, gazing upon the rack of screens listing the comings and goings of the entire building, comprising the collective energies of the day's herd of Traveler Sapien. I vaguely remembered where I was or where I was heading but within my swarming head I obsessed over an entirely different purpose. I stood there in front of the those blue TV’s hoping she might do the same, thereby giving me another opportunity to say something.

Or maybe I’ll catch her heading for her gate, I surmised. Or maybe after I'm sitting at my gate she'll walk by and I'll summon boldness and hurry to intercept her, perhaps even on the moving walkway, I'll walk along while she stands upon the conveyor. In 50 years that will be our meeting story, how I chased like a fool after a flower. I'll get her attention, hold her gaze, say something charming, swim in her smile and drown in her laugh. Maybe she'll miraculously be on the same plane as me and she'll sit next to me and we'll converse about every wayward subject on Earth for the full four-and-a-half hours to California, ending with a hug and a promise to call. For her I was willing to shed a million extra heartbeats. At least.

But then she went off in a different direction. For a moment I pondered chasing after her, casually bumping back into her and making some confident comment about how I wouldn’t let her escape so easily or how I needed her email in order to board my flight or about how gorgeous she was and how I absolutely had to introduce myself and say hello. But no. I stood still and watched her disappear behind a wall. The opportunity was gone for good.

Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!

Reality reared its logical head. Settle boy, settle. All in all it was a minor moment. It was pedestrian, ordinary, quotidian, and she might have filed it away as such, forgetting the friendly chatter at the security gate as easily as the price of her pre-flight bottle of water. Stop obsessing you freak; you're on vacation!

But what if that wasn't the case? It was minor, yes, but what if it was minor the way a seed is minor? A life of great moments between two people is usually sparked by a small one. Each and every great love of the world started with a smile. Fire needs kindling.

All I had to do was take the slightest bit of initiative and I would have found out. Instead I walked. I stood. I watched. She went.

Loneliness is a choice, I guess.

Goddamnit.