Airplanes

Working in an airport you see thousands of people every day, business people, families, vacationers, and random stragglers just going one place to another. After some time, you find yourself making up stories for the people who come through the airport but there is one woman that I can’t figure out.

She’s there every day, watching the planes come and go, never boarding, sitting from sun up to sun down every day, through sunny days and snow storms. It almost seems like she’s waiting on someone. At first I was suspicious and talked to my supervisors but they reviewed the video footage and determined she wasn’t a threat.

She wasn’t watching employees, or certain patrons. She would just sit and watch the planes come and go.

As I was doing my normal rounds I saw she was standing next to her normal spot in tears, irrationally yelling at the person sitting in “her spot.”

“YOU HAVE TO MOVE. YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” she yelled at him.

I walked over to the man and woman and asked what was going on.

The woman turned to me and yelled “HE HAS TO MOVE. I HAVE TO SIT THERE! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, IF I DON’T…”

“M’am there is a seat right over there,” I said as I pointed to the padded bench next to the one where we were standing.

“I…HAVE…TO….SIT….THERE!” She screamed between sobs.

I look at the guy sitting on the bench as he starts shifting his weight around.

“I was just sitting here waiting for my grandson to come home from vacation, I didn’t know it was reserved or anything,” the man said to me.

“This isn’t a reserved spot, this woman comes every day, sitting in the same spot and watches the planes come and go. We don’t know why but,” I started saying.

The woman looks out the window and said, “Oh no, it’s starting…”