Life Unbothered
Page 21
The flight to San Diego was solely to achieve a mountainous goal. Sophia gave me her life to get me to the airport—that was the simplified core reality. Yet despite all of society’s pretensions to human exceptionalism—mind over matter and the innocent arrangement of cells before our beings enter the world—Sophia and I were ultimately a casualty of the random fraudulent nature of genes. Hers aligned to premature disease that took her life without recourse. Mine was manufactured through signals crossed in the intricate flash firings of the human mind. But no matter the outcome, I would have gladly stayed grounded the rest of my life to avoid losing her. Being at the airport was one of the many gifts Sophia gave me. Besides her love, her presence left me with the greatest accomplishment of all—a peaceful mind, life unbothered.
I mentally summarized the past ten months, from the break-up with Pamela to Sophia’s death. I recalled with astonishment all the events that had occurred, like it was an out-of-body experience, a hyper-timeline delusion I was reliving. The memories whizzed by as I recounted them, but the sorrow of Sophia’s death jabbed my body with oscillating pinpricks. I moved to the tall windows in the terminal and looked at the Boeing 737, the plane I was about to board. It was shining back at me without judgment or emotion—I was just another piece of human cargo going for a short flight.
“Festival Airways flight one-o-nine with destination to San Diego is now boarding at gate seven.”
The announcement from the intercom created a subtle pang in my stomach, making my body squirm ever so slightly. I hesitated getting in line for a few minutes for no other reason than to conduct a personal assessment of how I felt. After the short deliberation, I determined that despite my predisposed trepidation, there was actually an eerie calm inside of me. My brain registered danger and attempted to prick my nerves, but there was not enough reaction to make me panic. Shrugging my shoulders, I got in line to board the plane.
I forced out a smile, handed my boarding pass to the woman at the gate and proceeded to creep through the brown double doors into the walkway. I kept my momentum going forward, getting sucked into the line of people passing through the cramped door of the plane before I could bolt back into the airport. I filed in, just as a normal person would.
My eyes rolled around the cabin as I shuffled down the aisle. Although I was exhausted and in a walking state of emotional concussion, I couldn’t help but realize this was the clearest mental state I had ever experienced while on a commercial jet since I was a wondrous child. My inhalations brought in thick air, but I could breathe; panic didn’t inhibit my respiratory system as it had countless times in the past.
I squeezed by an elderly man with a bulky carry-on and proceeded down the aisle. When I stopped in front of row twenty, I noticed a beautiful thirty-something woman sitting in the window seat. She beamed a perfect white courtesy smile directed at me. The instantaneous desire to curl up next to her and stroke her lengthy light brown hair consumed me as I settled into the aisle seat. I smiled back at her before turning my head forward and staring ahead at the upright tray table. I suddenly felt guilty. Then I felt selfish … then depressed. Then to top it off, a panic attack rattled up my torso.
“Hi, I’m Donna,” the woman said as she leaned her ample-breasted upper body over the empty middle seat.
I slowly turned my head, noticing her flawless teeth and naturally plump lips. My inherent desire and weakness for relief, which used to incite sexual anticipation, turned to aloofness while I stared at Donna for a moment as anxiety rattled my gut. My subconscious knew she was just being friendly, but I took it as a sensitive affront to my weakness.
“Look,” I said, “you are gorgeous, and I would really like to talk to you, get to know you. I’d even like to get naked with you and kiss you from head to toe.” I gulped some air into my lungs as the sentence was hard to complete. “But the only woman I ever loved died a few hours ago and I’m just too tired to even look at you.”
Donna’s smile vanished. Her luminous green eyes fired anger back my way. She withdrew her leaning body to her seat and looked out the airplane window.
Dizziness engulfed me as I prepared to jump out of my seat and run down the aisle. My body stiffened in bewildered apprehension as past troubles came rushing back within me. Like intentionally taking the legs away from the dancer, or muscle memory away from the athlete, learned ability was hard to reverse. Overturning a natural aptitude for something was even tougher. Now that Sophia was gone, I worried if my innate predisposal to panic would immediately fill the void of carcinogenic crisis and love lost.
As I was going to get up and escape the plane before the door closed, my left hand dropped off the aisle armrest and fell on top of a soft raised section of my pants pocket. The lump surprised me until I reached into my left pocket and felt a bundle of soft worn fabric in my hand. I clutched the fabric tightly, knowing that Sophia was still there to help me, comfort me, even after her passing.
I pulled Sophia’s red bandana out of my pocket and studied it, unfolded it, and proceeded to wrap it around my eyes. I tied a knot in the back to secure it around my head. As the door closed and the plane started its taxi to the runway, I imagined passengers staring at the silent man wearing a tattered red bandana blindfold. I nudged my head deep into the seat back. A grin crept on my face. Unnatural aptitude had emerged.
About The Author
Charlie Elliott is the author of the novel Life Unbothered. He grew up in the South Bay area of Los Angeles and attended the University of Arizona where he received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a degree in Marketing. As the founder of successful online business portals such as bison.com, Charlie is best known as an entrepreneur and businessperson, but his passion has always been writing.
Life Unbothered was twice named a Finalist in the 2007 and 2009 William Faulkner - William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition (2007 was under the title The Random Fraudulent Nature of Genes). In addition, an adapted passage converted to a short story received an Honorable Mention in the Writer’s Digest Writing Competition.
Charlie resides in Lafayette, Louisiana and Idaho. Visit www.lifeunbothered.com or follow the book on Twitter @Life_Unbothered and Like on Facebook