Johnny stepped off the plane and breathed that sweet Burbank smog. He took a big whiff, just filling his nostrils. A loud, long exhale, poooooooof. “Finally back home,” as he shuffled along with his rolling suitcase. He’d been chatting with some woman in a plane about some such nonsense. His job or something. Making bullshit speak just to pass the time, and make a pass at her. She was this real leggy blonde, a beaut from San Francisco catching a connecting flight in Chicago. She wasn’t lipstick lovely, more of a ponytail pretty, soft eyes and small lips. She wrote in a journal, which had immediately aroused his curiosity.

“You’re a writer?”

“Ha. Never. I like to read though. You?”

“Well. No. I mean, I write sometimes. Poems, back when I was in school I guess.”

“Yea. I like poems, they really make you think. Little puzzles. Poem puzzles!” And she thought this was hilarious. Well, hilarious would have been an overstatement. “Why do you ask?”

“I just saw you writing there and it made me wonder. I’m observant I guess.”

She sat back in her chair and shut her book. “You’re not reading over my shoulder are you?” It was hard to judge whether her eyes were serious.

“I- no.. No never. How could you accuse me of such a thing?” Johnny looked her in the eyes and ran his fingers through his hair until he got to the top of his dome where he scratched his head with his finger tips. A stewardess came by and dropped off a drink. She had reddish brown hair, and blue eyes.

“Here’s your coke.” She smiled at him and handed Johnny’s neighbor a plastic cup filled with ice water. Johnny nodded to the stewardess and snapped the top of his coke can.

“It’s my journal. I’ve kept one since I was five. This is my 37th journal.” She placed her hand on the cover and tapped her fingers over the leather. “I write about things I see, or put newspaper clippings in. Some times I just put pictures in there. And I travel a lot too, so that helps.”

“I don’t like to fly. It’s one of those uncomfortable necessities of life.” Johnny scrunched his toes together inside his shoes. “You can’t just get up and walk around. Going to the restroom doesn’t even feel right. Plus, what if this thing goes down? I’ll just suck down oxygen with the rest of these people until we crash.”

“You’re a real optimist. I bet you are fascinating at parties.” She smiled at this and Johnny snickered.

“Sure. I wouldn’t know. I’m often too busy being the drunken asshole in the corner.” He tried this out on her and waited for a response.

Her eyes widened and she sank back into her chair, but the change of expression lasted not even a second. “You sound like my husband.” Johnny cringed and hoped she didn’t see it. “He was one of those guys, a lot like you I’m sure. A real dickhead at parties. The kind of guy that downs a twelve pack, jumps in the pool, flirts with every woman he sees and drinks another twelve pack. When I first met him I thought he was disgusting.”

Johnny cracked one finger, and grinned. He shifted his gaze out the window and watched the landscape below. “The thing I hate most about a plane is the sound. You hear those engines, that high pitched whine of theirs. I wonder how people do flights to China from here, or any other country for that matter. 16 hour flights with that as my white noise?”
“Yea, but then you figure that it becomes white noise after a while. If you’re tired enough, you’ll sleep through an avalanche.” She glanced into the aisle and sipped at her water.


One night, Johnny lay awake in an apartment he rented with a not-friend, sleeping with a curvy woman pressed against him. He ran his fingers through her orange blonde hair and rubbed her head.

Outside a motor revved, tires screeched and seven shots were fired. They left a loud lingering warped echo. Another seven shots, more tires screeching. Sirens far off, and people screaming. It sounded like it was happening just outside of Johnny’s window.
He nudged his leg with his toe and cleared his throat. He shut his eyes and tried to sleep, but the tires kept him awake.