Bon Voyage ✈️

Short Stories about Shame, Sex, Presence & Desire

He looked through all of her profile pictures while grasping his Adam’s apple stopping seconds longer on a photo of her and a man. Her platinum hair and dark filled in eyebrows fill every frame from photos taken from above.

He typed her name into messenger and then deleted it and moved onto a different app.

When the flight attendant prompted his seatbelt he nearly threw his phone to the floor from anxiety of being caught on his explore page. He is caught up in a fantasy and rejects reminders of his reality. That he is alone.

His jaw chews unconsciously as he zooms in on the photo of her holding a fish with her new partner - she looks happy. He has to see who could make her so happy.

She kept switching between apps to check her notifications, even though she was on airplane mode. Her worthiness was literally up in the air without confirmation for the hour long flight. She kept opening Snapchat to check her reflection.

She needs to make sure she still exists, that she will still be loved.

Her boyfriends’ Snapchat had hearts beside his name - she followed his profile to look at his photo. As we approached our destination, she opened his Snapchat to check his location. She did this every 3 minutes until we landed.

He was beside me and turned off airplane mode as fast as he could. He turned his screen slightly towards his chest but the bright screen was still clear as day. Being unconscious during the flight was the only way to allay the pain of being alone with himself.

He sent “I can’t wait to see you” messages three times. I got the impression none of the people he was messaging knew of the Others - he, like so many of us, simply want to be wanted. Being desired is the most fulfilled we are.

Then he sent 🍆 🍑. I wonder how the recipient feels with these two emojis? Are they excited? Pressured? Engaged? Uncertain? I wonder how he felt sending them.

Another message came in but he didn’t read it.

And our plane landed.