By Krista McJarrow Keller, aged 19

He is magnificent in recline

The curves of his rounded stomach

glow softly in the blue light of the airplane monitor he left on.

The man spread of his knee holds up my tray table

The entirety of two armrests are swallowed by his chunkyness

When he turns to his side the light of the cabin is blocked and

I am trapped in a dark cage of a window seat surrounded by four walls.

The giant, black-clothed panda of seat 33G

rules over the cabin in tyranny.

smelling faintly of cigarettes and poor hygiene habits -

His crown is a sadly bleached platinum-blonde

And it’s velvet, a half centimeter of black regrowth.

 

The sound that emits from his gaping mouth is astonishing

It has cadence

It moves like a sumo wrester ballet,

 a slow gurgle of air pushing through a throat of congealed saliva.

Then, a teasing moment of uncomfortably heavy breathing,

the cabin fills with the hope that this might be the only penance we suffer for the next 9 hours.

But they were fools to think that was the end -

To a gasping, loud crescendo of a clapping snore he turns,

Finally, remaining in the exact same bodily position,

His grand finale - a gargling of an eternal spring of mucus

existing somewhere in the mouth of this slumbering beast,

extending into the void of a sleepless airplane carriage.

To begin all over again.

 

Sometimes he snores so violently he wakes himself up

But then quickly settles back into the cycle,

 

Of the never ending

Sleep depriving

Murder inducing

Snore