You have fantasized about it for so long that when the beautiful man coming down the aisle of the plane lowers his frame to the seat beside you and begins a conversation, you hardly realize it's happening. You joke about the plane's tiny size and how spacious the emergency exit row is by comparison, how if the plane actually crashes there's little possibility that anyone will have the opportunity to open that heavy door anyway. And before you know it, he's showing you pictures on his phone of the dead shark on a beach in Rhode Island and you're talking about teaching and photography and being a teenager, and intimate details about each other's lives in the way that is really only possible with an open stranger. He's touching your arm while he tells you a story and you lean toward each other to hear over the whir of the plane's static motion. Then it's over and he's rushing to catch his connection and you're touched down in Atlanta looking for a place to eat, then sitting at a steel bartop near a bright window when your phone dings and you look down to find a message from him saying hello, he wanted to make sure you had his email.
And that, really, is all you need. For the world to feel open again. To possibility.
