I move across the floor, my heels tapping a quick beat. I try to look unflustered but I have a really bad feeling. Reaching the edge of the group, I turn to the nearest person.

“Have they closed the terminal?”

Just my luck, the person happens to be my neighbour from the plane, her child clinging to her trousers. She ignores me so I turn to the guy on my other side. It’s the man from the plane. I smile but he leans forward, straining to hear the quiet voice in front.

“There has been a situation…”

“What situation?” someone asks.

“The terminal has been evacuated.”

The guy with the soft voice has ignored the question. I look around. The silence and emptiness is getting to me, making my skin crawl. I keep feeling as though we are being watched.

“What about us?” another passenger asks.

I am starting to…

Gasping, my hammering heart slowly starts to beat normally. What the hell is going on? UnbendingI look back. The corridor that I ran down is very light, as if the plane were gone. Walking to the wall of windows I can’t see the plane. I can’t see any planes. There is just a vast expanse of tarmac. Normally I’d expect to see some movement, even if it were just people, but they are as absent as the plane.

I turn and I am on my own. Gate whatever is abandoned and the ever present tinned voice from the speakers is quiet. Maybe in the distance I can hear a child cry, but that is probably the family I was sitting next to. I have come out to find the gate abandoned, although there is normally someone from the airline around.

“Hello?”

My voice is too tentative.

“Hello?”

Louder but no…

“Ma’am,” a soft voice says. I am being gently shaken. Cracking open an eyelid I see that one of the flight attendants is leaning over me, a concerned frown on her face.

“Yes?”

“We have landed.”

I smile and then realise that the rest of the plane is quiet. There is no one else left.

“I am sorry,” I say.

“Not to worry. You were out for the count.”

I nod and stand straightening my grey pencil skirt. “It’s been a long couple of days.” I reach up and grab my bag and jacket. Ineffectually I run a hand down my blouse, but the dusty pink shirt looks like I slept in it. Which I have, but I do wish that I’d worn something that didn’t look quite so rumpled.

“What’s the time?” I ask.

The woman looks at me with a sort of blank expression. Then it is as…

“Are we there yet?”

I wince from the constant barrage of children’s screams and cries. I do understand that families have to go on holiday, but why do they insist on taking the red-eye plane? I’d even asked the woman next to me.

“Why the red-eye with kids?”

She had glared at me. “It’s cheaper.”

I had mumbled something and turned away. Since then she hadn’t even acknowledged my existence, despite the fact she sat next to me. No, actually that was wrong, a couple of elbows timed to stutter across my ribs suggested that she knew I was there, and she was choosing to remind me that in a few words I had been able to make her hate me. It’s a gift that I have and that I use without realising it. Honestly, I am an easy going woman who likes to get on with people. It’s just…