Gate 14B
Waiting to board with a phobia of flying
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Boarding starts in forty minutes. I know this because I have checked the departures board eleven times in the last half hour. Forty minutes is both a very long time and also clearly not long enough to develop a brand new, healthy attitude towards flying.
I find a seat at the gate and try to look like a normal person who flies on aeroplanes all the time and feels absolutely fine about it.
The man directly opposite me is asleep. Asleep. At an airport gate. His mouth is slightly open and he is having what appears to be a completely restful experience. I stare at him with something between admiration and deep suspicion. How? Who are you? What is your secret?
The woman next to him is knitting. Knitting. With small green needles and a ball of orange wool that keeps trying to escape under the chair. She is very calm. She looks like someone who has decided that the universe is basically fine.
Meanwhile, inside my head: a comprehensive review of every piece of aviation news I have ever accidentally read. I do not mean to collect this information. It simply arrives. My brain is helpfully storing it for moments exactly like this one.
The intercom crackles. I grip the armrest.
It is an announcement about a delayed flight to Amsterdam. Not my flight. My hands unclench slowly.
A child near the window is pressing their face flat against the glass to watch the planes on the runway. They find this wonderful. They are perhaps five years old and have no fear of anything. I feel briefly jealous of a five-year-old.
A flight attendant walks past, pulling a small wheeled bag, chatting to a colleague, laughing at something. She does this every day. Every single day she gets on an aeroplane and then gets off again and nothing happens. I know this. I know it statistically, logically, completely.
Boarding begins. I stand up. I join the queue. I breathe.
The knitting woman folds her work away very neatly and walks past me. 'First time?' she says, not unkindly.
'Thirty-seventh,' I say.
She smiles. 'It gets easier.'
It has not gotten easier. But I walk down the jetway anyway.