by KT Thompson

When the airplane crashed in the meadow, I was on a walk to look for birds. My torso a crosshatch of straps: binoculars, camera, sling with water and treats for my dog, the leash.

by Mae Bennett

I concealed some shame for a very long time for not having left America in my first twenty-two years. (Champagne problems, I know.) When my friends began to study abroad sophomore and junior years,…

by Barrie Cole

I was on a plane once a long time ago, and the woman sitting next to me had never been on a plane before. She was young, perhaps nineteen or so, and she explained…

by Pavle Radonic

For a fellow who had missed FOUR internat. flights, 2 ½ hrs early by the gate was A-OK. At the boutiques along the corridors the ice-cold starlets had loomed with bags & watches, calling…

by Pavle Radonic

Touch over 35mins on clear, open freeways in Jakarta on a Saturday; as soon as we cleared Thamrin City it was a breeze. As a consequence there would be a 4 hour wait at…

by Yvonne Osborne

He was slim and well-dressed with a nice haircut, not too short, not too long. He wore a black tailored jacket and well-made jeans. His black leather shoes showed no sign of the slush…

by Peter Bracking

I am a space-race child. I was an Elroy. From a very young age I was aware of the sky. The television and radio were filled with spacecraft and astronauts seeking unknown planets. I…

by Stefani Cox

One look at the situation and I knew I could outsmart TSA. The body scanner stood in the middle of the room like the rude intruder at a party who everyone wants to pretend…

by Fredric Stanley

I had been standing in the departure area, leaning against a column right in front of the boarding gate, when I noticed my flight's status change on the screen. At first it just said…

by Cody Acosta

Every time I step foot onto an airplane, I order a ginger-ale. It has become a sort of ritual of air travel for me; thinking about the peculiar difference between ginger-ale and 7 Up…

by May Todd

Since I was a child, my parents have told me that I bloom where I am planted. This first referred to my habits as I learned to walk, but the phrase still applies. When…

by Laurie Stone

The girl’s navel winks below her halter top, and her dimpled ass swells above her terry shorts. Her perfection forecasts its falling off and is marked, too, by her innocence this will happen. Her…

by Alex Pruteanu

I flew to Washington DC from Fort Lauderdale one week after 9/11. The country was still gripped by fear or perceived fear or government-manufactured fear or...simple madness. People in the thousands were assaulting their

by Kelly Bergin

The first hour is anxiety. The pot she smoked in short-term parking is wearing off and the panic becomes physical when she realizes that her medicine is packed in cargo, somewhere below her seat.…

by Vincent Eaton

“Over there is your airplane, sir.” The Munich airport employee had checked my one-way ticket to Rome, then gestured to the bright tarmac of that reflected a bright winter day. There, over a ways…

by Roxane Gay

When I was a child, the people who smoked at the back of the airplane were so sophisticated. They sat in the last four or five or six rows, lounging in a gray cloud…

by Emily Farranto

I used to pass time at the airport. This was before heightened security when you could go unticketed, luggageless and sit in the airport bar or by the big windows and watch the planes…