Member-only story
To the Boy I Glimpsed at the Airport
I’ll never know your true story, but I wondered about you.
You were standing at the terminal for arrivals. It was chilly out, but you wore only a thin black sweater paired with dark jeans and scuffed sneakers. Your dark hair hung in your eyes, your head bent as your eyes scraped the pavement.
Normally, when guys look down nowadays, they have their phones close at hand. But there was no phone in sight with you. No Twitter, no Tinder, no last-minute text to see where your family — or maybe your Uber — was.
Your eyes closed before I could even think to know their color.
I thought of how lonely you looked as you stood there. You were a changeling left out in the cold, abandoned to fend for yourself in a world that would forget you.
I told myself I wouldn’t forget you.
But you were just a sight for two seconds as I passed you in a car.
How silly of me, to make a memento for a stranger like this.
Afterward, I likened you to a canvas: because I knew nothing but outward details, I could make of you what I wanted. You could populate my dreams with a different voice and expression and way of conversation every night. You’d be a shape-shifter never settling on one skin. You’d…
