I’ve been waiting on this airplane four hours now, only 54 minutes until landing. A window to my right, a ten year old girl to my left, an empty seat between the two of us. I have watched two movies, one tv show and spent a considerable amount of time getting to know this young child who I am afraid, against all my beliefs, should be put on riddlin. Every ten minutes, for the last five hours, she has given me an update on how much time we have left. Headphones on, she waves a picture in front of the small tv screen,
“Four hours and ten minutes left, oh and I made this for you!” she says.
Ten year old girl grabs my sister’s IPOD, which I have borrowed and said sister has guaranteed I will lose it before the trip is over.
“Can I look through your music?”
“I’m sorry what?” I ask, pulling headphones, yet again, down around my neck.
“Can I look through your music?” she repeats.
“Okay sure, you can look, but there is nothing in here you can listen too.”
I know all too well the music my sister and her fiancée have on their IPOD, so I hesitantly watch as she flips through all the artists.
“Circle Jerks! No Use For A Name! Keisha, Oh I know Keisha! Can I listen to this song??”
As the blush from ‘circle jerks’ leaves my face I say “Sure, but we are landing soon, so only this one song and then I have to take it back.”
My headphones are already on her ears before I give her this warning. I have never met a child like her before. She is more hyper then the friends of mine addicted to Adderol yet somehow she has more insight then 75% of the people I know.
Right after our plane almost crashes due to turbulence she lookes at me and asks if I believe in God. Somehow more ashamed facing her then facing a group of Mormans who come to my house asking to preach to me, I quietly say no.
“Oh, well do you go to Church?”
The twang in her voice comes out full force when she asks me this question, the pleading in her eyes intensifies by ten.
“No,” I reply, and shift my eyes to the movie playing silently in front of me.
“Oh well, that’s okay, everyone has their own beliefs.”
Forty-one minutes left, ten year old girl informs me. Almost time to put up my laptop up, and she hands me my IPOD. We wait for our final descent, in silence.
“Thirty five more minutes,” my palms grip the drawing she just handed to me and my mind imagines a world where I have faith in a God I don’t believe in. My ears pop and simultaneously we yawn to pop our ears. The flight attendant walks by me and gestures that I should my put IPOD up, I point to the black screen and say “It’s off.”
This was a lie, I am still listening to this song. For some reason I cannot turn it off, I feel as though I have been waiting to hear this song for over a year. Turning off this song, well it would be like switching off something inside of me I haven’t seen or felt in over a year.
You see, this song, it makes me feel good to hear. It makes me feel good to know that someone else out there knows how it feels, well to be me. But you know what makes me feel even better then any of that, is that I have been waiting a year to say this, and finally it feels right. It is my turn to say this, to scream it in my head as the wheels from the plane drop from below and we hit the runway. This may come as a surprise, it may not fit your little rhyme, but guess what, he was my fuck you.
