Airplane Readings

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by Catherine. Dube

The Red KiteMilo found a red kite tangled in the old mango tree behind his house. Its tail was torn, and one wooden stick had snapped. He almost threw it away, but something about its bright color made him carry it insid...

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28 stories match your filters.

Airports

Instructions for Anesthetized Travel

by Noah Rozzell

Many people get nervous when traveling. The feeling of impending doom starts to bubble up, and images of lost bags, missed connections, and crashed pl...

Airplanes

Something Special in the Air

by Gina Forberg

The tray table is in its upright position and the seat belt light screams red and I would like nothing more than to go to the bathroom, but the flight...

Airplanes

Flight Crew

by Alex Ehrenzeller

Despite my advice, Captain Juanito felt prepared to take a midnight flight. It was dangerous enough just standing in the stockroom. Why my cousin deci...

Airplanes

Flying Solo

by Sandra A. Miller

I boarded the plane and settled into 26A, a window seat next to an empty one. And that’s the first time I felt it in my gut—the uncoupling...

Airplanes

Pour It On

by Stirling Noh

I've given up trying to sleep on airplanes. A cat nap here and there? Sure, and they come easily if you drink the way I do. But the whole theatre...

Airplanes

Indian Air Plane Glue

by James Moran

Of the throngs of humanity sleeping on cots by the heat-blasted roadside our flashing honking careening bus disturbed not a soul. We had witnessed thi...

Airplanes

Class Matters

by Neal Pollack

I’m betraying my age by revealing this, but I’ve always loved the Saturday Night Live film from the early 80s where Eddie Murphy goes unde...

Airports

Behavior Delay

by Nathan C. Martin

I remember passing a Nalgene bottle—a popular outdoor accoutrement in the West—full of Red Bull and vodka around the car on the way to Sal...

Airports

Security Check and Mate

by Jeff Hawthorne

Passing through TSA security checkpoints has become like a Stanley Kubrick film, with partially clothed adults meeting randomly for moody conversation...

Airplanes

Ready to Land

by Maria Cruz

We were on our night flight back home when I noticed that after the fasten seat belt sign went off and the stewardess started to serve drinks, this re...

Airplanes

Sisters of Charity

by Eileen Brunetto

Sprawled out in coach, I settled next to my husband as he rooted through his stack of unread New Yorkers. Contemplating the tiny bottles of chardonnay...

Airplanes

My Czechoslovakian Plastic Surgeon

by Tarn Wilson

He sat in the window seat, immersed in a magazine. I registered little about him other than he’d crossed his legs, he wore cuffed business slack...

Airports

Airplane Drinking

by Sara Elle

My name is Sara and I’m an alcoholic; I did some of my best drinking on airplanes.  By the time I was eighteen, I had a fake ID, a rich boy...

Airplanes

It Happened One Bastard Winter...

by Pearu Unga

I hate flying. My two-hour and ten-minute flight to Prague seemed to last for at least half a day. But then I had been awake all night and your brain...

Airports

It All Happened With Courtesy

by Jess Stoner

It was 2000, and I had arrived at Reagan National Airport with enough time to have a beer before my flight. It was only a few months after the Music C...

Airplanes

Strangers in Coach

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...

Airports

Returning to the Water

by Marisa Mangani

It’s August and I’ll be fifty in nine days. We’re at the Tampa Airport, checked in and sitting at the bar for a breakfast rum drink...

Airports

Writers Inside a Bag / Parabolic Urine Flow

by Alex Pruteanu

I took Hemingway and Bukowski and Palahniuk and F. Scott and Hitchens with me, and we crossed the border into Canada like the hooligans that we are (F...

Airports

An Airport Idyll

by Christopher Schaberg

It was warm coming down the concourse even in the late evening. The moon lit up the taxiway around the blinking lights and illuminated the planes. It...

Airplanes

Extreme Turbulence

by Bryan Batt

Over the past several years, I have become quite the frequent flyer, more so than I ever would have thought given the history of my fear of flying. La...

Airplanes

Never Drink When You Fly

by Ian Ferguson

I had a great job that involved visiting our offices in Asia on a frequent basis so I became very familiar with the Trans-Pacific Business and occasio...

Airplanes

Macaroni & Cheese for 6C

by Chella Courington

I take another half an Ativan, finishing my second cranberry and vodka with soda. The steward comes to the back row (it is a Monday), takes my glass a...

Airplanes

Pets

by Len Kuntz

Seated next to him, the girl keeps herself busy drawing pictures of dismembered pets—dogs, cats, rodents with collars. He pretends not to notice...

Airplanes

Albuquerque to Denver, Frontier Airlines

by Sandra Vallie

I could fall the distance between the plane and the ground in a bit more than two minutes. I have no wish to do this, but it’s good to know I ca...

Airplanes

Civilisation

by Edward Pinnegar

The sun struggled through the patchy grey sky to glint off the yellow tail fin, on which the logo of a puffin in flight seemed strangely motionless. A...

Airplanes

Free Beer

by Thomas Gibbs, MD

I was flying back from my mother-in-law’s funeral. My wife had stayed behind. Finishing a Heineken and ready to order another, I noticed the man...

Airplanes

Accidentally On Purpose

by Susan Perl

There was this one time I flew from Detroit to Miami and back to Detroit in one day. I won't say what I was doing. It wasn't exactly illicit,...

Airports

Flight Benefits

by Tony D'Souza

My mother worked reservations at United Airlines in Chicago before all those jobs were sent to India, and not having any clue how fortunate I was, I g...

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