The Stranger who Hated Me

She gave me a look that maybe wasn’t intended to kill but was certainly violent enough to cause grievous bodily harm.  It was full of anger, malice, and consternation. The force of it left me dazed, struggling to recover my composure. All I ‘d done was smile my hello as I went to sit down in the aisle seat. I wasn’t about to start a conversation with the woman or anything; it was just a simple smile that I would give to any other fellow passenger. The empty middle seat was not wide enough to deflect the force of the blow and now I sat staring straight ahead, making sure I didn’t incur her wrath again.

‘You don’t recognise me do you?’

Oh god I was going to have to look at the woman again. I’d managed to escape with minor injuries from my first encounter but surely I wouldn’t be so lucky again. I braced myself and looked at her. She would have been a pleasant enough looking woman if it wasn’t for the scowl on her face that frightened the bejezus out of me. As I was looking into her piercing blue eyes, I was frantically digging through my memory banks for a match, looking carefully through the ‘someone I had wronged’ file but drawing a blank. She was quite right, I didn’t recognise her but did I dare admit it? I tried to smile but her face remained tense, terse, turgid. I had no idea who this woman was, but she knew me and was not a big fan.

‘No,’ I said shrugging my shoulders.

‘Typical,’ she growled and turned her head away from me in a dismissive manner signalling the conversation was over. I stared at the back of her head for a moment wondering if she was coming back to tell me what I’d done, but she wasn’t. She obviously wasn’t in the mood to enlighten me.

The safety announcements were followed by the roar of the engines and we were airborne. I closed my eyes hoping sleep would replace paranoia but when the brain is working overtime, sleep is impossible. I wondered if to ask her what her problem was, who she thought I was, what the hell I’d done, but I thought the silent treatment might be preferable. I had the feeling that one of her buttons might launch a nuclear attack and that might be dangerous on a plane.

She drank her tea and ate her sandwich like an angry hamster, all the time avoiding eye contact with her archenemy, who just happened to be me.

It was a short flight but it felt long haul, she’d created more turbulence than the gale force winds outside the plane.

We came down to earth with a bump. She still remained tight lipped determined not to tell me how we knew each other. I stood up as soon as the seat belt signs were off, I took my bag down and stared straight ahead while the passengers in front of me slowly got their act together. I could feel her anger behind me.

‘Tosser’ she whispered as she passed me in the air bridge and then she was gone; leaving me confused and bemused by this stranger who hated me.

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