Aura

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The woman next to me twisted and turned in her seat and then dug the seatbelt out from beneath her and tried to do it up. 
“Is this yours?” she said handing me a female buckle and searching around beneath her butt for the male one. 
“Is that it?” she said to me once it was done up. “It doesn’t feel like much. 
I wanted to say that if the plane crashed we’d all be dead with or without the seatbelts but she didn’t look like the right audience for my wry observations. 
I nodded and then yawned. I’d been up since five-thirty and was looking forward to a snooze. The plane’s engines rumbled and the captain told the cabin crew to take their seats for landing, I closed my eyes. 

“Sorry do you want to get out?” the woman next to me was staring so intently at me that I thought she must have been scared to disturb my slumber. 
“No, no,” she said. I was just exploring your aura. 
“My what?” I looked at my watch. I’d only been asleep for twenty minutes there were still six hours of flight time to go. 
“Your aura.”
“I see,” I said, closing my eyes again hoping sleep would be my escape. 
“You’re a survivor,” she said to me, laying a hand on my arm. 
“Oh.”
“Your aura is light brown and a long way from your body.  You are a troubled man.”
“I’m not,” 
“Don’t fight it,” the woman touched my face. “Allow yourself to grieve.”
“Okay,” I said wishing the drinks trolley would get a move on. 
‘You need to cleanse your aura. It is too big. There are people encroaching on it. Do you feel violated?”
Only by you, love. I thought. “Not really,” I said.
“But you are troubled,” I can sense it. 
“I’m not,” I said again. How do you convince a mistaken psychic that she’s wrong?
“You can hide it as much as you want,” she said. “But your aura never lies.”
“Was that a Bucks Fizz song?” 
“Ah typical of brown aura people,” she said. “Make jokes out of everything. You were abused as a child, weren’t you?” 
I didn’t reply. 
“You can tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” 
She lay her hand on my arm again. 
“It’s better if you open up.” 
“Okay,” I said. I am troubled. “I have a face that attracts nutters. They start talking to me and go on and on about their psychic mumbo jumbo. It started when I was very young and it’s been getting more and more regular.  It drives me fucking mad. Why can’t people just mind their own fucking business?” 
I’m pleased to report, the rest of the flight passed in silence.