Her shapely curves, large eyes and piercing stare. He quivered slightly as she turned to face him. With his left hand he reached for his staff and with his right he made fists in the dirt, all the while biting down on his lower lip. She strutted towards him, hips swiveling alluringly as she did so. Before long, she was within arms length, and his quivering turned into violent spasms exuding the passion he struggled to contain.
She was a fine yak.
11th of February, 9:20 am
"Look at him; he reads novels!"
Alison Laura Wand crouched madly, behind a bookshelf devoted to cupcakes and the numerous manuals treating them as an art form much like oil painting or marble sculpting.
"He's so beautiful." she hissed.
"He looks like a toilet cubicle from Newtown", replied her good friend, the curly haired, effervescent Eddie Bellemore, deliberately talking slightly louder than appropriate for a book store.
"Shut up!" swiping a strand of her blue hair from her eyes. She was suddenly conscious of the first touches of blonde re-growth emerging at her scalp but still pressed her face further into the cavity between books on the shelf and observed the stranger at the other side of the store.
A sleeve of tattoos climbed up the stranger's arm; one in particular being a carving knife. A patch of skin had been left unmarked in the middle of the blade so as to maintain an illusion that the knife had been driven underneath a portion of his flesh.
"Look!" she half whispered, half yelled, resulting in a strangled screech like that of a dying seagull. "He's got stretchers."
She looked up at her friend, eyes wide and smile exposing child-like dimples.
"That's gross."
"It's not fucking gross."
Eddie pushed his leopard print glasses slightly further up his nose and shot the ink-worn stranger a look that could slow the life functions of any mammal enough to keep it alive long past its expiry date.
"I wonder if he watches anime?" she asked herself whilst pulling her black and white knee-length socks closer to the hem of her skirt.
"Alison," cried Eddie, truncating his vowels for effect. "Why am I in a bookstore, watching you practically make out with a photo of a cupcake in order to spy on some dirty junky when there are literally hundreds of bottles of duty free alcohol waiting to be purchased in this airport?"
"Fine," she snarled grabbing his arm and steering him back into the terminal.
As they joined the crowd Alison glimpsed the stranger. Showcasing the obscenities tattooed onto his second phalanges, he readjusted his greasy fringe so as to fully cover one eye, and partially eclipse the other.
Her two and his half an eye met.
He winked playfully.
She smiled enthusiastically.
Sins absolved and with arms now linked, she and Eddie moved towards their unusual and troublesome fate.
11th of February, 9:15 am
A pervasive hum reached Jessica's ears as she walked her tightrope to the gate. After removing her glasses and gracefully depositing her empty easyway cup in a garbage bin, she felt considerably more primed for the business trip ahead.
However, her attention was momentarily grabbed by the possessive murmur assailing her senses.
To her left was a leather arm chair backed against a pylon. In the chair was a young man of about her own age, sprawled so that his long, svelte limbs protruded at strange angles. His head was bent back, staring vacantly at the ceiling showcasing his prominent adams apple. The man didn't stir; an eerie stillness clung to him like the decorative spiderwebs in a long abandoned house.
"Shit," whispered Jessica as she tentatively watched him do nothing. The hum was disconcerting.
"Are you ok?"
His head rolled slightly to the side further building to the strange image of contortion. She let go of her travel bag handle and slowly approached him. His glassy green eyes betrayed an absence of life.
Extending her arm, she sliced through the aforementioned pervasive hum; now inexplicably deafening, with one of her ornate talons.
With great speed, she prodded him in the face.
As if supported by invisible springs, Nicholas Talbot burst forth from the massage chair to which he had melted.
"Time!" he shouted, whilst concurrently shaking his limbs and cracking his neck.
Jess had jumped back slightly following her revitalisation of the seemingly deceased stranger.
"What?"
"Time, what's the time?"
"Around a quarter to nine"
"Ok, what's the date?"
Eyebrows raised.
"How long were you in that chair?" she asked.
"I flew into Sydney from Melbourne on the 10th of February; I was planning on just waiting until the next morning and sleeping on the flight to London but then I found this chair."
"I see".
They stared at each other somewhat blankly; standing in a rapidly filling pool of silence.
"So what's the date?"
"Oh," her bemusement postponed, "It's the 11th of February."
In a single movement, he pivoted on one foot, rhythmically flicking the other. With bemusement resumed, Jess gazed, stony resolution intact, as Nicholas jived his way down the tiles in front of her.
11th of February, 9:40 am
"Thank you for your cooperation, in future it's best that you tell the airport staff the truth from the moment you check in."
Clare looked the security guard in his eyes, tilted her head slightly forwards, and furrowed her eyebrows. The effect of which was a tension so strong it was felt by the very foundations of the building.
"Thanks," replied Katherine, smiling awkwardly as she dragged her friend from their side of the table in the presumptuously named "Investigation Room".
11th of February, 10:00 am
Conor Cannon, standing patiently on the gangway perpetually removed and realigned his Qantas employee badge. Face creased in focus, he threaded the needle through his starch white shirt as though administering stitches to the mammothrept of an influential surgeon.
"Conor!" Steph Marshall, his friend and coworker's voice echoed down the corridor, causing all the passengers to turn in shock. "Where are you? I need your help!"
After tenderly pulling the badge needle out of his chest, eliciting a series of confused expressions from the civilians, he hurried to the gate doors.
"Hi Steph!"
As always, charged with a youthful enthusiasm, he motioned for the passengers to give him their respective boarding passes.
Steph, much taller than her colleague and stopping far less frequently to comment on the attire and "vibe" of the passenger; looked upon her friend with a mixture of sororal affection and disapproval.
The line of people dwindled quickly due to their combined effort in scanning barcodes.
"Ready to go?" she asked, checking the time on her timeworn stopwatch as Conor unlatched his pin once more.
11th of February, 9:59 am
"This is your fault, you're never ready on time!" screamed Natalie Abreu, running in thongs on the pseudo-escalator footpath, slightly ahead of her twin brother David.
"Natalie!" he replied, succinct and biting, "You took over an hour find your passport."
"It was in your suitcase."
Both the Abreu's just barely stood taller than the rails of the escalated foot path yet their presence was made painfully clear to all the people seated in the individual gates as they passed them by.
"You told me to put it there!"
"If we miss this fucking plane David -" her Portuguese temper rendering the rest of the sentence lost in a haze of frustrated sighs.
"Hurry up!"
"What?" as she swiveled, primed for confrontation, some of her long brown hair whipping him in the face in the process, the forward momentum disagreed with her intentions.
An overweight couple watched in disgust as the exasperated tangle of sibling careened past, slow enough so that their violent, profanity laden accusations woke the occasional sleeping traveler or child while they attempted to stand straight again.
"Natalie look!" he cried leaping gracefully over the black rail, to the awe of their spectators. She followed suit and they sprinted with fury towards the rapidly closing doors.
"Stop!" howled Natalie, one arm waving passionately in the air, the other still brandishing their duffel bag.
Steph Marshall let go of the handle as the twins, sweating, nostril's flared and eyes wild arrived at the door.
"We-need-plane-dance-" choked Nat, shuddering faintly.
"Fuck sake; we're dancers, we have a show coming up in London, we cannot afford to miss this plane, please; I implore you!"
11th of February, 10:06 am
The doors of the gate to flight QA915 closed for the final time as the crew prepared for departure into what would be a singularly unusual and eventful trip.
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