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Tamara NOTE: Another unfinished general romance fic. I started this in 1994, too. ** She looked at her ticket again, just to make sure. Yep. No doubt about it, Tamara thought as she glanced back to the three empty seats. The airline had managed to mess up one more thing. Great. Tamara had specifically asked for an aisle seat and there she was sitting in the very middle. Well, tough luck, she was going to sit in the aisle if she had to kill someone. There was no way that she was going to spend hours cramped in the middle seat, between two sweaty business men. It was a claustrophobe's nightmare come true. She stowed her duffel bag in the overhead compartment and sat in the empty seat. She pulled her walkman from her jacket pocket and put in her earphones. It was a trick she had learned from her early days of air travel: if she wasn't aware of having taken off, then the chances of her getting nausea were slimmer than usual. It didn't always work, but it calmed her nerves enough to not think about the fact that she was a kazillion miles away from terra firma. Tamara adjusted the volume until the only thing she could hear was the tape and then settled back to try to catch up on her sleep. She had just drifted out of consciousness, when a sharp pain in her right ear brought her back to reality. "Ow! Shit" She rubbed her ear a moment and looked daggers at the man standing before her, holding the earphone. She reached for it angrily. "What the hell?" she spurted. "I repeat," the man said stiffly. "You are in my seat. Would you please let me have it so that I can be sitting down when this plane takes off?" He removed the backpack from his shoulder and reached up to put it in the overhead. Tamara wondered, briefly, why a man in a three piece suit was carrying a backpack. This was not, however, the most prevalent thought in her head. "I'd love to let you `have it.'" she muttered, but did not move. The man stood before her, waiting for her to move. Jenna took a deep breath and tried to smile. "I'm sorry, but I have to have the aisle seat. I'm claustrophobic and was accidentally given the middle seat. Would you mind trading with me?" She watched as he rolled his eyes to the back of his head. "Fine," he said impatiently. "Just let me through. I've got to sit down somewhere and I don't give a damn if it's the middle or on the goddamn wing." He squeezed past her pulled in legs and settled himself in the small seat. She watched him as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get comfortable. Tamara removed the remaining earphone from her left ear and glanced at the airline menu while rewinding her tape. "So. I'm sorry about pulling out your ear-thingy. I get kind of impulsive when I'm angry. I apologise." "Forget it." Tamara said, as her walkman clicked off. She removed the tape and pulled another one from her jacket pocket. "What are you listening to?" The man asked curiosly. "Shakespeare." She pulled her legs in again to let the window seat occupant pass. "Shakespeare Shakespeare, or is it some new rock group? Like Shakespeare's' Sister?" "Shakespeare Shakespeare." Tamara put the earphones back in and let herself be drifted away from the annoying man seated next to her as much as the sound of the engines firing up. She was back at home with Ted. She could feel his breath on her cheek as he whispered in her ear, could feel his fingers trying to nudge her awake. A soft shake… "Miss?" Her eyes flew open and she sat straight up in her seat. Her walkman slid from her lap to the floor with a soft thud. The man next to her, Mr. Three-piece, retrieved it. He placed it back in her hands. "Sorry to wake you. I thought you might like to know that the in-flight movie is that new version of Much Ado About Nothing, with Denzel Washington and Keannu Reeves." He turned back in his seat and Tamara heard him fumbling in the dark for his complimentary headphones. She stared through the darkness at the walkman she held in her hands, silent for a moment as she wished that she could have Ted handed back to her just as easily. The screen at the front of the plane suddenly drew her attention, as film promotions began to appear. She removed her earphones from her tapeplayer and plugged them into the chair arm. Her ears filled with gunfire promoting the latest action film, Tamara turned to Mr. Three-piece, tapping him on the arm. He was staring intently at the screen and only reluctantly turned to face her. "Thank you." She silently mouthed, hoping that the light from the movie screen would let him see it. He acknowledged her gratitude with a nod of his head before returning his attention to the screen at the front of the plane. * * * Ben woke suddenly, wondering what had started him from his sleep. He had been dreaming that his brother John was chasing him around a labyrinthine garden carrying a foil. The kicker was that both men had been wearing dresses; apparently he had fallen asleep to the movie and it had become incorporated into his dreams. It was scary, he reflected, how easily the human mind can be manipulated. Maybe, Ben mused, the past three years was all a dream. A snort at his right hand drew his attention: the claustrophobic Shakespearean woman was asleep. Her walkman had fallen to the floor again, he realised. That was probably what had woken him up. A line from Lewis Carroll strolled through his head, and he had an incredible urge to wake the woman up, if only to find out if he would still exist. Who was the dreamer? "And the answer to that question," Ben murmured to himself as he let his eyes drift shut again, "is what is driving you home, Tweedle." Writing Index page