Ted Snow dabbed the sweat from his forehead with a grubby handkerchief and grinned (a little insanely) at Whitney. After several stuttered attempts to speak to her he commented calmly: ‘People are walking in the clouds.’
She smiled politely back. She’d gone to the washroom and returned to find him slouched half asleep in her window seat. Letting him stay there, it seemed, hadn’t been such a good idea. He placed his hands either side of the window and pressed his face against the clear plastic.
‘People.’ she said. He turned his head slightly.
‘Yes.’
‘Walking in the clouds.’
‘Yes.’
She smiled again and shook her head dismissively.
‘I need another drink.’ he declared and he prodded a small button above his head, but not before he’d noticed the way she’d reacted to his revelation. ‘You don’t believe me do you?’ he said. ‘There are you know. I’ve been watching them for ages. They’re not obvious at first, but when your eyes adjust you can see that they’re clearly made from cloud. Just like us only…white and billowy.’
He giggled in an inebriated sort of way and then as an afterthought added indifferently: ‘They’re all going in the same direction; an exodus of fluffy, white people,’-as if that made everything alright.