To the Ringer With a Toothache on a Plane
Image by Dillif from Wikimedia Commons
It was 2008. I was exhausted, traveling solo through the country, tired of airports already, and had only just begun this adventure. But there you were, flying from Brisbane to Townsville on that same puddle jumper flight, and you had a horrendous toothache.
These past several weeks, I’ve thought about you a lot. Jokingly, I remembered you when my own tooth started throbbing one night of late, and, for a split second, I thought of you and how much worse your pain must have been. I was at my desk at home whingeing to my cat; you were in the air, depressurized at 30,000 feet, clenching jaw and unsuccessfully trying to mask your agony.
I don’t drink, but as my toothache worsened over the next few days while I waited on my dentist appointment, I understood why the flight attendants gave you several little bottles of booze to numb your pain on that 700-mile flight. I grabbed the mouthwash and swished – hard – figuring it was as close as I’d get without giving up on my vow never to drink.
You came to mind easily, I admit, though, as you’ve been on my mind ever since we smiled politely at each other on the plane and then you grabbed your face in agony and hunkered down to nurse that tiny bottle of whiskey.
In fact, you’d come to mind often enough that a year later I began writing a novel about you – well, the you I imagine to be. I’ve always been a fan of horses and ranches – I’ve even worked at several barns and briefly managed a horse-drawn carriage company. You belonged on a station out in the bush somewhere, your sweat and red clay-stained t-shirt, your saddlebags, and your Akubra told me so.
I don’t know why you were headed to Townsville. You didn’t look comfortable flying – not just because of the tooth! – and you looked like you weren’t too thrilled about leaving the bush to be in these cities.
So, I’ve imagined what your life is like – who you are – what it would have been like had we met for real. I imagined what it would have been like if you’d met someone like me, but not me, who was a travel writer back then before I became one. She went to your station. She gave you a book that changed your life. You fell in love with each other and dreamed of a greater future together.
Every time I sit down to revise that novel, expanding the story and adding more details and lived moments to the imagined you, I wonder about you. Where are you now? What were you doing in Townsville? Is anything I’ve imagined about your life even slightly accurate, or have I simply romanticized the life to create the persona of a man with whom I would like to be friends?
Each stroke of the keyboard brings me a little closer and a little further away from the real you. Your face is etched distinctly in my mind, but I only saw you for those brief moments before I fell asleep myself. Every time I watch Aussie TV or films, I look for you – someone who looks like you – and every so often almost find you. These pop culture searches keep your face alive in my imagination.
Why did you stand out to me more than the many other thousands of strangers I saw on that journey? Was there some cosmic reason we saw each other but didn’t meet? How would my life be different today if we had met? How would yours be different?
I’m not sure what I’d do if you found this letter, recognized yourself, and found my email to write back to me. I’m happily married, so there’s no romance that would bloom. Perhaps we’d connect over our mutual love of horses, the outdoors, and the feeling after a day on the trail?
Or perhaps you’d think I’m a little nutty for writing an entire novel envisioning what your life might be like when I know nothing about you except your sun-burnished hair, weathered skin, and that face that always echoes through my mind.
Or perhaps you’re a romantic, like my imagined you is, with a penchant for intriguing meet-cutes, constellation-clad skies, and an unquenchable curiosity that caused my face to stick in your brain, too. Who knows? Maybe you’ve done your own creative storytelling of the encounter that never was and imagined my life, perhaps confusing me with an Aussie or Kiwi like others have done.
Whatever the case, I hope you’d feel honored to be remembered so vividly from a non-encounter, a smile, and a toothache. You may not have remembered me afterward, but you’ve stuck with me, and, strange as it may sound, I’m not the same person because of seeing you there on the plane that day. I hope your trip to Townsville was fruitful, joyous, and as lifechanging as mine was in almost meeting you. I mean, after all, you did inspire my favorite novel.
Looking for more stories that stay? Check out these other memories shared, along with some fiction and other haunting tales.
- Calls From Behind a Door – Things I Wish I Had Said
- Caught Between Sunset and Moonrise – Memories from Australia
- Last Night I Walked On the Moon – Emotive Fiction
- Bobbing On the Ocean – A Will & May Story
- Anatomy of a Memory, Part 1 & Part 2 – Emotive Fiction
- Concerto, World Premiere – Music that Stayed – Poetry
- Reach the Beach – Emotive Fiction
- Halloween in Brooklyn – Fiction of Youth
- A Rose for My Love – A Romance That Stayed – Fiction
- Pins and Needles – Writing Memories
- Memories on a Rainy Evening – Emotive Fiction
Editor-in-Chief of The MockingOwl Roost, Rita Mock-Pike is the granddaughter of aviatrix, Jerrie Mock, first woman to pilot an airplane solo around the world. Rita has found inspiration from her grandmother’s life and flight and pursued many of her own dreams in theatre, podcasting, novel writing, and cooking up delicious food from around the world. She now writes on food, travel, pets, faith, and the arts. She’s happily married to Matt, and faithfully serves the very fluffy kitten queen, Lady Stardust.
