DNA

The plane arrived late, in a rain and he was almost in the last row nearest the bathroom and surrounded by kids and first time travelers.  He put his earbuds in and found a favorite song and closed his eyes against the seat, knowing it would be minutes before he was moving again.

Planes.

Planes and hotel rooms were his world.  Cities and time zones.  Passing through.  His mind was time-stamped and riddled with the scent of airports.

But for one brief moment he had been with her.  Held her.  For a moment his world was the size of a king-sized bed and his universe was the color of sheets and her eyes.  She had drifted into his, aligned and shared.  

She brought a summer day into the week when it was fall.  

For one night it was hearing the night noise of crickets and peep frogs...the sound of a ferry churning against the waters on the James River, the noise of moths whirring against a screen door under a light.

She brought a warmth to a day that was spitting cold rain and red taillights in traffic.

He remembered a time when she had asked to wear his tee shirt.  He was standing there in the morning, hair tussled from sleep.  It was a benign request but she was topless and the morning outside was just a gray and people were still starting their commutes and boiling coffee and she was naked and near.

He pulled it over his head and she swam her arms through the holes and allowed it to fall on her...it wasn't tight on her but her nipples poked through and he wished he had given it to her earlier.

It smells like you, she said and lay back down on the pillows.  Outside it was yellowing and a sun was competing with clouds and the rain had stopped and the puddles were shimmering in the moist light and it was still quiet in the room but his eyes were fixated on her.  And she was staring back.

The plane was still crowded as people tried their best to unlodge their suitcases packed in the overhead bin.  His song was replaced with another, and he forwarded it to find one he liked.

He remembered when he was packing up his items, and his shower kit was being put into its bag with the razor and the cologne.  He glanced into the sink and saw a hair of hers had fallen, perhaps in her departure, as she re-assembled and re-acquainted herself with her morning it had tumbled off of her as she brushed it and primped in the mirror.  It was a stark reminder that she had been there.  

It wasn't just something his mind had conjured up.  He held the hair in his hand before letting it fall back into the sink, swallowed by the water and into the drain.  

It departed down the small hole in the sink. 

 He walked out of the small hole in the plane, emerging and remembering like it was just yesterday that he was with her.