The problems started as soon as I sat down, when the teenage boy next to me claimed the arm rest for his elbow. They compounded when he took his shoes off to reveal unusually long toes. When I caught him picking his nose …
I’m not kidding, by the way. He would have been at least 13, and he was sticking his finger into his nostril, whirring it around, and rubbing the resulting mess between his fingers then onto his trousers.
I checked the flight clock: 11 hours to go.
I had about eight Zopiclone tablets in my hand-luggage. When the boy got up to go to the bathroom I considered tipping them all into his cup of water. If it wasn’t for his mother’s beady eyes on me I swear I would have done it.
Of course this could have been fatal but that was a risk I was willing to take.
When he returned from the bathroom, he kept picking at his skin.
I snapped my head around and stared at him until he lowered his eyes and put his hands on his lap.
I looked for a spare seat. There wasn’t one. I couldn’t stomach dinner but I could drink.
Just as I was plotting another way to kill the kid beside me, staff over the loudspeaker requested any doctors on board make themselves known.
A flight attendant then rushed past carrying what looked like an AED.
Dammit, I thought, my death wish has targeted the wrong guy.
Long story short: The wretched boy lived to see another day, someone else may have died during our flight, and now I’m in Hong Kong.
Two flights down, two to go.
Katie Kenny 