Anna flushed and washed her hands in the microscopic sink of the airplane toilet. She was eager to get back to her seat. Not only did she not find any pleasure in using an airplane toilet, the hosts had started serving the main meal.
The hosts were just serving her row when she got out. Thankfully she asked the young woman next to her to make sure they gave her a meal, just in case they thought the seat was empty for the flight.
She walked over to her seat. A full tray in display. Nice.
She had rushed to board and hadn't had the time to put her coat away on the upper storage. But keeping it on her lap while eating was a logistic impossibility. She reached for it and opened the storage compartiment above with her fingertips. It was full.
Maybe to the far right end of it she could squeeze her jacket in. But she's too short. She turns once again to the young woman sitting on the seat next to hers. "Excuse me, would you mind helping me again?" The young woman was taking in the first bites of her meal. She nods, puts down her food and gets up into the corridor. Together, they push Anna's jacket into the small space left over at the end of the overhead compartment. It fit. The young woman helps to close the compartment and Anna thanks her. She slids back into her seat and pick her food up again.
Anna is about to sit down when she sees there's no tray on her place. What happened? It was just there a second ago.
She looks around.
Towards the end of the cabin there's a smug young man sitting down while holding a meal tray in the air. Could it be...?
Anna walks over to him.
"Excuse me, is that my meal, from that seat over there?" she asks gently, pointing to her seat ahead.
"There was no one there." The guy says.
"Yes, I was putting my coat away. Can I have it back?"
The guy looks to one of his buddies sitting next to him and grins. "No."
"What do you mean, no?" Anna asks, confused rather than irritated.
"I need to eat, grandma."
"Didn't you have your own tray?"
"No, they skipped me." He starts opening the tray.
"You can ask them to come back then."
He takes a second, as if considering. Then he shrugs. "Nah."
Anna picks up the tray, to his surprise, and starts walking back to her seat. "Hey, what you doing?"
She walks past her seat all the way to where the hosts are at that point. Then, she reaches one hand and slightly pats the host's shoulder. "Excuse me, that gentleman over there did not get a tray. Could you be so kind as to go back to him?" The host nods. "Much appreciated." She gives the guy a thumbs up. He's standing, tall and menacing. Then he seats down, muttering to one of his buddies.
Anna goes back to her place and eats her food. She keeps an eye on the host and sees that they take one of the meal trays back to the end of the cabin. Problem solved.
The flight goes by and they land.
Anna offboards the plane and walks with no rush to the luggage pick up area. The luggage hasn't come out yet, it will take some time.
Leaning against the wall, she's checking her phone to see if any messages came through when the shadows of people coming close to her - too close to be passersby - catch her attention.
She raises her eyes and finds three young men forming a semi circle around her. One of them, standing in the middle, has a smug smile on his face - the one who took her tray. The other two must be the pals he was talking to after she retrieved it and walked back to her seat.
"You think you run the world, do ya?" the young man in the middle asks her, chin raised.
"No, I don't. What makes you say that?" Anna is no longer looking at her phone. She looks at him confused. What a strange way to apologize for taking one's tray.
He scoffs and looks sideways at his pals.
"You had no right to take my food." He inches forward.
"Didn't the in-flight host get back to you with a food tray of your own?"
"Yeah, but that's not - "
"Then what is the problem?"
He puffs up and his face swells up. Through closed teeth he mutters. "Don't. Interrupt. Me."
His hand raises in the air, Anna raises both her hands in front of her. "Stop. Don't do that. Stop."
He launches for a punch.
Anna drops her phone as she opends her hands. Her reflexes taking over. She sways and avoids the punch while moving his arm and launching the guy over towards the wall. He hits the wall as she slips through and tightens his wrists behind his back.
The other two guys look puzzled. They hesitate.
"Get her!" the guy who slammed against the wall tells them.
They reach for her, one in each direction.
With swift movements, Anna moves away from their attacks and moves their arms and legs in ways they don't expect, making them fall flat on the floor. "Stop!" she pleads.
A commotion gathers around as the guys make loud sounds of surprise to miss and land on the floor. People stop and stare, some with their phones pointed towards the action.
The guy who took her tray got back up again. Anna raises her arms in front of her and pleads again for him to stop. He launches towards her.
She keeps avoiding their attacks, but they are relentless. She has to counterattack. Avoiding punches and bringing them to the floor doesn't seem to deter them.
At the next punch, the swifts away from the movement and rotates, dislocating the guy's shoulder. Another one tried to kick her and she moves him swiftly around, dislocating his hip. The third one tries to take her over and she resists the urge to break his elbow as much as she can, but it's her only way out, otherwise he'll puch her right on the face and she'll be out. "Please, stop!" she asks once more. He doesn't. "Look what you did to my friends!"
She has no choice.
His cries are sharp with pain.
The people who gathered around look up from their phones. Their eyes reflect fear. Not of them, of her. Anna. A fifty year old woman who had just made use of her self defense classes against three young men half her age.
The airport security arrives, someone had called them.
They look puzzled at the three men contorting on the floor. They look up at Anna. She's standing, her breathing still accelerated.
One of them calls the medics and asks everyone to disperse. The other one helps the guys to sit. Then they both start taking statements. One takes statements from the three guys, who build on top of each other's story with insults and accusations towards Anna. How she attacked them and hurt them. Hurt them bad. The other takes a statement from Anna.
She's not focused. The adrenaline of her self defense insticts kicking in after years of practice is still rushing through her blood. She hears the slurs and accusations from the three young men sitting just a bit down from her. And she remembers the frightened looks she got from some other travelers watching. Did she do somethign wrong?
She goes over what happened. In the plane. Before the fight. What they asked her. How she asked them to stop before they even started. How they didn't. How they launched onto her. How she had self defense classes. How she tried not to hurt them. How they didn't relent. How she feared for herself. How she dislocated one's shoulder and another's hip. How she broke the third one's elbow.
The medics arrive.
While the three guys get checked by the medics, the two security guards meet in the middle and whisper something to each other. The one who took Anna's statement gets back to her. "I'll have to take your details in case this goes any further."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, depending on the damage they might want to sue you."
"Sue me?"
"Yeah, you know how it goes..." he scratches his head and gets ready to take down her details.
"Why would they sue me?"
"Lady, that's not up to me." Anna hands over her ID and he notes down the details.
"But, they were trying to hit me."
"Well," he hands her ID back "then you might want to sue them first. They're staying back to be checked by medics, I suggest you get on your way before the medics are done. Have a good day."
Anna is flabbergasted.
Would they really sue her? What kind of person would do that in their position? Really... they attacked her. Should she really be worried about this? Her heart feels tight.
Should she get ahead and sue them?
What a crazy thought... What would the world be if we all sued each other for every single little thing! She shakes the thought. They're young. Probably embarassed and shocked. After that fades out, they'll realize they were antagonizing her and just take it as a lesson to not judge a book by its cover.
She wished she hadn't broken that one guy's elbow though. But he wouldn't stop.
carolina caetano
February 2024
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