Inklings 2025

places from New York, but when you sit on a flight heading from Montana to West Virginia the fullness of the aircraft becomes a spectacle. I look around. The people sharing my ride either avoid eye contact, or have their headphones in. Fair enough. Riding at this time of night could give even the most native New Yorker a heightened sense of caution. In front of me and a few seats to the right sits a young girl. She’s reading a book, but her hand envelops the cover so I can’t see what it is. She’s just come from a night class in English Lit. Her “real” studies however are focused on topics of medicine and antibodies. Her parents hoping for her to build her way up and graduate. Mija , her mom had told her. Why study English? You can always read for fun, but not perform surgeries for fun! It is never the other way around. Her mom thought this was funny. The girl didn’t, not really. Yet she threw her head back and feigned a laugh. She didn’t have the energy to explain to her mom that studying English did not equal just reading. So instead she signed up for night classes as soon as she got to the city. The girl’s fingers rub against the cover of her book. She hums silently, her gaze drifting from her pages to her school ID in the pocket of her bag. Wondering how long she can keep juggling both. Five seats to my left sits a man in his mid 40s. Even before I saw him, I knew he was there. The scent that radiated from him was anything but ambrosial. The reeking smell of tobacco, salt, and rotten fish filled the space surrounding him. He grips his fishing hook tightly. Dragging along a cooler which contains nothing but melted ice and an empty plastic bag that used to house a colony of worms. He just can’t seem to catch a fish large enough to be able to keep. Yet heading home with nothing to show can’t stop the smell. One that can only be acquired after a full day on the lake. This rancid odor is the reason the man sits secluded in the corner of the train. It’s the excuse he uses when he arrives home and settles down to sleep on the couch instead of in the bedroom with her. He doesn’t like fishing. He never catches anything. Yet he heads out almost every day, too afraid of the realization he’ll be forced to come to when he returns home without an excuse. 42