Title: I Found A Crying Little Boy With A Paper Bag In The Airplane Bathroom, And He Wasn’t On The Passenger List – Wake Up Your Mind
Crouching by the fold-down jump seat, I studied the trembling boy. Ben looked no older than seven, dressed in vintage corduroy overalls with threadbare knees. His bowl-cut blond hair, slick with sweat, clung to his forehead like something from a 1950s yearbook photo. The plane hummed around us, but all I could hear was the ragged hitch of his breathing.
“Apple juice?” I forced cheerfulness, pulling a kid-sized paper cup from the beverage cart’s hidden compartment. Ben’s gaze snapped to my name tag. His grimy fingers suddenly clutched my sleeve: “Leslie! You’re Leslie Carter?”
The cup slipped from my hand. Apple juice spread across the aisle carpet like liquid amber. Engine noise crescendoed in my ears—how did this stranger know my maiden name? I hadn’t used “Carter” since the divorce three years ago.
“Psst—” My colleague Martha materialized behind me, coral-painted nails digging into my shoulder. “That guy in 16C says his elderly seatmate vanished.”
We turned toward economy class as one. Sunset bled through the windows, staining the aisle crimson. Passengers dozed or flipped through magazines, perfectly ordinary except for the five empty seats I counted on my third sweep. Five gaps in the carefully choreographed symphony of full occupancy.
“Holy hell,” Martha hissed, her tablet’s blue light leaching the color from her face. “Manifest shows 189 boarded, but we’ve got five ghosts now—including the purple-hatted lady from 23F.” She leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper: “And get this—the forward cargo hold’s reading minus twenty Celsius.”
Ben erupted into a coughing fit. The paper bag in his lap clinked metallically. Seizing the moment, I knelt until our eyes were level. “Can I see your treasures?” I asked softly. A yellowed photograph slid from the crumpled bag, freezing my blood.
There they stood—a couple in lab coats cradling an infant before a Boeing 707. The woman’s ID badge read Dr. Emily Bennett. My flight attendant training rushed back—the infamous 1985 disappearance of aerospace scientists Drs. Bennett. The FBI file stated they’d boarded Pan Am 214 with three-month-old Benjamin Bennett before vanishing over the Atlantic.
“Your parents…” I swallowed the rest, suddenly noticing the aircraft’s tail logo behind them—our airline’s current emblem. But corporate history swore we’d adopted that design in 2003.
The plane bucked violently. Glassware chimed like deranged wind chimes as the beverage cart rattled against the galley wall. Ben curled into a fetal position, his Children’s Pictorial magazine spilling onto my lap. I nearly dropped it—the cover screamed June 1997, yet the pages felt ancient, brittle with decades of oxidation. Worse, every speech bubble in the comics was utterly blank.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re experiencing minor turbulence.” The captain’s announcement crackled with static. “Please remain—” His voice dissolved into electronic screeching. Overhead lights flickered, and Ben’s body began shimmering like a hologram. His wail reached me through water: “Don’t let go, Aunt Leslie!”
Martha’s scream harmonized with the banshee wail of twisting metal. I lunged for Ben, but my arms passed through his insubstantial form. Darkness swallowed me whole. My last conscious thought fixated on the photograph floating upward—its back inscribed in faded fountain-pen ink:
“Memories anchor time. Paper transcends dimensional rifts.”
Three Hours Earlier
The flight had begun like any other red-eye from JFK to Heathrow. I’d perfected the safety demonstration—that fluid pointing to exits, the practiced smile masking my divorce-induced insomnia. When the lavatory doorknob rattled mid-takeoff, I’d assumed some nervous flyer forgot to lock it.
Then came the kitten-soft whimpers.
“Sir? Ma’am?” I’d knocked, dread coiling in my gut when silence answered. The door swung open to reveal a child folded like origami between toilet and sink, his face buried in knees. Not a soul claimed him when I made the cabin announcement. Not a single “Ben” existed in our passenger database.
Now, strapped into the jump seat beside this enigma, I inventoried his paper bag’s contents:
- A rusted Yale key
- 37 cents in 1964 quarters
- A handkerchief embroidered E.B.
- The eerie blank comic magazine
Martha reappeared, her French braid unraveling. “Purser’s running facial recognition through Interpol. Captain wants him restrained until landing.”
“Restrain a seven-year-old?” My voice rose. Ben flinched, fingers twisting the handkerchief into knots.
“Seven-year-olds don’t phase through solid objects,” she snapped. “That turbulence? Weather radar showed clear skies. And get this—ground control has no record of our transponder code.”
The plane shuddered again. Ben’s hand brushed mine—icy, yet somehow corporeal. “They’re coming,” he whispered.
“Who’s coming, sweetheart?”
His finger trembled toward the blank comic panels. “The Erasers. They don’t like it when I remember.”
Outside, night thickened unnaturally. Stars winked out sector by sector, as if God were deleting constellations. Martha crossed herself—a shocking gesture from our resident atheist. My tablet pinged with the facial recognition result:
Match: Benjamin Elias Bennett (DOB 03/15/1985)
Status: Deceased (Declared 04/02/1985)
The screen flickered. When it stabilized, the report now read:
No match found
Present Day
Ben’s breathing synced with the plane’s vibrations. I pressed my forehead to the cold window, seeking sanity in the mundane. My reflection stared back—a 43-year-old woman with crow’s feet and auburn roots showing. Then the glass rippled.
For one heartbeat, I saw them.
A man and woman in 1980s business casual, frantically mouthing words against the window’s reverse text. The woman held up a sign:
SAVE HIM
Their lips kept forming Leslie—my name, though we’d never met. The man gestured urgently at Ben, then pointed downward. My gaze followed to the floor vents, where frost crept like living lace.
“Ben?” I touched his shoulder, relieved to feel solid warmth. “Where are your parents right now?”
He opened the comic book to a “blank” page. “Here.”
I squinted. Under the cabin’s UV lighting, faint markings surfaced—a child’s crayon drawing of our airplane inside a massive hourglass. Sand poured from both ends.
The PA system crackled to life with a voice none of us recognized—genderless, buzzing with wrongness:
“Return the anomaly.”
Every light died.
To Be Continued…
