One-Way Ticket

It was snowing that morning when Jacob arrived at the airport. He was going to visit Miami to get away from this cold weather for a while. 
The sign said that the shuttle bus to the main terminal came every ten minutes, but there was no room for Jacob in the bus shelter because it was so crowded. 
Twenty minutes went by without a bus, and Jacob realized that he was just had to walk to the terminal if the bus was taking this long. The terminal was about a mile away. Sure enough, once he got about a hundred feet from the shelter, the shuttle bus pulled into the parking lot. Jacob tried to get the driver to stop, but the driver just blew right by him. So he ran to the shuttle stop, but he didn't make it back on time. 
Eventually, Jacob found the entrance and got to the terminal. It took twenty minutes for Jacob to get through the check-in line, and had to sort his bags out when the person said his big suitcase was too heavy. After he was done sorting, he had a half hour to get to his gate before his flight started boarding. When he got to the security area, he saw how crowded it was. He waited in the security line for a long time, and he finally made it to the front. But then someone a few rows behind him started pressing the buttons on the poles that held the barriers together. Suddenly, there was nothing keeping the lines separated, and things completely fell apart. By the time the security agents got all the zip barriers reconnected, Jacob ended up in the back of the line, so he had to wait even longer. Now he was really stressed, because his flight was supposed to leave at any minute. He begged one of the security agents to let him go to the front, but the agent didn't seem too sympathetic. But Jacob knew that sometimes they left the gate open until the last second, so he could still make it. 
When he finally got to the front of the line, he put his bags on the conveyor belt. Then he went through the metal detector to make sure if he wasn't carrying anything illegal. Once he got through security, he grabbed his bags from the conveyor belt and took off. His gate was down on the lower level, so he had to take the escalator. He checked his watch and knew that he could still make it, so he ran for the gate. But the gate was all the way at the other end of the terminal, and he knew he couldn't make it in time on foot. Just then, a cart for handicapped passengers came along, and Jacob stopped it and asked the driver if he could hitch a ride. He got on board before she could even say no. After that, it was smooth sailing. The terminal was rather crowded, but people moved out of the way when they heard the cart coming. The driver dropped Jacob off at his gate, but the door was closed. It turned out that the flight was delayed because of the bad weather, and it was going to be another hour before he was able to get on the plane. He looked for a place to sit in the boarding area, but there were lots of people hogging the seats. 
He knew that once he got on the plane, he would be in the air for seven hours , so he decided to go to a few shops near the gate to buy a couple of magazines, snacks, and other things to keep him busy during his flight. 
The plane was going to leave soon, so Jacob decided that he should start getting ready to start boarding. Once his plane finally arrived at the gate, he knew that he was ready.
the gate agent got on the loudspeaker and said that they'd be boarding shortly. Thn she said that the flight was overbooked, and they needed a few volunteers to give up their seats. She said whoever volunteered first would get three hundred dollars and a free night at the airport hotel. A woman in front of Jacob snapped it up right away. Jacob knew that this meant that he was going to get a vacant space to sit once he boarded.
Once Jacob got on board, he was glad that he got a place to sit. He knew that e was going to enjoy this flight.
It was long and stressful, but he was able to get a one-way ticket to his flight, and now e was able to enjoy his vacation.
Category:Original Stories
Category:Stories
Category:Shorts
Category:Short Story