In the Travel Bubble

The three older women on the plane could have been related, could have been sisters, maybe triplets, their hair cut short and practical, each with a big bag full of electronics, wearing their traveling clothes and dozing off and on for the three and a half hours it would take to fly from Milwaukee to Phoenix, listening to the pilot’s announcements but not really hearing, so drowsy and far away their looks; the one by the window drumming her fingers on the top of her IPad and then rhythmically, slowly playing a tune that had notes and a beat, her counting out the notes just a breathed whisper that no one could hear but the woman in the middle who, by implicit agreement formed when she took the remaining seat between the other two women, said nothing, made no comment and pretended not to notice even though the playing of the tune on the silver top of the IPad was hypnotic and made her want to stare at the woman’s perfectly manicured nails but instead she closed her eyes to listen to the enormous hum of the jet engine broken only by the woman in the aisle seat snapping her bubblegum.

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This was written in response to a Write on Edge prompt to write 200 words that involved bubblegum.