THE FUSE

I’ve taken hundreds of flights. For most of them, I grabbed the pillow waiting on my seat and wedged it behind my head without a second thought. Then, on a long-haul flight to London, I picked one up and found a large, damp stain spread across the fabric. Drool? Something worse? I didn’t investigate further, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I put it under my seat and spent the next ten hours wondering how many passengers had pressed their faces into that same pillow before me.