Rodrigue

Rodrigue felt a light jolt of turbulance wake him up from his nap. It had taken him long enough to doze off, so he wasn't very happy to be awoken. He pulled off his eye mask and rubbed his eyes. May as well get up and go to the bathroom.

The cabin was nearly pitch black. Windows were dimmed, and only the lights of a few people reading books could be seen. They were probably halfway through the 10 hour flight now, and most were sleeping. He squeezed past the woman in the seat next to him and walked down the aisle to the nearest bathroom. He saw it was occupied and waited for a couple minutes before deciding to go to another one.

He continued down the aisle into the next portion of the cabin, which was empty. He thought it was odd to have everyone crammed into the other part of the cabin, but ignored it and went to the bathroom at the far end.

Once he finished, he walked back down toward his seat. On his way he ran into a steward and decided to ask her about the other half of the cabin.

"Excuse me."

"Yes, is there something you need sir?" The steward looked toward him with a smile.

"Since the other part of the plane is empty, would it be okay if I or some other passengers moved over to it so we could spread out?"

The steward gave him a perplexed look. "What do you mean?"

Rodrigue pointed over his shoulder to the empty area, now covered by a curtain. "In that area. Would it be okay if I moved over there to sit since it's empty?"

The steward gave him a strange look before pulling back the curtain and taking a look inside. She looked back at him. "I...don't think there are any open seats in there sir. And even if there were, we can't let people just move seats like that unfortunately."

Looking through the open curtain, Rodrigue felt his stomach drop as he saw the cabin beyond, packed full of people just like his own.