Member-only story
Lost in Russia
A Dangerous Roommate Selection
Our flight from Vienna to Moscow had been delayed by three long hours, and with every passing minute my hope of catching the onward plane to Tokyo shrank like a wool sweater in hot water.
I had only met Rudi on the airplane, yet he fell for me with disarming speed. When he leaned in to kiss me, I stopped him; how could I, with my Romeo waiting for me in Japan? Instead I hid behind a convenient superstition: that if I let him kiss me, the plane would surely drop from the sky. Foolish perhaps, but it kept my heart in order.
“Don’t worry. You’ll make it in time!” Rudi said, with the confidence of a man who had never missed a flight in his life.
He kissed me goodbye on both cheeks, as a gentleman, when suddenly the thunderous last call for Tokyo blasted through the airport loudspeakers like Judgement Day. Rudi’s face lit up triumphantly.
“You see! Just in time!” He was absolutely convinced he was right.
Of course, nothing went the way either of us expected.
I had not even considered the possibility of a stopover in Moscow. Of course I hadn’t. Who plans for a three-hour delay followed by Soviet bureaucracy? I had no Russian tourist visa. I should have gotten one, just in case.
