Leaving

Ed’s phone buzzed.

It was a text from the airline. His flight was scheduled for three hours from now, but they needed him at the airport in two. He had just enough time for a super-quick shower and to grab breakfast to go in the hotel lobby.

Thirty minutes after getting the text, Ed was walking out of the hotel lobby with his carry-on bag, a coffee, a warm breakfast sandwich, and wet hair. He boarded the shuttle to the airport right as the driver began closing the doors. The book was in his carry-on.

He quickly noticed that there were few men but many women, and this somehow felt normal. Though he knew his friends had always called him oblivious when it came to noticing women's interest in him, he was definitely aware this morning. Several women openly eyed him as he moved through the lobby and onto the bus.

Ed had always known that he was shy and awkward around women. Even knowing that he had a book that could change reality, he was nervous about all of this female attention.

Women in this new reality were much more forward than he was used to. He had always wished that cultural norms would encourage women to ask men out. Now he wondered what would happen next.

As he went through the various security procedures on the way to his flight from his layover in Boston to home in Little Rock, he thought about the stares he was getting from all the women he passed. He wondered if this was what women felt in his original reality.

Pulled out the book as he sat in the boarding area. He had a new idea.