A short story.

Xenophobia. By Miki Byrne.


Professor Brenda Snead leaned the small black pull-along case against the wall. She pressed the switch to turn the kettle on and sank onto the chair that was half tucked under the plain pine table. Thank God she was home. It had been bad enough that she had had to leave her familiar laboratory to attend the convention in Prague. Worse to have to present her paper to the mixed bag of delegates but the flights! The flights had been by far the most nerve wracking.

She shifted her ample bulk into a position of greater comfort and pushed her large dark-framed spectacles further along her small but fleshy nose. It had all been awful. How she hated other people. She disliked those who she knew but strangers were loathed and despised as simply unknown intruders into her world. Brenda hated their proximity, the smell of them. Even the expensively perfumed and after-shaved left her feeling revolted. They always needed to talk. She felt that no-one knew the power and serenity of silence. The absolute pleasure and satisfaction of pure thought.

On the outward journey the man who sat next to her had wanted to chat. Not only that but he had done so in a manner that was flirtatious. Brenda had no time for such trivial social interludes. She had found his approach fatuous in the extreme. She was plain and she actively cultivated that plainness. She paid only lip-service to her appearance by keeping clean but never visited a hairdresser or cared about what she wore. Her hair frizzed out in a dark nimbus around her head and her clothes were only ever bought in shades of brown. Brenda was overweight and content with it. She used and valued her brain and saw her body only as a vehicle within which she could transport her intellect. She had glared at the man from behind her thesis “The Extended Use of Plant Toxins in Microbiological Delivery”. He was oblivious to her distain and even a curt
“Do you mind? I’m busy” did little to deter him. Brenda had sat feeling uncomfortably claustrophobic. Conscious of the smallness of the metal tube in which she was travelling and of the fixed windows that gave her a tantalizing glimpse of the fresh air and space outside, yet, allowed no access to it. She felt stifled, uncomfortable and the seat did not accommodate her weight easily. Her thighs rubbed together and her ankles had swollen giving her an even greater sense of discomfort. She had the ridiculous feeling of having somehow been inflated. Being fully aware of the medical details did nothing to ease the feeling. The man next to her, who was no oil painting himself, had made it known that he had no time for ‘skinny women who live on lettuce.’ He thought he was being solicitous. Brenda knew that he was being offensively intrusive. She felt trapped beside him. As the flight progressed he had taken his jacket off to reveal half moons of perspiration darkening his shirt under his arms then, when he had dosed off, his snores had reverberated in her ears preventing her from either sleeping or thinking. She sat through the inane in-flight movie with gritted teeth and a sense of mounting annoyance that came very close to the first red simmering of rage.

Brenda had been intensely glad when the plane had landed. She had disembarked and finally been ensconced in her small but spotless hotel room near the University campus. Her presentation at the University of Prague had been well-received. She had blushed at the compliments bestowed and had glowed from the respect shown to her by academics who led in their own fields of study. She had returned to her room smiling with satisfaction. Brenda had still been wrapped in the warm vestiges of that feeling as she manoeuvred herself into her seat for the return flight the next evening. Then, to her horror, the same awful plebeian little man had flopped down next to her and began a determined attempt to renew their acquaintance. The journey had passed in the same sense of unease and distress as before except this time her irritation hardened into a solid and deep dislike of the thick-skinned moron who was intruding on her space and thoughts. She loathed him for breaking her warm and rosy mood and for giving her a reprise of the outward flight.

As she stirred her tea Brenda recalled looking out of the huge window that gave a view onto the runway. She had paused in her effort to drag her wheeled case for a second. An Ambulance had been speeding dramatically toward the plane she had so recently left. She could see the stroboscopic effect of its lights and hear the distinctive wailing of its siren. Brenda smiled in grim satisfaction. The two drops of clear and undetectable liquid she had dripped into the man’s Vodka while he slept had had the desired effect. That was the beautiful thing about science she thought happily. You could always find just the right substance for the job.


Word count 857.