The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret

for a middle seat in economy class, but I didn’t even try to argue. A cool event and my beloved wife, who was my beloved girlfriend back then, were waiting for me in Amsterdam. I knew that I had to get on that plane. The flight was completely full, and the passengers looked a little nervous and tense. I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy flight, but it became harder when I discovered that sitting in my seat, between a nun and a bespectacled Chinese man, was a bearded guy with tattooed arms, wearing sunglasses and looking like ZZ Top’s fat, evil brother.
    â€œExcuse me,” I said to the beard somewhat timidly, “but you’re sitting in my seat.”
    â€œIt’s my seat,” the beard said. “Scram.”
    â€œBut my boarding pass says that this is my seat,” I persisted. “Look.”
    â€œI don’t wanna look,” the beard said, ignoring my outstretched hand. “I told you, this is my seat. So scram.”
    At this point, I decided to call the flight attendant. She managed to get a little more cooperation out of the beard, and it turned out that, because of a computer error, we’d each gotten a boarding pass with the same seat number on it. In an authoritative voice, she said that since the flight was completely full, one of us would have to get off the plane.
    â€œI say we should toss a coin,” I told the beard. The truth is that I was desperate to stay on the plane, but that seemed like the only fair way to solve that exasperating problem. “No coins,” the beard said, “I’m sitting in the seat. You’re not. Get off the plane.”
    It was then that I felt one of the already overloaded circuits in my brain finally blow. “I am not getting off the plane,” I told the flight attendant, who’d just come back to tell us that we were holding up a planeload of passengers. “I am asking you to get off now,” she said in a cold voice, “or I’ll be forced to call security.”
    â€œCall security,” I said in a tearful voice, “call security to drag me off. It’ll just add a few more zeroes to the amount I’ll be suing your airlines for. I paid good money for a ticket. I received a boarding pass. I boarded the plane, and this is exactly where the story ends. If there aren’t enough seats on the plane, you can get off yourself. I’ll serve the food to the passengers.”
    The flight attendant didn’t call security. Instead, the white-haired, blue-eyed pilot appeared, placed a soothing hand on my shoulder and asked me politely to get off the plane. “I am not getting off,” I told him, “and if you try to take me off by force, I’ll sue all of you. All of you, do you hear me? This is America, you know. People have been awarded millions for a lot less than this.” And at that moment, which was supposed to be especially threatening, I began to cry.
    â€œWhy do you have to fly to Amsterdam?” he asked. “Is someone in your family ill?” I shook my head.
    â€œSo what is it, a girl?”
    I nodded. “But it’s not about her,” I said. “It’s just that I can’t be here anymore.” The pilot was silent for a moment, then asked, “Have you ever flown in a jump seat?” I managed to control my tears enough to say no.
    â€œI’m warning you in advance,” he said with a smile, “it’s very uncomfortable. But it’ll get you out of here, and you’ll have a good story to tell.” And he was right.

Bemusement Park
    W hen I was a little boy, my father took me to visit a family friend who was missing a finger. When he saw me staring at his four-fingered hand, the man told me he used to work in a factory. One day, his wristwatch fell into a machine, and when he instinctively reached into its guts, the sharp blades severed his finger.
    â€œIt was just a split second,” he said with a sigh.