Although there are many special places in hell for certain very unspecial (but very horrendous) people, there’s an especially special place for the kind who push their seat fully back on a flight (well, them and people who smoke indoors—though honestly, even in outdoor areas attached to restaurants/cafes where other people might also like to sit but can’t because there’s fucking smoke billowing in their face every few seconds). Not just any flight, mind you. A long-haul flight. As if these people pushing their seats back have absolutely “no idea” what they’re doing. The irritation—and yes, pain (as in, literal physical pain)—they’re causing. Like it never would have even occurred to them, for as many years as they’ve been riding planes, that this might be extremely annoying, disruptive behavior.

Remy had never been the type to do such a thing; he was only the type to have it done to him. In fact, it seemed to be not only his curse in life, but the one thing he could rely on as a constant. While everything else was erratic and inconsistent, he could always count on sitting behind some asshole that would put their seat back on a plane (and, unsurprisingly, it was usually a man—though women weren’t immune to doing it as well).

It had gotten to the point where Remy started to wonder if he had done something terrible in a past life and this was the comeuppance he had “earned” in the current one. Especially when, every time he took an appraisal of the scene around him, it was clear that no one else was putting their seat back. Just the dickwad seated in front of Remy. It was as if every single other passenger had been given a secret manual for how to conduct themselves except whoever it was sitting in front of Remy.

The absurdity of it all had gotten to the point where he genuinely believed he must be on some sort of updated version of Candid Camera. But maybe that belief was just another sign of garden-variety narcissism in the twenty-first century. Whatever the case, every time this horror occurred (which was every time Remy took a flight), he couldn’t fathom that it was really real. This, too, being perhaps another symptom of living in the twenty-first century: constantly questioning reality.

In any event, it was true that only the biggest scum of the Earth freely and unthinkingly put their seat back nowadays. Knowing full well that “economy” seating already means being cut off at the knees (literally) as it is without also taking away from the space in front of one’s chest, to boot. Honestly, Remy thought to himself, who the fuck are these people? People who apparently didn’t follow the example of seeing the person in front of them not putting their seat back. Shouldn’t that have indicated something to them? Planted some sort of “subliminal” seed about how to conduct themselves? Obviously not, if Remy’s traveling history was anything to go by.

Then, on one of his latest flights—from London to Singapore (long-haul indeed)—a new behavioral horror was unlocked. An act committed by another passenger that Remy was sure only he would attract. It happened after he had gotten up from his aisle seat to let out the middle- and window-seat passengers, a pair of male and female teenagers that, from what Remy could gauge, were brother and sister. After the two disappeared toward the back of the plane for what felt like ten minutes (an aisle seat passenger’s worst nightmare as they have to stay perched and ready to get up again like it’s an impending fire drill), they finally returned.

However, when Remy got up to let them back in, he made the fatal mistake of leaving his beloved leather jacket on his seat, thinking no harm would come to it if he did. But then, as though to prove to Remy that he really was as young (therefore, acrobatic) as he presumed him to be, the man-boy leapt up so that his feet touched the seat—thereby making significant foul contact with Remy’s jacket—and then hopped into his own post next to the window.

The probable sister, clocking Remy’s disgusted facial expression, smiled and “assured,” “Don’t worry, he’s wearing socks.” 1) As if Remy couldn’t see that for himself and 2) As if him wearing socks instead of shoes was supposed to make it better. What in the actual fuck, Remy thought. How was that supposed to be “conciliatory”? The man-boy wearing socks instead of shoes was basically the same thing. Interchangeable, really. Because either way, he’d been running around on a plane, picking up all sorts of nasty “matter” onto his soles, however they were covered.

So for Remy, this “consolation” was tantamount to being told, “Oh don’t worry, he just stepped in a pile of shit and onto your precious jacket.” A jacket that Remy had deliberately not put in the overhead bin so that it could rest on his lap and not touch any disgusting surfaces for the entire plane ride. But now, lo and behold, the “plane gods” had found a new way to make his long-haul flight hellacious and uncomfortable.

After Remy nodded stoically in response to the teenage girl when she provided her “comforting words,” she plopped back in the middle seat. Where both of those oblivious fuckers enjoyed sitting behind passengers with the sense of decorum not to push their seats back. An option that, frankly, shouldn’t even be available, considering how little difference it makes to the person doing the pushing back—and all the difference in the world to the person experiencing it from the other side.

With no other recourse, Remy popped his second sleeping pill (and was already certain it wasn’t going to be his last) of the flight and cradled his jacket to his chest, doing his best not to rock back and forth as a coping mechanism. That might be irritating to those around him, after all.