Little Devil

"Would you mind watching him, please?" The voice ripped me from my trance staring at: nothing.

I blinked, meeting a mother's desperate eyes. Next to her sat one of the ugliest babies I think I'd ever seen.

"Of course," I said, forcing the warmest smile I could conjure.

"I'll be back shortly. Thank you." She grabbed her purse, got up, and walked away digging inside for some item I would never see before returning my gaze to the child. Little Devil, I'd call it. It looked at me dumbly with its large, watery blue eyes.

Children. Spawn of Satan. Hard to believe I ever was one.

I checked my watch; the hands told me my plane was boarding. That was a problem. This wasn't my gate. I always sat at one nearby, but less...populated. As it would go, I wasn't much for grown adults, either.

Scanning the room, the owner of the Little Devil was nowhere to be seen. What had I just been thinking of before my thoughts were interrupted? No matter now.

The area around me had individuals intermittently dotted, following airport etiquette, leaving acceptable space between strangers. Several were reading the paper, a couple books, one snoring audibly. There was the option to pawn it off to someone else.

Scooping up the child and it's backpack, I walked to my gate to join the boarding line. Did children this small need a ticket? One more scan for the mother. Nowhere.

In my left arm I awkwardly cradled the Little Devil hoping it wouldn't be completely obvious I had no idea what I was doing. That this thing wasn't mine. I certainly hoped people wouldn't think it mine; that such a displeasing creature could have been born from me.

A middle-aged woman with thin lips, overlined with a mauve lipstick inspected my ticket and welcomed me aboard. I glanced over my shoulder to spare one last glance, and I saw her walking back to where I—we—had been just minutes ago. I shuffled forward with the rest of them.

Finding my seat, an aisle near the back of the plane, I realized I was sweating. I clumsily adjusted my carryon bag placing it under the seat. The Little Devil was never still, squirming, reaching out to grab at anything it could get its grubby fingers on.

A flight attendant walked by toward the front of the plane and began her monologue outlining in simple terms flight protocols. I'd heard it too many times to count now.

My focus was back on the Little Devil who looked at me in return. Its chubby cheeks were flushed. A small hand moved with alarming speed toward my hat, but I was quicker, lurching my head to the left to avoid the grimy, slimy fingers that were in its mouth just seconds before.

It began to cry.

"Sh, sh, shhh." Great. I readjusted the ever-moving Little Devil so it was planted firmly on my lap, wrapping my arms around its torso lightly bouncing my knee and whispering to it to please, hush. Before long, we were on the runway prepared for take off.

Those greedy hands reached forward to grab the pamphlet in the seat pocket. To my amazement, it latched on and, with great dexterity and no grace, flung the pamphlet into the aisle.

With a deep breath I began to bend over to retrieve it, but a kindly older gentleman had picked up and extended it to me.

"He's..." the gentleman paused, looking at the young boy in my lap, "quick." He finished with a brief smile returning to conversation with the woman beside him who I could only presume was his wife.

I replaced the pamphlet only for those hands to fly immediately back to grab it once more. Immediately I reached up and stopped it from doing the same thing. It let out a grunt of frustration and squirmed some more.

Trapping its arms at its side, I held the Little Devil securely in place as we started our ascent. It really didn't like that as it began to wail bloody murder. How could such a small thing produce such ear-piercing noise?

The sudden outcry alerted the other small, currently inept spawns aboard as before I knew it, a cacophony of wailing filled the cabin. Listen how miserable we are, they seemed to cry.

Lifting it up beneath the arms, I turned it back to face me, feet stuffed into shoes with socks digging into its fleshy legs balancing on my thighs.

The Little Devil's face was contorted making it look more like a gremlin than a human. Poor thing. How it howled.

After a while, I bounced my legs again, alternating them so as to make it look like those stubby little legs were running. This seemed to amuse the Little Devil. Briefly. It abruptly stopped its giggling, staring me dead in the eyes before coughing into my face, a phlegmy wet cough. Wincing, I quickly turned it back around at which it started screaming once more.

It must be hungry.

Sparing a hand to grab its small bag, I rummaged through it. A couple diapers, a bottle, blanket, and bingo, a bag of cheerios. The Little Devil stopped wailing and its eyes went wide at the sight of the bag and its contents.

While I zipped the bag up, those startlingly quick fingers grasped the Ziplock bag and began to shake it violently. "Ah—" it flung the bag over the seat into the head of the seat's occupant. The woman flinched and turned to face her assailant. I smiled apologetically as she handed me the bag. This time I kept it out of reach from the Little Devil.

Placing a few loops on my palm, I held my hand in front of the child, palm face up and flat as if I were feeding a horse grain. It carefully grabbed one at a time placing nearly its whole hand into its maw to eat. How wholly unnecessary. Before it could touch me I cinched its chunky wrist between my index finger and thumb making a grab for a napkin with my other hand before it could realize it wasn't being detained. It could put all the saliva in its body on this napkin so long as none of it got on me. Not that it mattered at this point having spewed its germs directly into my face. That moment already felt ages ago. How long had it been? I checked my watch again. I still had a little over an hour left. I resumed the bouncing.

After a time, it settled, seeming to have worn itself out. A sigh escaped my lungs and I felt myself relax a little. Comfortable, it faced the window, head against my right shoulder, legs draped across my lap, feet lightly grazing the middle seat occupant who didn't seem to mind, their own eyes closed with neon orange plugs in their ears.

The Little Devil was almost peaceful now, but even at rest there was a pained expression on its soft underdeveloped features. The nose curved deeply into its face before protruding widely and rather flatly above its spit shining lips. It had thin, dark hair that, should it get wet, would make it resemble a net with seaweed caught in it when pulled from water.

It was handsomely dressed, though, with khaki pants that bulged from its diaper, adorned in a navy blue sweater. The Little Devil couldn't be more than sixteen months. But then again, I was very bad at discerning age. It could have been a full two years old for all I knew.

Its lips parted and it began to breathe through its mouth, twitching every now and again. For a moment I wondered what it was dreaming of. What incoherent images were playing out in that brain encapsulated by a soft skull that was still melding together?

I closed my own eyes and let myself drift, occasionally righting my position so as to not disturb the Little Devil or land on my neighbors still snoozing shoulder.

We began our descent. My ears popped and so too must have the Little Devil's for he startled awake and immediately began to cry. And that's when I smelled it. The putrid smell of baby shit. How foul it was. Its bottom was warm on my lap indicating a full load. I just needed to hang on a little bit longer.

With a jarring landing, I was finally home. The air was heavy with fog limiting my view to the outside. That's how I liked it, though. I almost forgot the Little Devil's bag, but my now alert seat mate handed it to me. I thanked him.

The walk up the small ramp into the airport felt like freedom, but there was one thing I needed to do first. Gate B16 was the lucky random pick. It was teeming with people. They would be boarding soon. I found a spot on the ground next to a kind looking elderly woman.

With a dramatic sigh, I hunkered down on the ground and waited a few minutes before diving into my own bag. I pulled out a near empty water bottle and polished it off, making an effort to make it clear I needed more by giving it a shake. I made a show of looking around before locking directly on the elderly woman who was minding her own business, in a world of her own.

"Would you mind watching him, please?" I shifted the Little Devil, trying to make myself look more desperate than I was, which I imagined I probably already looked wrecked after the flight I'd endured.

"Not a problem, dear."

"I'll be back shortly. Thank you." With a smile, I got up, leaving behind the small bag the Little Devil came with and began my walk to the baggage claim.