The End

(Theo's Version)

There's a dildo on the luggage carousel.

It's not my dildo. Not that I didn't bring one, but Kit would never pack ours so carelessly that it could just flop out of my suitcase and go tumbling through baggage claim. There are rules for these things.

I'm alone in London Heathrow, watching the dildo go round and round. It's purple, shortish but a perfectly respectable girth. On its fourth rotation, I finally step forward and pull my bag off the belt, but I don't move toward the exit.

I don't know where Kit is.

Seven, eight, nine, ten times the dildo goes around before a straight-faced airport employee snaps on some gloves and takes it away in a plastic baggie.

I check the time: thirty-five minutes since Kit walked away. I'm too angry to cry, but I have about half an hour until I come completely, spectacularly unglued. I'll email the tour company later to explain why we never made it, see if I can get a refund. Right now, I just want to go home.

From the British Airways ticketing line, I watch a nervous young couple approach the lost and found to collect their wayward dildo. They're in the kind of love worth getting humiliated at baggage claim. They leave together, pink-faced and laughing into each other's shoulders. How fucking sweet.

I ask the agent behind the counter, "What time is the next nonstop to Los Angeles?"