Having just gotten back from a road trip a week ago it was no surprise to have had an airport dream.

I had just picked up my checked baggage and was in the process of repopulating my pockets with my knife and keys and etc. and there was a hip flask.

I recognized it immediately as mine, though I don’t drink. I unscrewed the cap, and sniffed; brandy, something decent but not particularly spendy. It was pewter, well made, and had an engraving on the concave side- “To (og) from (Some friends of mine)”. I couldn’t have imagined anything I’d needed less, but maybe I had begun carrying it out of nostalgia alone.

I took a small snort and recapped it, sticking it in my pocket, suddenly feeling as if I’d been feeling it there for years.

I sat on a bench and waited for the National bus. Another traveller came and sat near me. He had a full head of almost completely gray har, a man maybe in his early 60’s, and a pretty full beard, and favored his right leg.

He sighed as he sat, putting his backpack on top of his checked baggage. he took out an Uncle Henry 897 and slipped it into his pocket, a set of keys, and a hip flask. He snorted from it and sat it on his knee, still uncapped.

it was the flask in my pocket. I mean, exactly, down to the engraving. It made me even check and see if mine was still there, and it was. Oh, it had some more dents, and some more use, and there was a repaired bullet hole in it. But it was mine. I looked at him, he looked at me. He capped the flask and put it in his pocket, then got up and got on the Hertz bus.