The stewardess picked the passengers with trolleys on the jet bridge and asked them to wait aside to check in their luggage due to lack of space. The group of friends in front of me had to follow her. All except one of them, who just had a large but flexible backpack. She looked back to her friends who were now separated from her. Her face expression revealed curiosity but also some form of slight fear. Her group, the people she cared about, the ones who cared about her, were somewhere else. She looked back frequently to check on them, to check when they would come. Even if modern societies have made it possible to survive as an individual, it just means that our support network has become anonymous in form of a state that provides the context we need to survive. But in reality, humans only succeed by working together, as books about humankind explain. The life of a lone wolf, albeit attractive, is inevitably short and painful.

Eventually, she moved out of the line on the jet bridge, and went back to her friends.

Planes are surprising social environments. I enjoyed watching Hijack on such a flight.