The Airport - A story

I was there. The airport. The in-between land. I hadn't been here in a while. I didn't like this place before. I hated flying before I knew what it felt like. He would tell me how much he loved this place – the airport. He associated it with some sort of magic. It took me a long time to understand that, the magic. But I finally saw the beauty he wanted me to. He helped me see it but it was too late.

I'm here today because I have to see if he’s doing okay. It took me seven years, but I finally built up the courage to come to the airport on the one day I knew he would be here, pushing a trolley containing his bags. The last time I came to the arrivals’ section, I had come to pick him up. He was returning from his yearly visit to his parents. He always visited them in the same one week, the week of their anniversary. He would smile widely as he stepped out the doors and almost run towards me. He'd have one more suitcase than he had when he left. Gifts from his parents, from his home. Gifts he would give me later. This wasn't the last time I went to the airport. This was the last time I went to collect him. The years after that, before we broke up I would go with him. I met his parents and we clicked immediately. His mother was almost exactly like me. His parents accepted me with open arms. They weren't shy about discussing what they wanted us to do. That they wanted to see little kids running around one day. And that made me happy. I wasn't frightened by them.

He was never scared of flying. It excited him more than anything else, to be up in the sky. In his words, “I've been flying since I stepped out of my mother’s womb”. I wouldn't see it initially. When I first flew, with him beside me, I shut my eyes tight and clenched my fists. He took my hand in his, closed his palms tightly around mine and told me to breathe slowly. That it was going to be okay. And I believed him. Eventually, I got comfortable during those tense moments of taking off and landing. And it was then that I saw. His eyes twinkling as the captain announced we were going to depart; he would make sure his seat and tray were upright, that his belt was buckled and tight and on display so that the air hostess would see, as if she would give him a pat on his head for being a good boy. He was adorable. He always is. And then he would religiously study the menu. He always knew to order the right things. And when we landed, he would wait patiently till everyone else got out. And then he would stand up, take his suitcase and calmly walk out, smiling brightly at the air hostesses. I guess it was something he was taught, something he was doing since he was a kid.

He was excited a whole different way when we were at the airport. We always checked in 3 hours prior to the flight, we shopped a little bit and we sat down at the lounge. He told me about the ‘in-between land’ – where at the moment you were waiting to get on to the plane, you were standing in no country, having pressed the exit stamp already. He would tell me, everyone here has a purpose. Everyone here, they're going to someone or something important. What waits on the other side is probably a beautiful thing, or perhaps an ugly thing. But whatever it was, it was a very important point of their lives. I found it beautiful, what he said. How he imagined stories for the nun waiting with us, for the man wearing shabby clothes headed to India in the ‘hopes of finding something meaningful about life’, for the girl slowly moving around the bookshelf perusing the books – she was probably a student who didn't have the money to spend on books from the duty free. It was amazing, how he would dream up lives for these people, how they made sense once he looked at them, and understood them.

He proposed to me. We were going to get married. We were going to be a happy family.

What happened then?

I happened.

It wasn't easy. It was never easy. The day I found out, my heart broke. I was instantly told of the things I couldn't have. What I couldn't give him. The thought of that hurt me more than the cancer. The cancer was in its early stages, so the tumor could be removed. But I was told to remove the ‘problem areas’ just to be safe, just to be sure.

And I did it. I had a hysterectomy and a mastectomy as suggested by my doctors. I had shut off all possibilities of being a mother, of starting a family. And I didn't want to do the same to him. Or his parents.

I just left one day. Before the operations. As soon as I found out actually. I just packed up my bags and went back to my hometown. And I warned my parents not to let him contact me. They didn't want to do that, so I had to threaten to do the same to them as I was doing to him. I was being cruel. I was being heartless, but I had no option. He sent me letters to my parents. Lots and lots of letters. Beautiful letters. I read a few and tore the rest of them up. I kept those torn pieces of paper, thinking I might piece them back together again one day. But then I destroyed them irrevocably.

That was seven years ago. And today, I'm here at the airport, waiting for him. I’m here with plans of begging for forgiveness. I've realized I cannot live without him. We could adopt kids. Whatever it was, I have to be with him. Because without him, I was slowly losing my sanity. So I'm waiting.

I waited for a long time. But he didn’t show. He wasn't among the passengers I looked at, and I looked carefully. I can recognize him from a mile away, even now I would like to imagine. And the dark reality that things have changed for him slowly began to settle in. Maybe he no longer visited his parents, maybe he moved, maybe… Many possibilities came across my mind. But I dared not move, I dared not blink – just in case he walks through those doors. A dark voice in my mind said he wouldn’t. That he was probably somewhere, with a wife, with a family. But I did not move.

I did not move when someone tapped on my shoulder. The security I guessed. Maybe I was being suspicious. But I couldn't move; my eyes were fixed on the doors. I was tapped again on the shoulder, and then I felt the person moving to my front. I did not look at him. I stepped aside and kept staring at the doors.

And then he said my name.

That voice. That one voice I yearned to hear for seven years. That voice that made me excited and calm at the same time. That voice which comforted me. His voice.

I thought it was you, he said. You look different, he said. And I looked into his eyes. He looked tired, sadder than the last time I saw him. I couldn't say anything. I had a whole speech prepared and I couldn't say anything. But I knew he understood. Just as I understood he was waiting for me, like I had for him.