Smoking a cigarette is one of life’s lttle pleasures. The airport of Dubai is definitely the Hongkong airport version of the Middle East. I still have 9 more hours to kill before my next flight. In the time in between, I have yet to discover the little nooks and crannies of this brightly-lit place, why I don’t know why, but I have to keep my feet moving, my mind occupied, something, something, just to feel… not so numb.
I had almost forgotten for 7 months how it felt to have a hand to hold; now, I’m reeling from the memory of it, bombarded with mental shrapnel of what was beneath my skin, filling my head with watery images, like viewing the ceiling patterns while submerged in bath tub water, through the bubble bath. Or from a flourescent-lit waiting lounge in the airport, from an almost-out-of-battery digital camera.
All the while smoking my Lights, bought straight from a Safeway branch in Aqaba. Or was it from the souk? We’ve smoked too much to remember.
But hey, I have pictures, ideas, memories, a hilarious Mickey Mouse voice in my head, and as always, always… Mental images: exploring an excavation that isn’t yet opened to public. Or walking home in 10 degree temperature, drunk and heady. Like a New Year’s eve wrapped in a comforter watching train-jumping missionaries attempting the impossible, quietly whispering a happy new year at the strike of 12… All that and many more, plus the promise of wonderful things to achieve in the next 365 days.
