Sluggish
Paris was just waking up as we sleepily dragged our luggages across the cobblestone streets.
Last train rides are as important as the first. The Metro was virtually empty; it had few passengers that morning and I looked at each one inquisitively, their day just beginning. Julien once mentioned that the way back to the airport was always like film rewinding : suddenly, everything rushes back to you in an instant.
Charles de Gaulle airport is a web of escalators, taking people from its central hub to the destination written on the ticket. Airports always define a sense of reality – no time for solemn contemplation, just flourescent lit-magnified illusions. You find yourself obsessively checking your passport, your ticket, your boarding passes. Checking-in luggage. Locating your terminal. Taking note of boarding time. For me, my senses are too alert at the airport, my imagination running wild.
From the second floor, while waiting in line at immigration, I was observing a couple saying goodbye at the foot of the escalators, the girl awkwardly holding her composure, and the boy running his hands every so often over his hair, as if by habit. The boy cupped her face in his hands and his lips moved, probably last-minute instructions for whatever their agenda was. After a kiss, the girl stepped onto the escalator and, after three steps off the ground, turned on her heels, jumped back to the floor and flung her arms over the guy. Maybe, I was secretly wishing she was courageous enough to not move from that embrace. The boy beside me, who was also watching the couple, chuckled and shook his head, as if saying, “Happens all the time, that”, as if he were already immune. Of course, he was right.
Soon the boy watched the girl get on the escalator again, his palm held up. This time, she didn’t jump back, but she watched him as she ascended, her palm held up too, mirror images being pulled further away from each other.
My journal has too many pages written at the airport : during layover, while waiting at airport lounges, inside the plane.
In Bahrain I sat next to a bubblegum machine infront of Duty Free, ignoring the disapproving looks at my sitting on the floor (no one asked me to leave, so I didn’t), biting my nails and drawing circles on my journal, hypnotized by a cardboard figure of a chef on a display window, an advertisement for a free trip if you dropped your raffle entries before August 4, 2002. Hurry! You just might win a 7-day trip of your choice to London, Paris, or Dubai !
In Abu Dhabi, I watched the numbers change on the overhead screen, wide-eyed with fatigue, awaiting the boarding announcement for the next plane.
This time, I had only one sentence written in my journal, for the whole 20-hour trip:
28 Jul 2002, Bahrain
Hello,
What are we looking for?
