Airport Stories: Priority Boarding
Hello Everyone,
Today is an experiment, I’ve tried something different. A short story for your Sunday skim, followed by short reflection on airports and humanity.
Priority Boarding
The dulcet voice of the airport voice chimed through the terminal. Always with a slight British accent. Why not Nigerian or Indian he thought to himself? It must be on purpose. There was a slightly ridiculous, albeit unexplainable sense of certainty and comfort he found in the British accent. Was this the result of centuries of colonial injustice? A Pavlovian response to a voice that conjured up childhood memories of stories by Enid Blyton or Roald Dhal, or the movies Harry Potter, and Mary Poppins?
He arrived at the gate and glanced down at his boarding pass and sighed. Zone Five.
He shuffled forward with great reluctance and took his place in his assigned queue in front of a young couple with a toddler in a stroller. The woman had a haggard look on her face, he shoulder weighed down by a massive duffel bag. All sorts of baby accoutrements no doubt.
Behind him an elderly Indian couple stood uncomfortably close and were inching even closer, so close you could even hear the invisible conversation the couple seemed to be having. It wasn’t a pleasant one.
The crowd swelled and the hall filled with an eerie silence, a mass of humanity but everyone absorbed in their own universe. Visible to only the keen observer of human detail. If you listened hard enough could almost hear the thoughts, worries and anxieties of the entire world.
His meandering mind was rudely interrupted by a hacking cough. It was a sound not unlike one his grandfather made.
He had shared a bathroom with his elderly grandparents for many years, and had discovered a nightly ritual. It would happen only in those deeply quiet hours of the morning, when the moon had long disappeared, and the sun was still far from the horizon. His grandfather would wake up and he would hear a soft padding sound that indicated he was approaching the bathroom; the light would turn on. Then came the sound of the faucet shortly followed by a tremendous lung shattering cough. This would be followed by a spit and then a stream of running water. The light was flicked back off, and shuffling noise would recede into the darkness, only for the whole episode to repeat itself the next evening. It was this nightly ritual that would happen every evening.
He glanced over his shoulder to see an elderly Indian gentleman mop his sweaty forehead with the same handkerchief he presumably had just coughed into. His wife stood next to him, flash of disgust crossed over her face, quickly replaced by a look of resigned helplessness.
He felt an ache deep within him. He had seen a similar look darken his mother’s face at times, but now felt a deep regret. He hoped fervently that this look would not be carved into her face with the permeance that it had with this woman. It was as if every exasperated sigh, clenched fist, frustration, and minor inconvenience over the course of her life had etched itself onto her face, each one cutting deeper than the last.
Eye contact has a visceral way of making you self-aware he thought as the woman caught his eye. Why is it we only feel that flush of embarrassment when we are caught staring, as if the act of staring itself wasn’t embarrassing enough.
He quickly averted his gaze, his eyes sweeping the floor for something interesting to look at, for he didn’t dare look back up at the woman.
His eyes landed three suitcases tightly wrapped in plastic that lay near the boarding gate. Ahh, the plastic-wrapped suitcase he thought. A sure sign of trip from or to the distant corners of the world.
These were not suitcases destined for the glamorous and carousels of London, Doha or Vancouver. These were bags destined for those airports where there was no jetway to greet you as you disembarked, only a mobile staircase. These were bags destined for Delhi, Nairobi, or Karachi. There was a mystery and excitement to these suitcases. Orientalism at is finest he thought to himself. In these places life was fragile, fleeting and unpredictable. It was only these locales that demanded plastic wrap as the protection of choice. Who did these bags belong to, and why were they wrapped so tightly. It was as almost as if those bags held the fragments of entire lives lived, tightly wrapped so as to keep them together, and not let their secrets spill shamelessly out into public view.
His eyes shifted again and settled on the check in-agent at the gate. She was busy. Her head tilted upwards, exposing her slender neck, showcasing patterned silk scarf draped over her shoulder. Her eyes focused on the passenger in front of her as the first two zones had begun to board. There was something strange about her eyes he noticed, he couldn’t put a finger on it. He watched closely.
His line moved closer, she was now closer, only two or three passengers stood between him and the agent. He leaned forward and looked up.
She smiled, checking in the young couple with the stroller. It was a well-rehearsed action. “Boarding passes and passports please.” Her hair was perfectly coiffed, her uniform neatly pressed and her eyes glowed. But her face was different, her smile stopped just before the lines of emotion could crease her corners of her eyes. The brilliance of her white teeth set against the almond color of her skin redirected one’s attention away from her wide almost chocolate brown eyes. She reached over for his passport which he had already flipped to the picture page.
What a strangely intimate moment he thought.
Apart from his father, mother and brother, the only other people who had seen this page, and all the information it contained were the boarding agents. How must it feel to see the photographs hundreds of travellers, to see them at their weariest and most unrestrained. He looked up at her as she scanned his face. She handed back his passport, “Thank you have a nice flight.” There it was, he was right. The smile did not reach her eyes.
She stood at the gateway to another world but she never would step through it. To live life on the edge of the unknown, on the cusp of adventure but never to experience it for yourself must be a terrible feeling. To stand and watch others, the lucky privileged few, travel the world, depart and move on yet never to do it yourself. How must it feel to stand so close to something yet never feel it for yourself?
He reached into his pocket, to put his passport away and felt his fingers brush the tasbih he had snatched off his bedside table earlier that morning. It had traveled with him across the world but had only seen the inside of his pocket.
The perfectly spherical beads, shades of deep mahogany, coffee and amber glowed brilliantly. It even had a special name, he had learned, a tiger’s eye so named for the gemstone from which the beads were carved.
Funny how even stones found in the deepest recesses of the earth carried a light of their own.
As his thumb robotically passed the beads through his fingers, his Dad’s words echoed in his mind “carry it with you, call the names of Allah, and he will look after you.” He quickly brushed off the ensuing wave of guilt. “What good is it doing in your pocket?” He anticipated his father’s rebuttal, “Is it your pocket that needs his blessing?” Call to God he had. Repeatedly. But he was never sure God answered. Perhaps God didn’t answer, maybe he just listened. But even if that was the case, who was to say God would hear to what he had to say? Out of all the billions in the world who call to him, how would my voice make its way to his ears?
He slipped his tasbih back into his pocket and walked past the plane’s rows and found his seat 22C an aisle seat. He slid into the seat and pushed his backpack under the seat in front of him.
Three rows behind him, the uncle hacked away and stuffed his napkin into his pocket.
His wife turned away, sighed and looked out the window.
The plane took off.
Picture of the Day:
For those of you familiar with Vancouver International Airport, there is a large jade canoe that sits at the entrance of the international departures terminal just before you walk through security. The piece is entitled Spirit of The Haida Gwaii by the legendary Bill Reid.
According to the Art Canada Institute the carving depicts a canoe filled with thirteen mythical and non-human beings of Haida origin. These include the “the Raven (Xhuuya), the Wolf, the Eagle, the Frog, the Bear Family, the Beaver, the Dogfish Mother, and the Mouse Woman (Quaganjaat). Three humans are aboard: the Bear Mother, the Chief (who sits at the centre holding his staff), and the “Ancient Reluctant Conscript.” Of it, Bill Reid is said to have written, “The boat goes on, forever anchored in the same place.”
To conclude with an excerpt from Bill Reid:
“Here we are at last, a long way from Haida Gwaii, not too sure where we are or where we’re going, still squabbling and vying for position in the boat, but somehow managing to appear to be heading in some direction; at least the paddles are together, and the man in the middle seems to have some vision of what is to come”
Thanks for reading,
FK
Love that carving at YVR.
Lovely writing Farhan!! The last line of that section "the smile did not reach her eyes" was a nice journey to have been on for me haha Looking forward to more writing :)