Un Sueño
It’s 7:48am and I’m sitting in the waiting lounge at the International Airport, pathologically using the building’s power outlets to charge my iPod in the vain hope that it will last the entire length of my journey. In my usual inability to resist the “now or never!” marketing of the magazine shops, I am munching from a bag of white pistachios (I hate how the pink comes off on your fingers).
We’re already ten minutes late to board, and a faint line of cautiously impatient passengers is starting to form in front of the gate. A perky brunette and a red-faced man are whispering genially behind the desk as they wait for the predetermined signal. The terminal is surprisingly quiet for the number of people in it.
Me, I’m… surviving. My sorry attempt at a 4:30am breakfast is churning away, my fingernails chewed down to bloody nubs. At this moment, I could point out all six of the emergency exits, including an assessment of which ones are alarmed and which will lead me into the bemused arms of waiting security guards. I have, at several distinct moments, cursed the foolish bravado that caused me to believe this was a good idea.
The gate personnel are gathering. The line of cautiously impatient passengers solidifies in excited anticipation, brandishing their passports like little engine starters.
When the perky brunette finally leans in to welcome first class passengers and those requiring extra assistance, it’s as if everything inside me liquefies all at once. It becomes so clear, like a flickering fluourescent light blazing into life. What was I thinking? I can’t do this.
Pistachios scattering, iPod tumbling, I make a bolt for the nearest exit.
But the brunette has had her eye on me, and she’s been in this business long enough to know what to expect from my brand of wide-eyed shivering. She tosses her fistful of boarding pass stubs to her red-faced colleague and lunges over the desk after me. I can hear her shouting my name as we slalom through waiting passengers and hurdle lounge chairs. I throw water on the floor as I pass a drinking fountain, but she deftly leaps over the puddle. I push a screaming six year old with ribboned curls into her path but she sends the jubilant tot off with plastic wings and a postcard of a plane without even breaking her stride.
She’s gaining on me.
I plunge into the nearest Duty Free and duck behind a massive case of Toblerones – milk, dark and white. It’s quiet. I think for a brief moment that she didn’t see me turn in. I am wildly overjoyed.
Then I hear the quiet clicking of the conservative heels on her classic shoes cross the store’s threshold. She is so calm, so cool. She makes hushing noises as she stalks the aisles.
“Everything will be okay,” she’s whispering. “Everything will be just fine.”
She is in the perfume aisle. I realize I am trapped between the Toblerones and the Marlboros.
“We are now boarding rows 15 through 22,” she’s cooing. “Please let me know if I can help you in any way.”
I survey my ineffectual little hideout. The deadliest weapon available is nougat.
And there she is, rounding my corner and offering me a complimentary blanket and pillow with a practiced smile. But I am ready: I fling a handful of cigarettes in her face and sprint past her as she sputters and claws at her eyes. She is howling my name.
I don’t get far. Before I’m even through the doors of the Duty Free, it is complimentary blankets and pillows and smiles in all directions. Her colleagues have arrived. I am surrounded.
“This is your final boarding call,” a dark eyed fellow murmurs at me.
I make one final lunge, red rover red rover, but the red-faced man has me by the ankles and I’m on the floor. I kick and I claw but I can’t escape now, and, deep down, I know it.
Over the shoulder of the red-faced man, I see the brunette rising with a wry smile. She leans in close, close enough for me to smell the soap and tooth whitener, and beams.
“Estimated flight time is four hours, thirty one minutes,” she whispers. "Welcome aboard."
We’re already ten minutes late to board, and a faint line of cautiously impatient passengers is starting to form in front of the gate. A perky brunette and a red-faced man are whispering genially behind the desk as they wait for the predetermined signal. The terminal is surprisingly quiet for the number of people in it.
Me, I’m… surviving. My sorry attempt at a 4:30am breakfast is churning away, my fingernails chewed down to bloody nubs. At this moment, I could point out all six of the emergency exits, including an assessment of which ones are alarmed and which will lead me into the bemused arms of waiting security guards. I have, at several distinct moments, cursed the foolish bravado that caused me to believe this was a good idea.
The gate personnel are gathering. The line of cautiously impatient passengers solidifies in excited anticipation, brandishing their passports like little engine starters.
When the perky brunette finally leans in to welcome first class passengers and those requiring extra assistance, it’s as if everything inside me liquefies all at once. It becomes so clear, like a flickering fluourescent light blazing into life. What was I thinking? I can’t do this.
Pistachios scattering, iPod tumbling, I make a bolt for the nearest exit.
But the brunette has had her eye on me, and she’s been in this business long enough to know what to expect from my brand of wide-eyed shivering. She tosses her fistful of boarding pass stubs to her red-faced colleague and lunges over the desk after me. I can hear her shouting my name as we slalom through waiting passengers and hurdle lounge chairs. I throw water on the floor as I pass a drinking fountain, but she deftly leaps over the puddle. I push a screaming six year old with ribboned curls into her path but she sends the jubilant tot off with plastic wings and a postcard of a plane without even breaking her stride.
She’s gaining on me.
I plunge into the nearest Duty Free and duck behind a massive case of Toblerones – milk, dark and white. It’s quiet. I think for a brief moment that she didn’t see me turn in. I am wildly overjoyed.
Then I hear the quiet clicking of the conservative heels on her classic shoes cross the store’s threshold. She is so calm, so cool. She makes hushing noises as she stalks the aisles.
“Everything will be okay,” she’s whispering. “Everything will be just fine.”
She is in the perfume aisle. I realize I am trapped between the Toblerones and the Marlboros.
“We are now boarding rows 15 through 22,” she’s cooing. “Please let me know if I can help you in any way.”
I survey my ineffectual little hideout. The deadliest weapon available is nougat.
And there she is, rounding my corner and offering me a complimentary blanket and pillow with a practiced smile. But I am ready: I fling a handful of cigarettes in her face and sprint past her as she sputters and claws at her eyes. She is howling my name.
I don’t get far. Before I’m even through the doors of the Duty Free, it is complimentary blankets and pillows and smiles in all directions. Her colleagues have arrived. I am surrounded.
“This is your final boarding call,” a dark eyed fellow murmurs at me.
I make one final lunge, red rover red rover, but the red-faced man has me by the ankles and I’m on the floor. I kick and I claw but I can’t escape now, and, deep down, I know it.
Over the shoulder of the red-faced man, I see the brunette rising with a wry smile. She leans in close, close enough for me to smell the soap and tooth whitener, and beams.
“Estimated flight time is four hours, thirty one minutes,” she whispers. "Welcome aboard."
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