Airport Musings

These are random musings I wrote while waiting to catch a flight to Chicago. There are so many people at airports; everyone has their own story for being there and an even more interesting life story. These were written while I was sitting across from different people at the boarding gate and are purely fictional.

Not Alone
He sat there running his fingers through his hair. It felt a little greasy, but that was because his flight had been delayed overnight and customer service was closed. No bed, no shower; just the clothes he had on and an extra pair of boxers. The bottoms of his feet were ashy from the multiple times he had left the airport to have a cigarette, his only momentary freedom from the slow, unhelpful hub of travel. He paced back and forth out on the cement sidewalk,
dragging his tired feet behind him. They body-shaking roar and rumble from overhead planes made him roll his eyes in despair. He never liked traveling anyway. Uncomfortable, body-contorting positions gave him very little rest as he tried to stretch out on the chairs by the gates. Every time he was about to doze off, the intercom would have security nonsense warning blare over him. Giving up, he decided sleep was not for him. He looked around at the empty seats all around him in the semi darkness.
Down by the other side of the waiting area was a dark figure. It was very still but somehow it sensed his eyes probing the silence and privacy it was cloaked in. It turned to face him.
There was a tired gentleness in her eyes. Startled at first but then her gaze softened. Their eyes exchanged glances and in that split second everything they had felt and experienced was communicated through the silent, static air.

Love Symbol
Whenever she smiled, her chubby cheeks would inflate with a hint of rosiness. Her bubbly laughter made even the most emotionless men feel warm inside and recall the happy memories of their childhood. She was their pride and joy, a symbol of their free love.
Before they could finally get married, she was betrothed to another man and he just a fresh college graduate. He didn’t have much to offer her but what he had he would willingly give away to her world a better place. She was born into a very strict family, where tradition and rules overrode emotions and family ties. She never dreamed of disobeying her parents but when they met briefly that one moment: he was on his bike pedaling towards the market,
she was returning home in her fiancé’s car from an in-law gathering – they felt time pause. A split second glance, the blink of an eye, her heart fluttered, he saw nothing but her, he couldn’t remember how to breathe. He only knew he didn’t want to live if he had to live without her.

Secrets
Behind the gentle smile and glossy eyes, she had a deep dark secret she could never let anyone know. It wasn’t easy for her to keep panic and guilt off her face. She spent many nights on the bathroom floor with a razor to her wrists. If she could mask pain, she could mask any other emotion.
She wouldn’t make it easy on herself; that wasn’t a fine, smooth blade she used. She had purposefully run the blade over the window frame multiple times to make it ragged and more painful. The more excruciating the cuts, the more believable façade. Sometimes she would sprinkle a pinch of rat poison into her food just to experience the gut wrenching suffering of chemicals burning holes into the walls of her stomach. Her heart cried out in warning but she refused to go down like that. There was no way she’d let herself off the hook that easily. Suffering became her life.