I love going to the airport
It was one of those days when the weather suddenly turned cold, like getting hit by a hammer, and I caught a nasty cold. There was an exam the next day, but that didn’t really matter. Just being in the library felt like an achievement. She was sitting across from me, staring out the window with a thick textbook in front of her, and then she spoke.
“I love going to the airport.”
“The airport?”
Not dreaming of going to Hokkaido to soak in an onsen with snow falling around us, or wishing for a sweltering Christmas in Australia?
“Yeah, the airport.”
It was definitely the ‘air.port’. A space that’s a step away from the hamster wheel of life. A place where time flows slower than anywhere else. A spot where you pause no matter where you’re headed. A place of departures. A place of arrivals. The in-between of worlds.
“Wanna go now?”
My head was throbbing, and books weren’t making sense. She had been gazing out the window for ages. Staying longer wouldn’t change tomorrow’s exam results. If you love the airport, you just go there. We gathered our stuff and hopped on the airport bus from a nearby stop. Feeling under the weather, I leaned on her shoulder and dozed off on the way. Not sure how long, but she gently shook me awake, and through half-open eyes, I saw the airport. It was vast, chilly, lonely, heart-aching, and dark.
“It looks so lonely.”
It’s a lonely place. Those leaving have their own heartache, and those sending them off feel it too. Promises of ‘We’ll meet again soon’ scatter into the air like empty whispers. I quietly wrapped my arm around her shoulder.
“Should we head back?”
“Yeah. I’m glad we can go back together.”
“Me too.”
As I lent her my shoulder this time, I thought, ‘The exam will sort itself out.’
Of course, the exam didn’t sort itself out, and we had to retake it. Whenever I catch a cold so bad I can barely think, I remember that time. Walking around the airport as if in a dream, floating in a cold-induced daze.
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