To take a plane, that will take me far. To practice the exercise of missing you.
I’m holding the ticket in my hand. I dread the following hours, I know myself well. It will be a sleepless night, like many others spent in planes. But now, I also know it is different today. It will be a different kind of sleeplessness.
In the past I dreaded the little sit in the planes, the awful meals, the long hours of wait, the too shiny screens of my traveler companions. The never ending and monotonous present of watching the same things happening. The same bad movies in the little screens, the little children screaming, the sign of turbulence and the little gasps for air of the more scared ones. Flying has always been a bad experience for me. And yet, this time is awful in a different way.
To cross a sea, to survive my sleepless night, when I have to think about you.
This is the first time I board a plane, feeling I’m leaving something behind. The first time I, honest to god, don’t want to leave. The weight of the commitments, the booked spaces, the expectations and dreams, the weight of it all over my head. The desire to see beloved faces, the wish to stay and love as I feel I’m running out of time, the hours running through my fingers like fresh water in a river.
There are people waiting for me. In both sides of the plane.
I’ll see family and friends in one side. I’ll greet them with tears in my eyes, after a long time apart, some tears are to be used to lube the machinery of the family love. Good thing I have plenty a supply of them, and I can use the ones I’ve been saving since the last time I saw them ( In another airport as well )
In the side where I’m moving away from, there is a smile and a pair of dark eyes, that are enough to fuel my sleepless night. I cross a sea, I count the hours, I think of you. I keep you close.
The last hours before taking a plane, never felt so nostalgic. How is is possible that I’m already missing you when you are still in front of me?
You walk slowly by my side, our steps leave their impermanent print in the fresh snow. Our steps sync. The snow hides well in your white scarf and jacket. The snow melts at the touch of your little nose. My black coat is covered in snowflakes, it looks strange, the time slips, the buses are inevitably going to come and take you away, and then I’ll have to face airports and planes, long hours of wait, an ocean and a sleepless night.
What is left to do, but to keep counting the sleepless nights. At least one more crossing the ocean in opposite direction, at least one more when the night is ours again, and then, there will be no planes, no tickets, no more waits or infamous meals, then the ocean is behind, the curtains are closed, and my sleepless night, will become our night, and sunrise by your side.
Andres H.
