Tuesday
It was a day for missed flights. He was at the air station- suitcase in hand. He was told that the flight had left an hour back and he could have his money back please minus the cancellation fee of course. He had felt that something like this would happen the moment he had woken up that morning; the newspaper was not folded right when he had opened the hotel room’s door. The news print was too dark- facing up and the picture side was down, pictures kissing the dark grey carpet floor. He often did this- attributing portentous reasons to every day coincidences- like a Hero- living a myth in his own universal microcosm.
Now he was here at the crowded unwelcoming stark whiteness and steel of the airport, with not much to do. What happened now, now that he was stuck in point A and not B? Had life moved on while he waited behind? How much further? Had his incompetence changed the world and turned it in a new direction-an unplanned unintended direction-by a couple of hours? A day? Forever?
Images rushed through his head, as he darted from the counter to the next to get himself on to another flight: mother waiting for him at the airport, long clean white legs of cabin girls, bland sandwiches in cold plastic wrap, Penelope Cruz.
Penelope Cruz? Why on earth would he think of her now? What relevance did she have with anything that could be related to his current situation or the sagely contemplation he was indulging himself in- in the midst of the anxious pursuit of a ticket?
This was not the first time that this had happened. She popped up like this once too often, unconnected to trains of thoughts or fruits of actions.
This time though, the way she made her appearance-as if wading through a coalesced glue of uncalled for memories-made him pause a bit. There were certain physical repercussions to this mental appearance that were now not extremely appropriate or impossible to manifest, being as he was in between flights and ticket counters. He would need to make his way to the nearest washroom. It was late enough for the washrooms to be empty. There in one washroom, he looked at himself in the clean mirrors that projected his image against white walls, plastic paper holders and antiseptic smells. Unshaved, unwashed, with his thinning hair out of place, he did not like what he saw. He splashed water on his face and found that the paper left forty two white specks in its path to self destruction, against his stubble. He wiped them off with the sleeves of his shirt and ruffled his hair with some dry paper. Having done this he felt more confident of facing a world outside that was uninterested in him. Then, he saw her there.
The sight of a woman passing him by, nonchalantly, within the confines of a men’s washroom did not strike him as extraordinary at first. When the incongruity struck him, he realized it was her, Ms Cruz. His mind raced on. He stared at the passing female image, with that impotent stare, often mistaken for lechery, but what was actually a feeble admiring gesture that was also despairing at the inability to act. He wondered what he could tell her. Should he walk up to her and tell her how much he liked her in that movie where she sang and cooked food for film crews, low plunging neck lines revealing her sweet beauty? Would that be effrontery? Should he ask her how it felt to make out with that callipygian actress in the Woody Allen film? Trivia. She had dated Tom Cruise and played whatshername to his Dylan memory like the album cover of Free Wheelin’. She was a vague definition of beauty for him, startling yet at first look, ordinary.
When he decided that he would approach her like a gushing fan and make a fool of himself, saying something like “Big Fan”, she had disappeared.
She had never been there, he thought. Of course, he knew that all along. It was the lack of sleep, he told himself- the result of early morning cold taxi rides to missed flights with the promise of fitful sleep, strapped to a chair, a thousand feet above sea level. He tried ruffling his hair into a better pattern, once more, and walked out of the washroom.
The best thing to do now was to get a ticket for the next day and go back home. He could if he hopped counters some more, get himself a ticket on a flight some five hours later. But that would involve hanging around in the airport, in its cool aseptic afternoon quiet, trying to read a book and longing for company. Or sight Penelope again.
The best the woman behind counter number five could give him was a flight at nineteen hundred hours which would cost him fifty nine five hundred. He would land the next day.
Eight hours at the airport then, and reaching Point B twenty four hours late. He made three quick phone calls to salvage the situation a bit and made his way to a recliner facing the landing bay.
“Who knows what tomorrow brings”, he sang, a little too loud, loud enough to wake up the snoring obese gentleman on the seat next to him.
Pretending to read a book, he started counting the seconds, the minutes and the hours till he finally closed his eyes to sleep.
It was a day for missed flights. He was at the air station- suitcase in hand. He was told that the flight had left an hour back and he could have his money back please minus the cancellation fee of course. He had felt that something like this would happen the moment he had woken up that morning; the newspaper was not folded right when he had opened the hotel room’s door. The news print was too dark- facing up and the picture side was down, pictures kissing the dark grey carpet floor. He often did this- attributing portentous reasons to every day coincidences- like a Hero- living a myth in his own universal microcosm.
Now he was here at the crowded unwelcoming stark whiteness and steel of the airport, with not much to do. What happened now, now that he was stuck in point A and not B? Had life moved on while he waited behind? How much further? Had his incompetence changed the world and turned it in a new direction-an unplanned unintended direction-by a couple of hours? A day? Forever?
Images rushed through his head, as he darted from the counter to the next to get himself on to another flight: mother waiting for him at the airport, long clean white legs of cabin girls, bland sandwiches in cold plastic wrap, Penelope Cruz.
Penelope Cruz? Why on earth would he think of her now? What relevance did she have with anything that could be related to his current situation or the sagely contemplation he was indulging himself in- in the midst of the anxious pursuit of a ticket?
This was not the first time that this had happened. She popped up like this once too often, unconnected to trains of thoughts or fruits of actions.
This time though, the way she made her appearance-as if wading through a coalesced glue of uncalled for memories-made him pause a bit. There were certain physical repercussions to this mental appearance that were now not extremely appropriate or impossible to manifest, being as he was in between flights and ticket counters. He would need to make his way to the nearest washroom. It was late enough for the washrooms to be empty. There in one washroom, he looked at himself in the clean mirrors that projected his image against white walls, plastic paper holders and antiseptic smells. Unshaved, unwashed, with his thinning hair out of place, he did not like what he saw. He splashed water on his face and found that the paper left forty two white specks in its path to self destruction, against his stubble. He wiped them off with the sleeves of his shirt and ruffled his hair with some dry paper. Having done this he felt more confident of facing a world outside that was uninterested in him. Then, he saw her there.
The sight of a woman passing him by, nonchalantly, within the confines of a men’s washroom did not strike him as extraordinary at first. When the incongruity struck him, he realized it was her, Ms Cruz. His mind raced on. He stared at the passing female image, with that impotent stare, often mistaken for lechery, but what was actually a feeble admiring gesture that was also despairing at the inability to act. He wondered what he could tell her. Should he walk up to her and tell her how much he liked her in that movie where she sang and cooked food for film crews, low plunging neck lines revealing her sweet beauty? Would that be effrontery? Should he ask her how it felt to make out with that callipygian actress in the Woody Allen film? Trivia. She had dated Tom Cruise and played whatshername to his Dylan memory like the album cover of Free Wheelin’. She was a vague definition of beauty for him, startling yet at first look, ordinary.
When he decided that he would approach her like a gushing fan and make a fool of himself, saying something like “Big Fan”, she had disappeared.
She had never been there, he thought. Of course, he knew that all along. It was the lack of sleep, he told himself- the result of early morning cold taxi rides to missed flights with the promise of fitful sleep, strapped to a chair, a thousand feet above sea level. He tried ruffling his hair into a better pattern, once more, and walked out of the washroom.
The best thing to do now was to get a ticket for the next day and go back home. He could if he hopped counters some more, get himself a ticket on a flight some five hours later. But that would involve hanging around in the airport, in its cool aseptic afternoon quiet, trying to read a book and longing for company. Or sight Penelope again.
The best the woman behind counter number five could give him was a flight at nineteen hundred hours which would cost him fifty nine five hundred. He would land the next day.
Eight hours at the airport then, and reaching Point B twenty four hours late. He made three quick phone calls to salvage the situation a bit and made his way to a recliner facing the landing bay.
“Who knows what tomorrow brings”, he sang, a little too loud, loud enough to wake up the snoring obese gentleman on the seat next to him.
Pretending to read a book, he started counting the seconds, the minutes and the hours till he finally closed his eyes to sleep.
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