I waited for the departures board to scroll through M-Z. Why is it that they always seem to linger on the pages that you don't need to see, but the page showing your destination disappears before you've managed to find your flight number? Eventually the monitors flashed up destinations A-L. My flight number became an irrelevancy: all flights to London Heathrow were delayed. Fog, apparently. There was no indication how long I'd be waiting. I dismissed the idea of making my way to the main Emirates desk almost as soon as the thought entered my head. It'd be mobbed by travellers desperate to make it home in time for Christmas, and despite Emirates having the reputation for being the best airline in the world, they have no control over the weather.
So I did all that I could do: I found a seat, and I waited.
I watched the teeming carnival of humanity parading before me. Demure women in their black abayas, walking a pace-and-half behind their dish-dasha-clad husbands. Teenagers in transit from one Gap year destination to another, forming families of their own invention. Slightly harassed mothers, their eyes flecked with specks of apprehension, trying to occupy their children. Older couples, content just to sit and be. What would any of them think of me? How might I feature on the spattered canvases of their lives? We were a dizzying array of colour, of language, of culture, clashed together for a few short hours before being flung onwards, soaring to opposite side of the globe.
The minutes slipped into hours. I watched planes depart for New York, for Melbourne, for Riyadh, for Karachi, for Singapore. It grew quieter, less bustling. Those waiting for early morning connections settled themselves to catch as much disturbed, unsettled sleep as possible. Fewer new arrivals marched along the snaking air-side halls, and those who had landed appeared more weary, more sedate. Those waiting for the fog to clear in London mounted a quiet sentry duty, guarding the departures board. At around 4 am there began a soft murmuring, a slight shuffling of papers, a gentle movement of bodies. One London flight had a gate and a departure time, soon so did a second, and a third. London's fog had finally lifted: I was able to go home.
We took off at 5 am. Dawn was breaking: the pale Middle Eastern sky shot with amber and below us the Persian Gulf was glittering, almost-silver and not-quite-gold. So man's mechanical winged steed began to race against Apollo's chariot, taking us into a perpetual westbound morning. Yesterday and tomorrow were merging into a continuum: where — or what — was today?
London. She was enveloped in a dusty pink haze as the early morning light mingled with the winter damp. Dubai's amber glow was behind me, and Sydney's bright blue sky even further in my past. Same time, different place. Unifying mind and body could wait: the now that demanded my attention was Somnus' calm embrace.
For etouffee - because he asked, and I couldn't possibly refuse