saturday feb 24 2024
7:03pm
sometimes, i wanna go so ghost that i disappear. translucent. and this morning, that’s exactly what i did; i turned off my phone so no one can track me, took a cab to pearson, and hoped on the first flight out of here. first plane was a red eye flight to hamburg, 8.5 hour flight non stop. i put my turned off phone in my jacket pocket and shut my eyes as the plane took off from the runway. the sun was rising as we were landing, everybody was wrapped up in either their blankets or their partners or mothers or children or whoever, the point was everybody seemed to have somebody. and here i was, running you can say, but also arriving in another perspective. i couldn’t fathom staying - there were too many thoughts circling in the vastness of my mind that never settled, they consumed me like a virus, eventually eating up my heart and spitting it back out, and there on the concrete floor i spent my time picking up the pieces. why must i be so sad, why must my life become a tragedy - the man that came so close, but not far enough; or perhaps too far. i was the last to leave the plane, part of me didn’t want to leave. can’t i stay on so i can become one with the plane; its wings, fuselage, cockpit, ill be every single luggage that comes and go. so much so that i’d be inseparable from the metal, i’d hopefully grow a heart of aluminum - and even then probably my tears will rain. that’s why i got off, took the long deserted corridor to the hamburg airport and sat down. every so often my mind would go to the phone in my pocket, what messages were being sent, how many missed calls would appear. i refrained from checking. i had no where to go, no hotel no house no person to take me in. i mean, even i wasn’t willing to take me in..
i stood for ages staring outside watching taxis take and bring people in a rush, in seconds flooding the streets and halls and emptying as quick as they came. i pondered where should i go, i stepped outside and the cold air felt just right; a dark part of me thought i deserve this cold, to have to brace against the dying of the warmth. thoughts of back home uncontrollably came flooding to me and like the cold stole all the warmth that i had left. “where you headed to?” this gentleman that i had not noticed standing next to me asked. “quite honestly, i don’t know..” “ah, i interrupted something quite special it seems.” why was this person talking to me i thought .. for the longest time i always had to seek out conversations, asking people questions to get unresponsive responses. but here this person was, staring into my sunken saddened eyes, knowing that the longer i stare back, the more clearer my dismay comes through. “i have a suggestion to make,” he cut through the silence, “why don’t you take a cab to the other side of town, and maybe on the way you’ll find somewhere you wanna go.” i just stood there staring at him, slightly feeling alievated and somewhat annoyed. however, i did hail the next cab and soon the distant radio turned muffled as my mind turned on rushing back these piercing thoughts.
the road was bumpy, but not as ravenous as the trenches of my mental. so far nothing had caught my eye, things seemed to be flashing by at an increasing rate. the lights from street stores and houses started to become one big blur, the sounds of passing cars and commotion in the city got further distant, the driver seemed to be a bus length away, my seat felt like it was melting beneath me, any moment i’d scrap the floor below. i felt a constant sudden jerk, like i was being pulled out from a frozen lake. the world started to come back to me slowly, the driver was hysterically speaking in a language i couldn’t understand. we were parked outside of a laundry mat, i had fallen asleep. “how much do i owe you??” he continued to argue so i had no choice but to give what i thought was enough, alone i was left again, at this random laundry mat in hamburg germany.
the cold was getting to me, i walked in to get some warmth and to sit. should i turn my phone on i thought, call my so called loved ones and tell them i messed up im coming home right away? “you should do it,” a woman’s voice carried itself to me - yet again i had not noticed her there. “do what..” i said. “it. i can see from your eyes there’s something you need to do.” “i want to disappear.. being here in this foreign country with no one and knowing nothing, i feel like the walls are looking back at me.” the flood gates of my mind seemed to have burst open, my phone sat in my pocket like a heavy stone, the rattling of clothes ringed in the background like a distant sound. “why can’t i just disappear.. why do i still feel like i exist, why can’t people just forget im alive. ” i asked as if the answers to these questions exist. i put my elbows on my knees and my hands over my face, when she replied, “if only the memory of your pain could no longer linger, you think that by running everything else would stop chasing you. i don’t think why you’re here, what has happened in your life for you to run. we all want to run, you think you’re the only brave one for actually coming here like this. the real heroes are the ones who know that the pain is worth feeling, the pain is meant to be felt.” the pain is worth feeling i repeated in my mind without looking at her. “you know when i said you should do it, do you know what i was referring to?” my hands slowly dropped from my face, i looked at her eyes, they were the most beautiful i had ever seen.. like looking at the ocean through gods eyes. this window of soul that had opened its doors to me. “i was referring to your phone, you should turn it on.” dazed and confused, my hear beat started to rise, my phone .. i should turn it on? but what will i see, panic and hysteria, anger and confusion .. i reached for my pocket, brought out my cold phone and turned it on. i saw one notification, no missed calls, it was a message from my mom that read “i love you.”
in that laundry mat i cried, the hours passed so fast that the woman was gone before i realized. no goodbyes, no names, no thank you for your existence and your words, just gone. i guess that’s how my loved ones felt. it seems that what people say is true: no matter where we go, we cannot run away from ourselves. i sat in that laundry mat till the day turned night and day again, till my heart turned cold and warm again. i wasn’t ready to hop on a flight back, but for the first time in the longest i stared back at my reflection and felt what i read in my phone: i love you.
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