Don’t read this. This is for me.
Milan, Italy
I sit in the bus. Still slightly buzzed from the Scottish liquor I had chugged down the night before.
I have to reach the airport in an hour and I have no idea which terminal I need to be at.
But I feel so good, this day marks my first ever day travelling solo, and my mouth is stretched upwards into a weird smile.
There’s no one beside me, I’m in the bus early. But I hope no one sits next to me because I’ve got this huge fucking backpack that I’ve got resting on my lap.
The bag is too big to fit in the leg space in front of my seat so I have no choice but to put it on my lap, and I wouldn’t put the bag beside me of course, because that would block a seat and I’m supposed to be a nice guy.
Another passenger hops onto the bus and takes a seat parallel to mine. There’s no one sitting beside her. She looks towards me and smiles politely, I smile back politely too.
I look around the bus, no one seems particularly interested in making conversation. So, I take out my trusted Mi earphones and plug them in. My favourite song is Odesza’s ‘A moment apart’, it was the intro of an RSD video that I thought was really inspiring.
I drift into the music, and what would seem ordinary, now looks more interesting that I’ve got a beat going on in my head.
The girl parallel to me is eating a chocolate now, it seems like a fancy brand of some sort, because the chocolate has one of those long wide wrappers that you have to pull down before breaking off a thin piece.
I smile at her politely, I swear this is completely platonic, I can’t stop myself from smiling when I meet someone’s eye. It would be rude not too.
She offers me a chocolate. I say sure.
I eat the chocolate and ask her where she’s headed.
She says that she’s taking a flight to Colombia.
The name of the country spurs me into a conversation.
“Colombia huh? That’s cool. El plata or el pomo,” I say and wink at her, making a gun with my hands and pointing it at her.
She laughs. I don’t blame her. I think it’s a great conversation starter.
I tell her that I’m going to Barcelona. And that I had just come from Switzerland after doing paragliding.
She doesn’t understand what paragliding is apparently, because her face shows no recognition of sort. So I notion. I prop up my knee and run my fingers off it, then I gesture with my hands, extending them wide and swaying them as if to say I’m gliding.
She seems to understand now, she smiles a wide smile, aahing in understanding. I smile back.
I tell her my name, and she tells me hers. She extends her hand and we shake hands across the empty passage that separates our seats.
…
“You on Instagram?”
She says she has one Instagram of her own and one for her dog.
I don’t know what she means by telling me that, but I respond by saying that I have five accounts.
“Really?” she exclaims, leaning towards me.
“Yep, here check this out,” and I angle my phone towards her, showing her my account tray. “I have two accounts for cars, one of my own, one for travelling and one that’s about animals.”
Her eyes spark up at my animal account. I think this conversation’s going somewhere.
I gesture that I’m coming over to sit beside her.
Her eyes are still sparkly. And I move over, ditching my huge fucking bag on my seat.
Language is never a barrier
Whenever I want some one to open up, I ask them “what’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
I don’t say it because I actually care about what they have to say, I say it because it gives me leave to tell my own crazy stories about period blood afterwards. And so I don’t seem like a dick for telling them sensitive information from the get go. Because, after all it was them who told me their craziest story first.
She couldn’t express herself in English that well so I opened up ‘Google Translate’ in my phone and she typed her story in Italian.
When she was 15, she had run away from home to live with her boyfriend, who was also fifteen at the time, she and her boyfriend ran off to live with a friend of theirs who had gotten pregnant and lived with her boyfriend too. (Tangled I know)
I told her my period blood story and how I almost did incest.
Of course, it wasn’t actually incest — in Pakistan. What I did might have been considered incest abroad though.
My incest story required an in depth explanation of the Pakistani culture and my frustrations as a child. My mum taking me out of school because I sexted and then sending me off to a religious school to study Islam with a bunch of stinky savages, with me forbidden to never go to school again.
“Muslmaan?” she said softly, looking at me inquisitively.
I didn’t even think before I typed out the words
“Not really, my dad’s a Christian and my mum’s a Muslim.”
Which is technically true, but I haven’t met my dad since 14 years.
But I was raised to be a Muslim…
Anyhow…
That was it
We arrived at Terminal 1. We both stepped out. She hugged me and said goodbye.
The space between us was fizzling with sexual tension.
But I didn’t have time to do anything — to say anything, I didn’t even know if I was supposed to be at this terminal.
I rushed inside and began to look for those big boards where flights are displayed.
Flight to Porto — Terminal 1
I was at the right terminal. I relaxed, I still had a lot of time, my flight left in an hour and a half.
So I began strolling around the airport and there she was again, standing at the sliding entry doors.
She was fumbling in her purse, then she looked up, saw me and sheepishly asked me if I wanted to take a smoke.
I don’t smoke. But I don’t say no when people offer. So I said yes.
We went outside into the cold and began talking again.
She began telling how she was feeling pangs of guilt because she had found someone’s credit card lying around and given it to a stranger who said it was his.
My mind was elsewhere. I regret that it was now, I should have lived the moment.
I told her that it didn’t matter, and that whoever’s card it was, they would block it anyway.
She seemed to be a little reassured by that.
My cigarette ended. I headed over to a bin to throw it in. Silly me.
She grabbed me by the shoulder and nudged me towards a large ashtray.
Both of our cigarettes had ended now.
We said goodbye again.
I think we hugged again, but I can’t say for sure.
She blew me kisses as I walked back in.
The End.
