Sunday, October 31, 2004 -- 8:36 AM

Its possible that I'm going back to Washington in a couple of weeks. Hip hip!

Airport Musings
A Fictional Memoir
David Hughes sat in the quiet Seatac airport, at the waiting area designated for foreign travellers. His flight was leaving in about half an hour, and he already missed the warmth and life of the Washington air and sun. The thin, dry climate of Alberta would welcome him back with icy indifference, tauntingly, with a subtle sneer.

Now that she was gone there were only bits and pieces that he could remember about her, nothing very concrete was left. The memories were contaminated with feelings, and because he knew it, he didn't trust them. He thought now that maybe he felt nothing for her at all, maybe he never had. He thought this to himself now that she was gone. Actually, she wasn't gone, he reminded himself. She never left, he did. He came, he left. Oh God, was it really finished? Then it had to have started. He realized now that his thoughts were making him morbid and he didn't really want to feel morbid, so he tried to think about her. He forced himself to think about her, not to make him feel better, because it didn't, but just to get his mind off himself and his damned self pity.

He knew she was great from around the first time he saw her. Probably not from the very first time, but a little after he'd spent some time with her, then he knew for sure. Her attraction wasn't confined to what people call inward beauty; she was very pretty. She also had a sweetness about her that was innocent and feminine, which amused him. He liked the way she wore a lot of browns and pastels; usually mellow, and dressed to match her figure and personality.

He hadn't been looking for her when he found her, and he especially wasn't looking for love. He wasn't looking for anything. He'd thought about love before, but it was more of a thoughtful analysis of it, ponderings of a young and serene mind, based on what he'd read and observed. Not critically, like those who are bitter through failed experiments in it, but curiously and perhaps naievely. He excpected that he would fall in love some time, but he never prepared himself for it in any way. He thought of it in the same way one who is on a journey thinks of his destination. It is what gives him purpose, and to some degree direction. He knew he would find it in time, and when he did he was sure he would be ready for it.

But then there she was, as expansive and colourful as the busy country she was from. The same country that had raised him and spit him out, the hills and forests and neatly paved streets that held his childhood memories like a locked box, beautiful and quite mystical. The country that he'd be leaving in not many weeks, the country he was leaving now that those weeks were over.

He had come back to Seattle to join a friend travelling to Asia for two weeks in the summer, and he'd spent an extra several weeks both prior to and after this trip in Washington to carouse with old friends. He didn't expect it to turn into an epic, and if you'd asked him he'd probably say he didn't want it to. Nothing started here could ever last, he'd told himself a dozen times in the past several weeks, and told himself again now. It could be as long as a year before he'd be back here again. He was glad that he could think about her without being morbid, that he could think of her cheerfully as he was now, and even the failure of it all. He began to feel pleasant again.

He reached inside his travel bag for the picture he kept of her. He stored it inside a book of his that he was reading, to keep it unspoiled. A book by Earnest Hemingway, The Green Hills of Africa. He looked for five minutes before he realized that he'd forgotten to pack it. Damn, I'll have to get Brad to mail it up to me. But no, it wasn't in my room, I checked my room before I left. Where was it last? Oh damn. On the flight from Tokyo. I was reading it and. Yes, that's definitely where I left it. Damn, damn, damn it all. He kept looking for ahwile even after he knew it was gone, and then he closed his bag, turned and looked out the massive airport windows into the grey Washington sky. How fitting, really. What the hell, I guess I really am leaving it all behind.

The picture that he would never see again, the one he'd kept religiously safe the entire time he was away from her in Asia, was of her and him standing on the beach, and looking so happy that as you looked at it, you couldn't help but smile with them. It was a different kind of smile that David Hughes was smiling now, the smile that accepted it all suddenly, with the realization that it's over, all of it, and it's going to be okay. Not now, but soon.

He took a step out onto the tarmac towards his plane, and smiled his last smile into the wonderful misty Washington sky.