16 minute read
Cycling the Cirtuito Lago Simona Carini Llanquihue, Chile
She pointed out the door and said, “Run. There’s someone waiting for you.”
I ran, pounding up the gangway. Other people sluggishly walked from the plane, rubbing tired eyes, a few others running along with me. I forced my jaw to unclench, taking deep breathes.
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The gangway came to a curved elbow, where a cluster of three flight attendants stood, next to a door that hung open to reveal a set of well-lit stairs. One of the flight attendants had a laminated sign that read, “San Francisco.”
I skipped to a halt in front of her. “I’m going to San Francisco.”
“Do you have checked luggage?” she asked, voice quick.
“Yes.”
“Do you care if your luggage arrives at the same time as you do?”
It felt like one of those word association tests, with how fast she was asking me questions.
“No.”
She slapped a circular green sticker, three inches across, on my shoulder, pointed down the stairs, and said, “Run.”
I ran.
I’ve fallen both down and up quite a few staircases in my life, but by some miracle, I made it down intact. A bus waited at the bottom, engine rumbling, the windows warm rectangles of light. A man in a pale pink collared shirt stood in front of the open door.
“San Francisco?” he asked.
“San Francisco.”
He gestured at the bus, and I climbed aboard. The man in the pink shirt hopped onto the bus after me. Four other people were already aboard: the young woman who had tried to push her way out of the plane, and a mother with two young boys, deep bags under her eyes.
The bus doors slid shut and started to move. I couldn’t help laughing a little to myself. There was no way we would make this plane. The mom laughed with me, her hand on her younger son’s shoulder. A private bus, just for us, and our plane was probably already done boarding.
Only a few minutes later, the bus parked next to the terminal. As we climbed down onto the tarmac, the man in the pink shirt sprinted forward, waving a hand to urge us to follow. We ran too, off the dark runway and into the blinding glare of the airport’s fluorescent lights. Then, customs. My lungs were tight in my chest as I tried to still the race of my heart from running.
“I’ll meet you on the other side,” said the man in the pink shirt. I nodded and got in the line for international travelers, thumb tucked into the page of my passport with my travel visa, as everyone else stood in the fast-moving Chinese passport lines. Only two people were in front of me. I tried to take deep, slow breaths as one and then the other went through.
Hurry, I chanted in my head, hurry, hurry.
I handed over my paperwork and finally was on the other side.
Past the checkpoint, my fellow passengers were already running down the empty terminal. The man in the pink shirt, waiting for me, gave me the gate number and pointed down the terminal.
“Run.”
I took off, sneakers squeaking against the linoleum. The terminal stretched away from me, a large hallway covered in dark windows. It didn’t end, just curved until I couldn’t see any further, a false horizon that looked like the edge of the world. I kept reaching that curve and finding there was still more to run.
Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport is the 13th busiest airport for passenger traffic in the world. According to the airport’s website, over 65 million passengers passed through it in 2017, the year before I was there, and the building alone is 523,000 square meters. The airport, in short, is big. It feels even bigger running through it at full sprint, passing gate after gate, my heartbeat loud in my ears. Faces blurred as I rushed past them, and the neon signs of airport stores dimmed and went out as they closed, just one long line of dying lights.
In high school, when I was dragged along to one 5k after another, my cousin and I would pretend zombies were chasing us to force ourselves to keep moving quickly. It never worked. We always ended up walking most of those five kilometers.
Maybe, I thought as I ran, my bad ankle twinging, my tendon a bowstring pulled too tight, I’d do better in a zombie apocalypse than I thought.
I passed the young woman with the silver suitcase as her sprint slowed. In the distance, still running, I watched as the last passengers stepped out of the waiting area and onto the gangway, and the final boarding call rang out.
I wasn’t going to make it. After all that, and with all the people who had helped me along the way, I wasn’t going to make it.
The mother from my plane, with her two sons, reached the gate just in time, as the doors started to close. She paused, looked back at me, and spoke to the gate agent waiting for her boarding pass. She started patting down pockets, looking through her
Her younger son huddled close against her, hand clutching at her skirt, but the older boy moved away from the gate and out of the waiting area. He swung both his arms in huge, pinwheeling circles, so enthusiastically his whole body titled forward, baggy basketball shorts flapping around his legs.
“Jia-you!” he yelled. “Jia-you!”
I didn’t understand, but it was enough to urge me forward out of a defeated jog into a flat-out sprint. He yelled as I picked up speed, his arms windmilling faster. My lungs heaved, my backpack pounded into my back with every step, the sharp corner of a book banging against my spine.
The boy cheered as I reached him, jumping up and down. His mother met my eyes, smiled, and pulled a stack of three tickets out of her jacket pocket. She had stalled for me, a stranger. She stepped away, down the gangplank, her back straight and her dark hair swaying against her shoulders, a son on either side.
My ticket was tucked into the inside pocket of my jean jacket, right where I always kept it. I glanced over my shoulder. The woman with the silver suitcase was still behind me, her face red and chest heaving as she ran.
I patted down the pockets of my dress and my jacket, opened my backpack, and looked inside. Footsteps approached me from behind and stopped. The woman bent over the handle of her suitcase, breathing hard. I slipped my ticket from my pocket and handed it over to the gate agent. We were all going to make it onto this plane—every single one of us.
As I walked down the gangplank and boarded the place, I was only just catching my breath, my hair frizzing out of my braid. Faces turned towards me, a sea of strangers all wishing we would just take off. Halfway to my seat, I passed the mother with her two sons as she slid a backpack under the seat in front of her. Relief and gratitude stung my eyes as she nodded at me.
“Xièxiè,” I said. Thank you,the only phrase in Mandarin I had absolute confidence in. I’d said it at restaurants, to tour guides, and when buying souvenirs, but I never meant it as much as I did then. We’d never see each other again, and we didn’t share a language, but for the run across that airport, we had been something besides strangers. I would make it home today because of her.
“Xièxiè,” I said again, and moved down the aisle to take my seat.
Title
Author
Story
A Cure for Apprehension
Josh Lefkowitz
Anxious over upcoming travel, I worried about it out loud. You listened as I slowly unraveled, silent as a cloud.
I paused finally to catch my breath. That’s when you took my hand. My fears single-filed towards their death. The evening proceeded as planned: We put on music and ate our meal, sorbet for dessert, then a kiss; And lived in the only moment that’s real: This one. Now this one. Now this.
Ash Heap Title
Ayesha F. Hamid Author
Don’t leave me in the places my heart broke, the places that took a little life, even the ones that gave some in return, but leave me in the trains where I gazed out, seeing the colors of towns the power of my eyes then infinite looking out those windows, I wore a crown. Leave me in the cities where I walked a traveler, surrounded, but always alone. Don’t leave me in the moments when my world shook, my soul sobbed. Don’t leave me in those places where slaps came hard sometimes in school, sometimes near home. Don’t leave me in those places, the spaces I wasn’t free those jobs where I slogged, facing stares and suspicion when I just wanted to be. Don’t lay any more blame, I was only human, just flesh, but now a mess of ashes, an ash heap full of memory. Please take care when you scatter me here or there. After I’m done burning, let me finally be free to go wherever I want, towards the sun, the sand, the city, or sea. Story
Title Hollow
Author Gabrielle Beck
Digital Photography
The Chair of the Table Where I Live My Life
Alex Hardgrave
My soul is in limbo. Deep inside me, so deep I cannot reach it with my hand or my
Skye’s grandma’s words felt warm but made her shiver as they flitted through her
The sun-bleached, pine tree air freshener swung back and forth on Skye’s gray Subaru mirror, its smell long gone. Skye didn’t mind that it didn’t mask the smell of Camel cigarettes. It made her feel like her grandma was riding shotgun. Skye’s palms were sweaty as they gripped the steering wheel. She was worried about who she’d find when she got to the mystery address.
She looked down at her phone, which sat on the passenger seat. She dreaded the call she was going to get from her parents, wanting more of an explanation for her brief text “Headed out of town. Won’t be gone long.”
A text from Skye’s mom had pinged as she walked into her English final two weeks earlier. It was the test for Mr. Bunner’s class. He was her favorite high school teacher because he encouraged her to apply to the college in New York he’d gone to for writing.
“Can you call now?” The text read.
The final was only supposed to last two hours. Her Grandma Lesley was in the hospital with pneumonia again, but her mom said this time was worse.
“Going into a final. I’ll call you after.” It will be fine, Skye assured herself, turning off her phone.
My prayers for all as I go make every day precious in some way. Be gentle with yourself along the way. Keep those close to your heart, and meet me in the light someday.
The car was running low on gas, and Skye knew she’d have to stop soon. She was hungry, and she was still about four hours away from the city. She took the next exit, which had a Shell and a Steak ‘n Shake.
“Can we go to Steak ‘n Shake soon, Grandma?” Skye was five, sitting on the porch of the duplex in Kansas where she spent the first years of her life before moving to Ohio.
Even though her grandma always asked Skye to stay inside and watch cartoons Title while she went outside to smoke, Skye wasn’t a good listener, and her grandma was the best kind of pushover.
“Your parents will be home from work soon, and I don’t want to ruin your dinner.”
She was careful to blow the smoke away from her granddaughter as they sat on the porch.
“Please.” Skye batted her eyelashes and gave her cutest smile. Her grandma’s nickname was Yes-ley because she could be easily convinced to agree to things.
Ten minutes later, Grandma Lesley was reluctantly snagging chocolate malts from the employee at the Steak ‘n Shake drive-thru with Skye bouncing along in the back seat. Skye didn’t even really like malts. They always tasted chalky. But her grandma loved them, and she wanted to be just like her grandma.
Their malt trips had become a ritual when her family came to visit after moving away. They would go, just the two of them, and Skye would take the time to update her grandma about everything that was going on in her life.
Back on the highway in the car, 18-year-old Skye ate the steak burger, but she washed it down with a Coke, not a malt. The food settled into her stomach like a bowling ball. She was getting increasingly nervous the closer she got to the city. Who was going to be there? It was possible the address didn’t exist anymore. It was possible it had never existed at all. She had just found it among the other writings that day.
Author
Story
There are memories; real and imagined; hope and despair; love and laughter...and life.
She had begged her parents to cancel her graduation open house, but quickly realized it was a losing battle. They were trying so hard to keep things normal. Skye came downstairs from her bathroom to find the living room and kitchen decked out in decorations the colors of their alma mater. She’d been accepted to both schools, but had quickly hid away the letter from the school in New York.
“I should have told them sooner,” Skye thought to herself for what must have been the tenth time that day, but now was not the right time. It was never the right time.
She hadn’t been sure what she wanted to do when applications came around early senior year, so her parents had convinced her that business at the local university was the way to go. It didn’t help that they were so proud she was going to “follow in their footsteps.”
But as she wrote more, she realized it was something she didn’t want to just be a hobby. The issue was telling her parents. She’d never disappointed them and wanted to keep it that way. She knew it was irrational, but every time she thought she had finally got her courage up to tell them, she’d chicken out.
“Surprise!” Her parents cheered.
As she leaned in to hug her mom, she realized just how deep her dark circles were. Telling them of her decision to go to school in New York would add so much unneeded stress. Plus, she had never even visited the campus; maybe she’d hate it and change her mind anyway. A good time would come up soon, and she’d explain her decision to them. A good time hadto come up soon.
The party had felt like both a blur and a slow-motion movie. Skye listened to her parents tell their friends how proud of her they were.
“She got direct admission to our alma mater. She’s so excited to study business.”
“She’ll be working at a Fortune 500 in no time.”
Then there were the condolences. Most of these people had never even met her grandma.
“She’d be so proud.”
“She will be greatly missed.”
“You’re so strong.”
That one was false, because all Skye had done was cry the last few days.
Her favorite was, “She’s here right now.”
Skye just wanted to scream, “No, she’s not. She died in a hospital in Kansas, and I didn’t even get to talk to her another time.” But instead she smiled and thanked them. All my treasures surround me to remind me of a life well lived.
The day after her graduation, the family left for the funeral in Kansas. Dirt had barely filled the grave when her family was cleaning out her grandma’s apartment. Her grandma’s life had been reduced to three piles in a matter of hours—keep, donate, trash. Skye had been given the Subaru two years before when her grandma had to start using oxygen 24/7.
“There is nowhere I need to drive that's worth taking this tank with me,” she had joked during one of their visits. Even though she made light of it at the time, Skye knew her grandma felt sad about losing her independence. She had spent most of her life speeding around in fancy muscle cars, and now she’d never get behind a wheel again.
Skye’s dad handed her a stack of completed crossword books. “Throw,” he said.
Her mom entered, holding a pile of clothes from the closet and placed them on the donate pile.
“I’ve boxed up the books in the study, but you should go through them and see if you want to keep any,” she said.
The study had always been her favorite room in the apartment, with the bright light from the window and the view of wildflower fields. The desk had been littered with knick knacks, paper weights, and a large vining Pothos plant. Three floor-to-ceiling bookshelves used to stand, heaving under the weight of her collection. Now in repurposed Amazon boxes were the old hardbound classics. Lesley had gone to college and majored in British Literature, but her collection had just as many Nicholas Sparks novels as it did Shakespeare.
Skye picked up one that she knew had been one of grandma’s favorite books, Jane Eyre, and opened the dusty cover. A piece of paper fell out and landed on the wood floor. She scooped it up and began to squint to make out the handwriting. It was something her grandma had written.
Skye knew her grandma liked to write, but she had only ever shared a few pieces. This felt too personal, like she was reading a diary. Skye debated about putting it back into the book, but the thought of someone else buying the book and finding the writing felt even more invasive.
She began yanking the other books out of the boxes and shaking them. About thirty minutes later she had checked the entire collection of books, leaving them haloed around her on the floor and producing twenty-three more writings. Most were on random scraps of paper like bank statements, old accounting sheets, receipts and grocery lists. It was as if inspiration had struck Lesley so forcefully she didn’t have time to grab a notebook.
Some of the writings seemed autobiographical, like Skye was sitting on her grandma’s lap hearing about the “good old days.” Others were poems, both serious and funny. Then there were letters addressed to people she didn’t know. One, that included an address, caught Skye’s attention. “Dear. Mr. Litgow, This letter is to thank you but please read on because it’s also a personal tribute from a “would-be writer.” When I say I would be, I mean I never was good enough to write professionally, but in my soul I was a writer since the day I was born — and I still am. For those who make it, I pray their words will be perfect. I hope you enjoy this novel, though I know it won’t be seen by others. Lesley 33 West Washington Park Square New York, New York
