Airport blues 001

[Kaimani 10]

Funny, one day you’re boarding a plane with the old suitcase of dreams and a couple pairs of pants, shirts and the love letters from a girl you not so sure still remembers you. you got a spring in your step because your ready to get out there into the big bad world, pick it up and break among the you and the ones you love. That, and the fact that you’re this close to dumping in your pants because you know that if- as the odds, the stars, statistics and the old lady down the street whose son came back just the other day, after leaving a couple of days before- you get deported your three sisters, two brothers and parents won’t have a roof above their head in six months because the loan shark-who doubles as the governor- will have your house for the money he gave you to get a ticket to England.

 

You’re sitting there at the airport. You can’t remember the last time you were so excited, because you’ve never been so excited. And you’re not sure you’ve ever been so scared. If someone was to ask you why you’re so petrified you wouldn’t be able to say. Because you know that if anyone should be scared it’s the people staying behind. You know you might be with them in no more than forty eight hours but, right now, you know you’re in a much better place than them. You have your dream. You might just make it out. It doesn’t really matter how or where you end up you know that, chances are, you’ll end up some place better. Tracy Chapman hums in your ear about getting into a fast car and going any place over the boarder. You swallow hard and try to smile for your mother.

 

Her first son’s leaving. She’s seen other’s first sons leave before. And she knows full well the chances of never seeing him again. She knows if he makes it she’ll see his sweat and blood translated into a few pounds here and there but she’ll never see her boy again. Would she feel any different if she’d sent him to the war they say is coming? She couldn’t tell you. But she’d not think too hard of the answer to the question; ‘is this the saddest day you have ever known?’ and her three siblings had followed their parent to the big airport in the sky. She’s loved and lost, and is loving and loosing.

 

For you it is something else. The boy would give birth to the man. You’re going to get everyone through their education. You’ll send them the Nikes they wanted. Your mom will get to wear that hat she saw the Queen wear at Diana’s wedding. You’re going to be sleeping in the same bed as the girl you last saw at that same air port a year before when she was going to conquer the big bad world. The letters haven’t come as often as promised. Those Nikes got lost in the post somewhere. But that’s ok. You’re a man, the first born, on your way to pull the whole tribe up by the necks. It’s your day, a new day.

 

Then it’s ten years later. You’re sitting on your own in a darkened room dreading the clock ticking closer to midnight because then that means it’s another year when you have to make sure you call home more, you send those Nikes you promised, you tell the daughter you last saw five years ago you’ll try and come home this year, you won’t drink until you can’t remember how you got home with your clothes inside out, you will talk more to your girlfriend and remember to pull the tribe up by the neck because it’s New Year and you’ll be turning twenty eight in twenty four days. That is the time when you should have made the three million pounds you wanted to make before you went back home.

 

You have nine pounds ninety in your bank, your card is not accepted in stores and you can’t withdraw it until the banks open in two days. That, Kaimani, is when you will have your morning cigarette.

 

this is jah work, only the mistakes are mine.

blessed rasta

Edited March 22, 2010 by Mantaspook
paragraphed.

[shoeshine 10]

Your descriptive writing is beautifully executed, Kaimani.

[pattricia 574]

Kaimani, you are getting better with each story.

[Kaimani 10]

thanks and praises. the above is the kind of thing that comes to me during my writer's block times. i don't even really know what they are, which is why i dont put them up in the proper bit where you post 'real' work. but thanks for the feedback.

this is jah work, only the mistakes are mine.

blessed rasta

[brisbane 10]

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