An unexpected arrival.
( A fictional short story )
Ruth Thorne-Thomsen - Levitating Man (Detail), 1983
The smell of sweat and an air of impatience swirled around the cocktail of people that stood outside in the scorching airport waiting area. Each person was uniquely clad in what they would define as ‘summer wear’: dupattas & dhotis*, shorts, shirts & skimpy skirts. Some looked bored, and it was clear they waited for strangers, placards in hands with names that meant nothing to them – ‘Mr. J. Roy’, ‘Mrs. Sunita Dange’. Others waited out of habit, a sense of familiarity and lethargy in their bodies as they perhaps awaited a saab* that often travelled and returned, that talked little and meant nothing more to them than bread and butter. And then there were those who had soft almost-smiles on their faces and an excitement that shined through their glistening eyes as they waited for loved ones.
It was when amongst this crowd I stood, awaiting my younger sister, imagining her broad captivating smile, that out of the corner of my eye I saw him. He stood out like a sweet sore thumb with his effortless, veiled stance, a misfit amongst people that I could otherwise read so well. What he wore said nothing, his belongings said nothing, even the expression on his face said nothing – and yet in the emptiness that he embodied, I somehow sensed that this man’s story held everything.
Tall, skinny and plain looking, it surely wasn’t his handsomeness that attracted my gaze towards him. Rather, it was something of an aura that he carried, almost as though there were a halo around him that radiated an energy that couldn’t be missed… I felt slightly silly thinking these thoughts. An energy? Really? In his plain white shirt and blue jeans, this man was filling my mind with the kind of hipster vocabulary that I’d normally be the first to reject. And yet there was something about him.
He stood there as if existing there, just standing there, was his only purpose in life. As though he held no expectations from the future. Time seemed of no consequence to him while the rest of us reeked of restlessness as we struggled with patience each minute until the moment of our expected one’s arrival. Although I knew from circumstance that he waited for someone, nothing about him looked as though he did. The way he stood could have been used as a universal visual representation of the verb ‘to stand’. I had never seen someone embody a posture more like they lived in it.
My mind raced, making guesses - who could he be waiting for? A monk perhaps... he seemed the type. I wondered then why he dressed as he did - too casually to receive someone on the path to enlightenment (assuming there’s a dress-code for such things?). If not a monk, then perhaps a pen-pal that he’d never met before but with whom he was comfortable the way milk is in tea, having bared his soul in words. Or maybe a -
I never got to complete that thought. While I stood there, dreamily guessing and gazing at this man - my sister, baffled that I wasn’t searching for her with my eyes, engulfed me with a smile and a smack. Exhausted from her travels, she grabbed my arm and jabbered away as we walked away from the crowd. I held her tight and pretended to be engaged in conversation, while my thoughts drifted back to this man… to this enigma of a human. All I could think about was how sad I was that I would never know whom he waited for… or if he really even waited at all.
*dupattas & dhotis = traditional Indian clothes
*saab = ‘Sir’, said with respect
mohini
