Transit

By Shanil Samarakoon

Over the Indian Ocean, Approaching Indonesia Hues of deep orange cling to the clouds in defiance as the moon reveals its dark palette. My companion views through perspex diminishing in a cascade of moments. Darkness, save a persistent red flash at the tip of the wing. I pull the shutter down and observe the cabin; streams of reading lights, blind blanket cocoons, paperback readers pickled in wine with attendants at their tips. A procession at the end of the cabin for the bathroom. Two children unleash their curiosity with a digital camera, flash turned on. Last but not least, an economy class staple, the crying baby, there's always one. Accompanied by a weary mother scavenging the brief interludes for peace and rest. It might not seem like it but I wear an inward smile, savouring these moments of aerial limbo. I put my headphones back on and take deep breaths as I merge with the sound. "You are...airborne..." whispers Yukimi. Yes I am...

I wake to an announcement of our landing; I have a 6 hour transit in Kuala Lumpur before setting off for Johannesburg. I brace myself for the landing process and the excruciating pain that often accompanies it. In spite of frequent travel, the change in pressure often leads to waves of crushing pain in the depths of my ears. I am not spared this time. Fatigued, I rise from my seat and follow the eager procession out on to the crossover.

I feel light as I walk in, a lightness of being sourced in warm familiarity. I have what one may consider a peculiar affinity to towards travel and being in transit. However, it is only of late that I have traced the precise reasons. I daresay these spaces have been the very portals of my brief existence. Lairs through which I have observed my own life's unfolding. Through both the unforgiving lens of circumstance and the beautiful detachment of a tourist.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA)

A fluorescent haze fills the seemingly endless corridor, lined with terminals branching towards all corners of the world. In my sober stupor I trace my steps towards the transit desk, my luggage trailing behind my lagging left hand. My reddened eyes soak in the bright light and the sterile white tiling. I've been here so many times before and it seems the same each time, yet I am unquestionably different. A blur of people weave in and out of shops, cafes and lounges. I follow, my mind animated with wisps of memory.

Dubai International Airport

I am seven and I am running down the escalator with my little sister, a few dirhams in our hands. We are rushing towards a row of chocolates. Our innocence preserved in these simple pleasures, deeply content as we wipe the strains off our smiling faces. Oblivious to mama's frustrated attempts to decipher the combination to papa's briefcase. Last I remember, he was inebriated, escorted off the plane and being held somewhere till he calmed down. She finally gets it open, breathes a sigh of relief and smiles as she looks towards us. We're about to fly again and I don't notice Papa. A security guard looks at me sympathetically as I adjust my bulging school bag upon my tiny frame. "It's not heavy" I tell him reassuringly as he gives mama an accusing stare. She holds our hands and we walk on. Where's Papa?

"Can I help you with anything sir? We have a spe..." My eyes focus on the sales assistant in front of as I interrupt her mid-sentence "Thank you but I'm fine..." She withdraws with a polite smile. My throat is parched, a dose of caffeine mandatory. I walk towards the cafe in the distance.

Flying over Ethiopia

The flight is quite empty and I have a window seat all to myself. I'm marvelling at the clouds. An ethereal blanket so pristine white, playful streams of yellow light flowing through. A hostess comes up to me, she has long braids and a smile in her brown eyes; she slowly bends to talk to me. "So little man, can I get you some juice?" I tell her that I'd like a cup of coffee instead. Her head tilts back with polite amusement and she gently ruffles my hair. "But coffee is for grownups, a little boy like you should be having juice!" I smile back and tell her that I have it every day and that I like the taste. She obliges me with a cup and asks me to push the button if I need anything. I pour three sachets of sugar in, stir vigorously and take slow sips as I peer out. My eyes embrace our roam through the afternoon clouds.

I leave the cafe and search for the closest restroom. The coffee was middling but anything will do at this hour. I walk down a long passage, narrow and sterile like a hospital corridor. The pressure on the water dispenser to the left is too low. I should have ordered a glass of water. It's 2am and the restroom is empty save a middle aged man who is brushing his teeth mechanically. He slowly raises his head in acknowledgement of my presence as we exchange brief glances and look towards the mirror in synchronicity. He is an image of weariness, his foaming mouth, his bloodshot eyes, a film of sweat across his rotund face and a tangled mess of diminishing hair. Conscious of my judgemental stare, I cup my hands for water and savour cool relief with my eyes closed for a moment of rest.

My reflection in the mirror is a mere outline of smeared colours, only my eyes hold sharp prominence. Narrow tributaries of red flowing across two pale yellow orbs, glistening in magnified fluorescence.

KLIA 2006

I gaze emptily into the blue face of my watch. It reads 6:17am; Papa gave me this watch many years ago. I haven't slept, it's been a scramble to delegate responsibilities and get a flight to Sri Lanka. Sporadic messages from my mother have kept me informed of my father's condition in hospital, he's in a coma.

A chaotic wave of emptiness infiltrates, an abstraction that hollows and leaves me vacuous in both thought and feeling. I'm at the boarding gate and I am frozen in front of the large windows that look onto the airstrip.

A flock of planes in industrious service as the sun peers above the ashen horizon. Fellow passengers in patient wait of transportation.

Time is a trickle through the thin beams of light that pierce the clouds, the thick glass and my vacant gaze. The streaming warmth soft upon my skin as a sudden intuition takes hold. I cannot adequately explain. It is as if I am standing witness to his departing consciousness, leaving his body, in the dark of a hospital room, across the ocean. Whispering of his hasty departure. A thick apologetic air pervades as I begin to realise that he is no more. I picture mama. Papa is gone.

"We are still far...We are still far from over", the lyrics of the song in my ears permeate as a tremulous tension builds in my chest. There was so much I intended to say, we never spoke as men. Instead I am deprived and left to look after.

I wake to the sound of cheering, I rub my eyes open, there's a live football game being shown on the large screen in front of me. Never cared much for the game. Not much longer till my flight to Johannesburg, I best not doze off again.

Young lovers across from me. He is asleep, his head on her small lap as her left hand plays with the tips of his hair. I catch her subtle smile as she savours these moments of wordless innocence. What experiences, what aches had she endured to find herself here in love. I wonder. I smile back in embarrassment as she catches my careless observation.

KLIA 2007

Our hands are warm, our hold tightening with the encroaching end of our time. The postponement of a bitter impasse, the suppression of our anger and sadness as we salvage our ancestral affections. Trying our very best to be uncaring of the unravelling that lead us here.

"How long do we have?" her voice cracks midsentence. I look past the escalator and towards the flight times. "I'm running late...I best go now..." I release the words wearily, inwardly praying for distance from this draining separation. A seemingly infinite pause ensues, each in desperate seek of

words to part with. I thank her for all she has done for me. "...Forgive me but I won't be in tou(ch)." "I know..." she interrupts with a trace of anger. She sighs, "Take care of yourself..." her tone pickled in melancholy. I reach into the front pocket of my shirt and place my last note to her in her hand. In it, my sincere confessions and hopes. We hold each other one last time. I am hollow; a ghost of me witnesses the reduction of our love to a rushed kiss on the cheek.

My name is being called out; I am the last to board. A familiar voice in my head narrates a grim summation of all my failings in love. I listen, I agree.

I'm boarding the plane after a 30 minute delay. I help my neighbour with his bag and sink into my seat. A deep exhalation punctuates my fatigue as I strap myself in, so eager to close my eyes and surrender to sleep. The scream of the engines dissolve as my ears abandon sound.

KLIA2009

Beck funnels the words into my ears..."Change your heart, look around you..."

Years of burden released and I'm here again. The colours are brighter. My senses alive with heightened sensitivity. I feel, I am, capable of love again. Oh how I've struggled to release this anger, the bitterness, my comfortable cynicism towards everyone and everything. These eyes have seen little in the form of hope for most of the last two years. Yet now the struggle has collapsed upon its unforgiving foundations, at the empowered hand of my weariness. A desperation for an alternate way of being.

I can scarcely remember the progression to this moment, apart from a few cliff notes muted into perspective by hindsight. The word possibility stands out, no longer as an empty panacea but as a radiant reality. I see the selfishness of solitude. I forgive you all, I forgive myself and for once...I mean it.

As I walk through this space once again, I feel the emptying of malcontent. I am certain that I want to live a life of contribution, to give more than I ever take. I'm alive, I'm aware, an old empire ends. Now, hope thrives where despair once reigned.

Approaching Lilongwe, Malawi

It's been 15 years, the realisation of a long harboured dream. My return to Africa. We are about to land; farmers are sowing seeds into the red earth below, the roads are dusty serpents. A slideshow of memories, bittersweet, cling to the mere thought of Malawi.

The extraordinary freedom of childhood across its untamed landscape juxtaposed against the reality of familial friction. It is poetic in my mind that I return to confront the very heart of my childhood.

At the risk of confronting a contrary reality to the canvas I've maintained in memory, in dreams. I thank Papa in my mind for bringing Africa into my life. I am living into a sense of purpose; I am starting to feel that now.

As I write this, I feel I cannot possibly overstate the significance of these pauses, these interludes. They are photographs ingrained. I like many, have little affection towards the tedious process that encompasses travel. I do however; have an affinity for the space that exists within it, a space in-between.

I think of that hill in Limbe, on the edge of which I spent so much time. A sanctuary view so vivid throughout all these years.

I have wondered how it would feel to stand upon that same red earth, upon the same rocks and embrace the same wind while sensing that only I had changed. A young variable amongst ancient constants, our paths mystically intersecting once again.

Yet the truth is that I can claim no superior knowledge of self since my eyes last soaked in that landscape. I am no closer to knowing who I am. Each researched mould has cracked upon an inevitable shift in circumstance. In fact I have abandoned the investigation, the cocooning process of self discovery and embraced the chaos of not knowing. Perhaps in those moments as I stand upon that hill, I will be a boy again ... with no care for the time that has passed.

As I close and let all this sink in... I'll say this. Pack light. We are all in transition.