Prompt: an airport is a place of physical transportation but also memories
Tall palm trees were the first thing that could be seen through a wide rectangular window in the international airport in Hawaii. Seeing the palm tree makes you realize you are on a tropical island. Suddenly, you feel as though you can smell the sweetness of the dates in the palm trees, the saltiness of the ocean beach, and the gentle breeze sweeping over a green pasture.
The sensation was triggered by a memory of 15 years ago when the man left the island as a teenage boy. As if time had not passed, the man in his late 20s felt he had traveled back to his childhood. With it, a sense of loneliness leaked in.
Holding it back, the man gripped his two large travel carriages, dragging them along with him to a bus station. The bus refused to carry his large luggage. Flabbergasted, he called an Uber. A younger Filipino Uber driver explained to him rather depressingly that Hawaii had recently been plagued with homelessness and drug additions. He was attending a college, studying criminology. The man asked him what he wanted to become. The driver replied it was hard to get a job on this island.
Getting off the Uber, he arrived in front of a university building where he was about to stay for the next two days. It looked much smaller than he had remembered. The humidity, the breeze, and the blazing sun reminded him that this was where he had spent his childhood.
Yet, the people he had lived it with were not there anymore. His friends, his mother, and his brother were not there. He was alone, a stranger to a place he once called home, a place he had dreamed of returning to. To the locals there, he was just another tourist from the mainland with a head filled with inflated utopian fantasy. They were used to people like this. They treated these people like chewed gums; they had tried them before and had seen what came out of them.
The man checked into the building and nervously walked through the hallways. It was much more cramped than he remembered. Everything was much older and worn than he had remembered. Not even basic amenities were there; no soap, toilet paper, or drinking water.
The man left the building, leaving his luggage behind, searching for water and soap. The street he had walked was still there. He wondered if the concrete were the same as he had walked on as a child. Fifteen years have passed. He doubted they remained the same.
Loneliness crept in further and further. The more he found childhood remnants, the more he remembered the warmth that he had felt then, and the more distinctly, he realized how alone he was now. He wanted to talk to the ghosts of his memories, but there was no response. No one spoke to him. It was only him and the road.
He continued to walk. He arrived at a beach. The sun was setting in a pink-purple hue. Occasional waves were gently crashing onto the shore. The man sat on the sand dune and stared at the sky. Tiny airplanes were making their way in and out of the island.
It’s those tiny airplanes that transported him magically to this place dwelling in his memory. Fifteen years have passed. Sweet things had happened, bitter things had happened, and nonetheless, the memory had remained the same.
Leaving the airport, he felt a closure. Witnessing what he remembered was still there gave him the courage to get out there again. Perhaps he could return to this place after another 15 years. He wondered what it would feel like then. Would it be happiness and gratitude instead of loneliness and bitterness he felt this time? He turned away from the window and walked through the gates.
Ralph with Coffee 