Present Day, London

When I stepped on a plane and left the only country I’d ever known behind, my destination was quite literally anywhere else. I had no idea where I would end up, how long I would stay or what I would do when I got there. All I knew was that I needed to be somewhere that wasn’t where I had always been. 

I was running away, obviously. 

I still didn’t know what I was running toward, but I hoped to find something at some point in my journey to help me forget the emptiness I felt inside. I’d expected that traveling would make me feel free, but I was learning that freedom is partially a state of mind. Escaping a prison of my own creation didn’t mean I knew how to live beyond the bars. Free was just another word for untethered, unattached, unsecured, and possibly lost.

Whatever I was looking for, my next stop was London, and it began, as most things involving travel do, with a long line – or queue, as the locals called it. I didn’t mind the wait since I was still trying to decide what I would say when the customs officer asked why I was there. Technically, I could pretend to be anyone. I’d tried on a few different personas at previous stops: a tourist, a researcher, a migrant worker. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at any of these roles, and pretending to be something I’m not had only invited more questions. I’d always imagined that becoming someone else for a while would be easy, but I must not be skilled enough at acting. 

The line moved forward and I rolled my suitcase along beside me as I followed, smiling at a fussy baby blowing a raspberry at me over her father’s shoulder. When she saw me smiling at her, she made a dissatisfied sound and hid her face against his shoulder. Sighing, I looked away, my gaze bouncing off of a dozen other weary travelers, none of whom were interested in making eye contact with anyone.

“Next!”

The baby and her parents moved to the open desk and I took another step forward.

“Over there,” the officer directing traffic said gruffly to me, pointing at a spot further down the row of desks. “Number thirteen.” 

I followed her direction and waited in the appropriate spot, trying once again to think of a way to explain myself and my aimless travels. Nothing came to mind before I was called forward so I decided to be honest.

The man on the other side of the plexiglass very clearly hated his job. He gazed at me with loathing from beneath furrowed brows and held out an impatient hand for my passport. I handed it over and watched him scowl at his computer while scanning the document, tapping impatiently at the desk as he waited for my personal details to appear on the screen. He gave me a piercing look. “Ri Sang Kyu?” 

“That’s me.”

“You’ve been traveling quite a bit, haven’t you? Singapore, India, Australia, Zambia… Checking off all the countries of the commonwealth, are you?” His voice was monotone and so dry that I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or sarcastic.

“Trying to check off more than that,” I replied. “Every country. The whole world.”

His eyes narrowed. “To what end?”

“I suppose you could say I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

His bushy eyebrows quivered. “Mm. Just like Bono. How long do you plan to stay in England, then? Until you find this thing that you don’t know you’re looking for?”

“How long can I stay on a visitor’s visa?” I countered.

The man rolled his eyes. “You are one of those, then.”

“Those?” I repeated.

“An artist.” The word was spoken with impeccable diction and obvious distaste. He slapped a stamp against a blank page in my passport before handing it back to me. “Hopping from place to place in search of inspiration or meaning or whatever-you-call-it.” His voice dripped with disgust. “You want my advice? Wake up and get a real job.”

Taking my passport with a forced smile, I nodded crisply. “Thanks for the advice.” As if I hadn’t tried that already.

The airport terminal was full of people who knew where they were going. Some of them had people waiting for them already, others were on their way to meet them and those who didn’t have anyone at least had somewhere to go and something to do. I never felt lonelier than when I was walking through an airport because I didn’t have any of those things and I wasn’t sure if I ever would again.

My steps slowed when I saw a homeless man sitting at the side of the terminal holding out a cardboard box and I shook myself a little, remembering that not everyone had somewhere to go or someone waiting for them. I still had more than most even if I was lonely. Fishing a few crisp notes out of my wallet, I tossed them into the man’s box and kept walking, ignoring his gasp of surprise when he saw the denomination of the bills.

Taking a deep breath and deciding to stop feeling sorry for myself, I started paying attention to signs and following directions to the Underground. The Piccadilly line would take me into the city, which was where I wanted to go even if I hadn’t decided on anything more specific than that. The train was full and reminded me a little of Seoul as I crammed myself into a corner with my luggage and tried not to make contact, visual or otherwise, with anyone as the train swayed and ratcheted along the tracks. A couple of excited tourists smiled at me from their seats on the other side of the train, the only friendly faces in the car. I nodded back at them, forcing a smile before looking away.

An ad flashed over the screen at one end of the train car and my gaze darted toward it before I could stop myself, the video showing happy people lifting their phones to view the same app. They exchanged gossip and shared secrets with strangers, each more scandalous than the last. The interlocking circles of Requite’s logo rippled across the screen to reveal the platform’s tagline. Your Secret’s Out. No matter where I went, Liminal’s ubiquitous app followed, opening doorways to my past that I would rather keep shut. I looked away before the screen could transition to a face I knew all too well.

The train emptied and filled again a few times before I finally picked a destination. Covent Garden, the station tile read in crisp black serif against white brick. I hadn’t done my research on London before buying a ticket to fly there so I knew almost nothing about the city, but I had spent the last several months withering in Zambia’s dry season and the idea of a lush garden sounded appealing.

Unfortunately, the place I found myself was about as far from a greenspace as one could get. Judging by the age of the brickwork, the square had been paved over for at least a century and was entirely bereft of nature unless you counted the planters hanging on either side of the market entrance. It was an excellent place for people-watching, however, so I decided to find a cafe and plant myself there for a while until I figured out where I wanted to go next.

Taking a seat at a table outside a corner shop called A Proper Cuppa, I ordered black coffee, earning a scowl and a roll of the eyes from the owner which likely meant I’d been dismissed as a lousy foreigner. Feeling the need to regain her trust for no reason I could explain, I asked what she would recommend to eat.

Her eyebrows twitched and she shook her head. “For you? Not sure I could recommend a thing.”

“How about a scone?”

She harrumphed and scribbled on her notepad. “Jam and clotted cream?”

“Sure,” I agreed, thinking that a two-pronged attack of sugar and caffeine would help me fight off the malaise of jet lag.

“Coming right up,” she said with absolutely no pleasure.

I realized as she turned away that my decision to order coffee was probably where I had gone wrong. Tea was the local custom, I recalled, thinking of how India had been similar and feeling the familiar urge to blend in. I resisted it as best I could, reminding myself that it wasn’t my job to blend in anymore. 

The taste of the coffee made me reconsider my decision to flaunt custom, the flavor burnt and bitter enough to make me think that the owner simply didn’t know how to make a proper cup of anything but tea. The scone, on the other hand, was delicious even if it was nothing like what I’d expected, less of a pastry and more of a biscuit with a buttery spread and thick, red jam on top. I considered ordering a second one, but decided not to give the prickly owner any more of my money.

A cool breeze made me shiver and I hugged my arms to my sides, thinking about pulling a jacket out of my backpack but deciding to simply soak in the chill. The dreariness of London fall was about as far from Zambia’s arid heat as I could find, but that wasn’t why I’d chosen it. The truth was that I chose the cheapest flight I could find for the day and managed to find an open spot in a flight to London that was almost full. My free visitor’s visa to Zambia was close to running out so I’d needed a new place to land for the next step in my journey.