Lily

27th March 2017

Airports, were like my own personal hell. If it were possible to avoid the whole affair I would have gladly taken any other route available, I’d have rowed myself across the Atlantic, if not for the urgency of my summoning. Screaming children, pissed-up youths whom were still recovering from their week-long bender in Ibiza, and couples bickering over who should retrieve the suitcase from the conveyor belt. Mass chaos, and that was before the dubious amounts of security checks, which were so thorough, that I felt as though I’d been emotionally and physically violated, by the time I wheel the suitcase out of the door.

The cold breeze, that wrapped tightly around my lungs, was the reminder that I was home. With a sudden overwhelming sensation of claustrophobia washing over me, I reluctantly summoned a taxi. although the train would have been a reasonable choice and a rather less costly expense to my depleting finances. The thought of being once again within the public domain, sharing my oxygen with the countless cretins who had already reduced my dwindling brain cells on the flight, made me inwardly shudder. Within seconds the taxi was at my side. I clamoured in and a sickly-sweet smell of vanilla filled my nostrils, the air-freshener hung chaotically above me, attached to the netted sunglasses-holder; it had clearly had its day, faded and torn at the edges, yellowing from years of exposure to tobacco, clinging to the few dregs of vanilla that it still held despite the overpowering fragrance of nicotine. The potent smell filled the taxi and I began to feel nocuous, winding down the window the cool breeze lapped at my face, although polluted the air allowed some of my senses to be regained, and clarity finally began to settle in. It wasn’t until I began to relax into my seat that I even noticed my driver.

Dumpy and short, seemingly struggling to see over the steering wheel. His eyes were sunken into a mass of fat, and were as black as the coal pits his ancestors worked themselves to death in. His skin was a faint olive shade and seemed soft layered upon his thick neck. His hands told their own story of strenuous labour, and decades of being worked to the bone to put food on the table. Nails embedded deep with dirt, broken and chipped, never fully clean or smooth, no matter the career change. The mass of fat that sat before me, didn’t quite seem human especially due to his clean bald head, glowing from the overhead light. His appearance carried his whole demeanour, and yet as he turned to me, and gave me a yellow flashed smile, I knew that although the outside was bleak, what lay within was the purest and brightest soul. Being left alone for so long had left me vulnerable to the sink hole of my thoughts, so even though I was reluctant to use a taxi, the drivers company, and warm spirit, melted my icy lungs, and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. After all, isn’t that what you are meant to do when you’re going home?