in transit

I’m what they call ‘in transit’.

I look around the shitty airport bar and try to ignore the football blaring behind me but everyone’s arching their necks to catch every moment. Sometimes I forget I know what is on the screen and look to see what has them all so entranced. Twisting up from steak sandwiches, their necks creasing below eyes that have no laughter in them.

People are always saying that in photos, I don’t smile enough. It just feels fake, to smile for no reason and I take comfort in the fact that maybe these people are happy with what they’re watching after all.

There’s a man who stares at me. I stare back and it gets uncomfortable until his kid pulls on his sleeve and asks for help to put together his happy meal toy. Happy meals in an airport pub. The thought almost makes me cry into my beer and I don’t know why.

I drink it too quickly and I have to load up my bags to get another drink. The barmaid looks at me with no expression as she pours. I envy her and watch sleek, cheap blondes slide past with creased airline uniforms. Some of them look happy. Most look lost.

When I get back to my table an older woman’s sitting there too. She laughing into her phone about how she’s disappointed her mother again, how glad she is to go home.
I want to turn and see if she believed her words, if she can hear with her own ears how desperate her tone is. Whether it will show on her face. She says she’s slightly drunk already, she says she thinks he’s seeing someone else.

She’s forgotten I’m here.

I wrap my hands around my beer, but she drops her voice and loses that high pitched joviality.

That’s it.

I think.

Don’t hide it. That’s bullshit. Your mum’s a bitch. She always makes you feel like this. He’s fucked you over again. You always take it. You aren’t getting drunk. You have a drinking problem.

Say it.

I think.

Don’t laugh and sprinkle self-deprecation all over yourself. Don’t smile like a mannequin and pretend your heart isn’t breaking. You’re here alone in the bar going home to more emptiness.

And I think

I just might say it for both of us.

I turn and see how hard her hair is pulled back from her face, how her lipstick is bleeding slightly at the sides because she probably smokes too much but that voice of hers is low, it’s honest and it might just turn and answer me.

But her voices rises again and I flinch back into my beer.

I have to go now,

she says,

my dinner has arrived.

I look at the empty table and feel her stare.

I would look up and meet her gaze but she would look me in the eyes, maybe smile and I would want to smile back, I really would, but I can’t you see.

I just don’t have one of those faces.

• Favorite
• Report Concern
• Share This
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Add your comment

You need to login or signup to add your comment to this work.