The only thing I could do was waiting. After
having my new boarding pass printed and a coupon for lunch in the airport’s
food court, I left to have a walk through the terminal. I just needed to walk
around, to relax my body after so many problems and so much uncertainty. As I
walked, I remembered that I didn’t have any luggage, nothing to take care of.
My clothes and a couple of souvenirs I was taking home, had been destroyed just
a few hour ago, in the blink of an eye.
Understandably,
people were glued to all TV screens showing a news channel or any sort of new
information about the disaster. As for me, I didn’t wanted to have anything to
do with it. I was already in some sort of shock; I didn’t needed to get worse
in any kind of way. I just looked for a place far from any crowd and there I
sat down, trying to relax. That was not going to happen but having that kind of
mission made me at least a little bit distracted, from the looks and the
comments.
Yes, people already knew that I wasn’t
supposed to be there. I have no idea how, but it wasn’t a surprise as people
have always been all about gossip and knowing thing they have no place in
knowing. I ignored the few looks I got and, thankfully, I only heard part of
their speeches about me. Maybe they were talking about my luck or if I was
travelling alone. Something about that but I really didn’t mind. I couldn’t
mind because I had better things to think about than them.
There, sitting in a lonely row of chairs
overlooking the tarmac, I remembered my favorite sweater. I hadn’t put it on
because the weather report announced a very col day, which it was. But I could
have put it on anyway or maybe stuff it on my backpack. It could have survived
but now I was never going to put it on never again. It was something silly to
think about but that’s all my mind could do to keep sanity inside. My sweater
was no more and I couldn’t be more sad about it.
Someone, a woman, touched my shoulder and made
me jump from fright. She had surprised me submersed into my mind. When I looked
at her, she smiled and explained the people from the airline were now looking
for me. I asked if the new flight was being cancelled and she shook her head
negatively. She was apparently there to take me to the airline lounge, the more
exclusive one. I was very happy for that but also kind of confused. She then
explained it was the safest place for people to be: “Not even photographers can
come in”. That explained it all.
I joined her, my backpack tight against me. As
we walked towards the lounge, she was talking about all the things I could
enjoy there for the next twelve hours, time I needed to wait until the next
flight home. But I wasn’t really paying attention to her but to the people
still standing in front of the screens, watching the images of twisted metal
and molten plastic. It was a very morbid thing to see and yet, even children
stood in from of the screens watching something they did not fully understand.
When we got to the lounge, she explained to me
they had granted me access to the most exclusive areas. She handed me a silver
card, which I had to use to make certain machines work and access some rooms
like the showers, the spa and special small rooms to sleep for a while. She
showed me everything but the truth was my body felt very week and I just wanted
to sleep for a while, have a rest before the long flight I had to face the next
day. Looks and comments will also be heard there.
When she left, I went straight for the room’s
area. They weren’t really rooms, but more like a capsule hotel in the style
they have in Japan. I chose one and hopped in. I put down the curtain
separating me from the outside world and removed my trousers to really relax. I
turned off the lights and lay there in silence, complete silence, trying to get
my mind cleared in order to sleep. But I kept hearing people talking all around
me and I just couldn’t do it. It took me more than an hour to fall asleep.
When I woke up, I thought I was only a few
hours away from my flight, but that wasn’t the case at all. I had just been
able to sleep four hours, which wasn’t really much considering at home I
managed to sleep double that time every single night. I woke up just as tired
as I was when I had hopped into that space. The only thing to do was to put on
the pants and go out there, maybe eat something or have a hot cup of coffee or
whatever I could find. It was better to be occupied.
I decided to have dinner first, so I grabbed a
large plate and I started putting on it every single thing I could see on my
plate, except the spicy food they had on one end of the room. I sat down to the
table and I ate very slowly, trying not to look at the screens I had around.
But that was almost impossible to do and, when I finished my plate, my head
raised directly into on of those screens, showing in detail how the plane had
crashed against the mountain, how no one could have survived.
Very silly me. I tried to look for my
suitcases in the images, but it was obvious that nothing was really the same
anymore. The plastic it was made of had probably melted and all my clothes were
probably scorched to their tiniest self or maybe the wind had carried them all
over the place. It wouldn’t be strange if some person arrived next day to work
with my clothes on instead of his normal attire. That thought made a chill run
down and up again my spine. Not something I like to think about.
I was supposed to be there, in that flight,
having had their same last meal and hearing those same last announcements done
by the crew. I have no idea what they said but I can guess it was something
sinister, one of those things you would never hear in any other case. Or maybe
not, people are so strange that maybe it was all going smoothly and death just
caught up with them in the most awful and unexpected way. Not a great way to
go, but many would love that for themselves.
I don’t want any of it yet. When I lost my
flight because of a long line in the men’s room, I was very frustrated and I
had yelled at half of the staff of the airport. I had called them anything from
“useless” to “moron”. I tried to control myself because I started feeling a
little anxious and it was then I went full crazy. If any photographers or
journalists had seen that. I bet that
would have been a first page kind of story, Many more would be staring and
saying what they think about what happened.
But all of those are empty words. After all, I
had seen those people. We had all done our check-in at the same time; we had
even exchanged a joke or two or some comment about the weight of the bags. I
had seen children yell and laugh and play. Adults trying to fix something and
an elderly couple so in love still one would love to be them in any other life.
I saw them being so human, so real and filled with life. And now they were no
more, all of their flames had been extinguished in a second and I was the only
one still alive from that group, just because.
I guess my blatter saved me, which doesn’t
really make me very proud but I guess it’s good to be here and not there. But…
Maybe it was my time to die and I’m just here because of a mistake. Or maybe
someone else had to live and not me but here I am because of some kind of
mistake someone made and some point. But no matter how much I try to understand
it, things are what they are. I am the last person to be alive from a group of
almost three hundred. At some point, I would have to tell my story in any way possible,
even if it’s just a case of pure luck.
