Page 80 - teyxos_13
P. 80
Short story Competition
find a job, but she can’t. If we had some money she could open a hairdressers. coughing nervously if it’s their first time. Glancing up at all the destinations.
Now she just asks around for work. Not looking directly at the board so no-one will notice what losers they are. One
We have no relatives in America. Only some godparents with connections. day I’ll go in an aeroplane. Where to I don’t know. I’ll ask that girl at school to
They’re the ones who fixed my mother up with work. And she makes the best tell me where to start from, when I win the lottery. I shall be needing a second
of it. No kidding. For years people would ask me what I wanted to be when I opinion. Somewhere not too cold. Somewhere I won’t melt.
grow up. I didn’t know what to say. And even if I did know, who ever gets to be My sister sees things the way people describe them. I sprinkle on a little sugar.
what they want. My sister met a guy who works in a Cafe at the airport and he’s It tastes better. I’ll go to the airport and see it all for myself. I’ll sit behind the
ok. It wasn’t his dream, but he makes enough to take her out at the weekends. bar and watch the doors open and close. People will vanish like they’ve been
The guy can’t stop telling us about it.. sucked away by a vacuum cleaner. The hall will gradually fill up again, like the
The other day there was this woman, he said, back from the Holy Land and crumbs in our kitchen which my mother can’t tidy up because she’s busy with
along with the money for the coffee she left them a rosary. They kept it, what other people’s crumbs.
were they supposed to do. Another time there was this man waiting to see his When we get to third grade in high school the guys are going to ask if we can
son after years, fainted and collapsed in front of them, knocking over the stools go for a five day trip abroad. They even say it’s cheaper there than here! I don’t
in the cafe. Cleaners running. Time, words, baggage on conveyer belts. know, I say nothing. But if we do go, on the way back we’ll go past the Cafe
Relatives wait with flowers in their hands. They stand on tiptoes hoping to see where my sister works. And she’ll be waiting there to see my happy face. She’ll
into the arrivals hall. What difference do a few seconds make anyway? A fleeting treat us to a coffee. I will tell her everything in detail so that I can live it all again.
glimpse of a figure? An intake of breath before the hugs to come? That’s what I Everything she wants to hear. About the window near the wing, the noise of the
thought while he was telling me.. and he talked on, taking us from one end of turbines, the auxiliary wheels when you touch down, the food on little plastic
the airport to the other so I couldn’t keep up with him enough to picture the dishes, the air hostesses. I mention those, those are the things I know about.
scene. Inside and outside, arrivals and departures rolled into one general vista Clearly I will have to get the money together first for the ticket. Now that I think
and us like voyeurs who can’t get enough. about it I haven’t even got a suitcase. Imagine when they stick the little label
I stopped to imagine the baggage being searched. There, he says, when the on it with my name and destination. Not forgetting that I’ll need a few decent
suitcases are open you get to see what people are really like. Why? my sister asked clothes since everyone will be trying to look cool. I do have shoes. Thankfully
him, and since he’s obsessed with exaggerating what he sees, he just nodded to my feet have stopped growing. I’ll take a dictionary with me. Borrow one. So
make the scene even more mysterious. When he next talked to us, some of us that I can speak the basics if need be.
were already mentally poking our noses into souvenirs wrapped up in tee-shirts I’ve heard that when an aeroplane takes off, its like when you go to the amusement
so they wouldn’t break, bags with unwashed laundry bringing smells from the park on the big wheel and you feel a bit dizzy. I don’t mind. So long as I get in
wild side or sex with someone new, girls’ notebooks with a photograph of the a plane. I’ll make everything smaller the dizzier I get, like I have the power to
guy tucked in its pages. become the God of Nothing. Just dizzy enough to fly up in the heavens instead
My mind went to thinking about Uncle Yianni who, when he came back from of creeping about in the murk. And who knows, maybe that’s the profession
Australia after thirty years, carried nothing but a small bag with his passport and I’ll chose. Even if I were just a baggage handler. If my mother heard me she’d
purse in it. I told them that and they laughed. No-one at the airport had seen give me a thrashing.
anyone travel that way. Anything he wanted he kept in his head and his heart. “Now we’ve got both the airports covered”, said Dad happily when she got
Everything else he could buy again from here, was what he told us when we the job at the Cafe. We lost our dreams though, we here, with our feet on the
came over to help him with his things. Not even a tea cloth with a kangaroo on ground, I added and rubbed my eyes till they got red. My mother came over
it, said my mother. Not even a box of cigarettes from duty free, muttered Dad, and said “don’t cry my darling”. My sister punched me repeatedly on the arm.
not even a little shirt for my sister. I had been waiting to catch his reaction when I didn’t speak. What could I say. I wasn’t crying, I wasn’t pleased. I just had an
he saw us. I was only little, and was wondering whether he would cry. Nah.. he eyelash in my eye and was trying to get it out.
just greeted us formally and left us feeling stunned. When I went it was raining. Classic, we skipped school. I didn’t know exactly
Yesterday my sister called us together to tell us some news. She’s keen on this where the Cafe was where my sister worked. I took the girl from school with
new guy and his job. I heard her ask him if she could go and fill in an application me because she was the only one I wanted. With no suitcases. Only a five Euro
form, for them to take her on there. My mother agreed. My father said he would note and some change. I saw her looking at the little bottles of make up and
drive her over to meet the employer. Better than nothing I think to myself. She lip-stick being thrown away in the bag for ‘forbidden’ items the passengers had
might give me some pocket money now and then, if they take her on. For a with them. I knew how she felt. I looked far over to the left, beyond the heads of
film. Or a pizza with the guys. people coming and going. I picked out the most miserable of the lot and looked
The Cafe is directly opposite the arrivals gate. So much the better, said my sister at him. He was holding a woman by the elbow and kissing her on the cheek,
when she first went. I want to see happy faces. Hugging their loved ones with on her lips. And I was saying to myself, no mate, don’t kiss her on her eyes.
tears of joy. I on the other hand was thinking that in ‘departures’ things might I took my girl by the hand and picked up the pace as fast as I could till we got
get more interesting. You could sneak off and vanish out of there when the going to arrivals. I went past the flight information board without giving it a second
gets tough. My mother says that the going is tough now and we might as well glance. She asked me what the hurry was, but I said nothing. Everything was
digest that fact. My father says that you can’t digest when you haven’t eaten. confused, aroundme,insideme.Therewerescentscomingfromalltheshops,but
We all live together, eat together, but we all see time differently. The way we her perfume was overwhelming. Announcements in English and Greek changed
divide it I look at the future, my Dad at the past, and my Mum straight at now. channels in my brain fast. People are so small, the thought flashed through me. I
It is dreams that keep us going, I tell him, and get out of the way quick because didn’t stop to look at the lighted shop windows, nor at the well-dressed women
he’s ready to thump me. In the evenings we have a laugh with my sister. She likes holding magic tickets in their hands and waiting in a line at the check-in. I had made
describing people at the airport and I give her my take on it. I imagine people a decision. I wanted to kiss that far away expression on her lips. Here, in arrivals.
80
find a job, but she can’t. If we had some money she could open a hairdressers. coughing nervously if it’s their first time. Glancing up at all the destinations.
Now she just asks around for work. Not looking directly at the board so no-one will notice what losers they are. One
We have no relatives in America. Only some godparents with connections. day I’ll go in an aeroplane. Where to I don’t know. I’ll ask that girl at school to
They’re the ones who fixed my mother up with work. And she makes the best tell me where to start from, when I win the lottery. I shall be needing a second
of it. No kidding. For years people would ask me what I wanted to be when I opinion. Somewhere not too cold. Somewhere I won’t melt.
grow up. I didn’t know what to say. And even if I did know, who ever gets to be My sister sees things the way people describe them. I sprinkle on a little sugar.
what they want. My sister met a guy who works in a Cafe at the airport and he’s It tastes better. I’ll go to the airport and see it all for myself. I’ll sit behind the
ok. It wasn’t his dream, but he makes enough to take her out at the weekends. bar and watch the doors open and close. People will vanish like they’ve been
The guy can’t stop telling us about it.. sucked away by a vacuum cleaner. The hall will gradually fill up again, like the
The other day there was this woman, he said, back from the Holy Land and crumbs in our kitchen which my mother can’t tidy up because she’s busy with
along with the money for the coffee she left them a rosary. They kept it, what other people’s crumbs.
were they supposed to do. Another time there was this man waiting to see his When we get to third grade in high school the guys are going to ask if we can
son after years, fainted and collapsed in front of them, knocking over the stools go for a five day trip abroad. They even say it’s cheaper there than here! I don’t
in the cafe. Cleaners running. Time, words, baggage on conveyer belts. know, I say nothing. But if we do go, on the way back we’ll go past the Cafe
Relatives wait with flowers in their hands. They stand on tiptoes hoping to see where my sister works. And she’ll be waiting there to see my happy face. She’ll
into the arrivals hall. What difference do a few seconds make anyway? A fleeting treat us to a coffee. I will tell her everything in detail so that I can live it all again.
glimpse of a figure? An intake of breath before the hugs to come? That’s what I Everything she wants to hear. About the window near the wing, the noise of the
thought while he was telling me.. and he talked on, taking us from one end of turbines, the auxiliary wheels when you touch down, the food on little plastic
the airport to the other so I couldn’t keep up with him enough to picture the dishes, the air hostesses. I mention those, those are the things I know about.
scene. Inside and outside, arrivals and departures rolled into one general vista Clearly I will have to get the money together first for the ticket. Now that I think
and us like voyeurs who can’t get enough. about it I haven’t even got a suitcase. Imagine when they stick the little label
I stopped to imagine the baggage being searched. There, he says, when the on it with my name and destination. Not forgetting that I’ll need a few decent
suitcases are open you get to see what people are really like. Why? my sister asked clothes since everyone will be trying to look cool. I do have shoes. Thankfully
him, and since he’s obsessed with exaggerating what he sees, he just nodded to my feet have stopped growing. I’ll take a dictionary with me. Borrow one. So
make the scene even more mysterious. When he next talked to us, some of us that I can speak the basics if need be.
were already mentally poking our noses into souvenirs wrapped up in tee-shirts I’ve heard that when an aeroplane takes off, its like when you go to the amusement
so they wouldn’t break, bags with unwashed laundry bringing smells from the park on the big wheel and you feel a bit dizzy. I don’t mind. So long as I get in
wild side or sex with someone new, girls’ notebooks with a photograph of the a plane. I’ll make everything smaller the dizzier I get, like I have the power to
guy tucked in its pages. become the God of Nothing. Just dizzy enough to fly up in the heavens instead
My mind went to thinking about Uncle Yianni who, when he came back from of creeping about in the murk. And who knows, maybe that’s the profession
Australia after thirty years, carried nothing but a small bag with his passport and I’ll chose. Even if I were just a baggage handler. If my mother heard me she’d
purse in it. I told them that and they laughed. No-one at the airport had seen give me a thrashing.
anyone travel that way. Anything he wanted he kept in his head and his heart. “Now we’ve got both the airports covered”, said Dad happily when she got
Everything else he could buy again from here, was what he told us when we the job at the Cafe. We lost our dreams though, we here, with our feet on the
came over to help him with his things. Not even a tea cloth with a kangaroo on ground, I added and rubbed my eyes till they got red. My mother came over
it, said my mother. Not even a box of cigarettes from duty free, muttered Dad, and said “don’t cry my darling”. My sister punched me repeatedly on the arm.
not even a little shirt for my sister. I had been waiting to catch his reaction when I didn’t speak. What could I say. I wasn’t crying, I wasn’t pleased. I just had an
he saw us. I was only little, and was wondering whether he would cry. Nah.. he eyelash in my eye and was trying to get it out.
just greeted us formally and left us feeling stunned. When I went it was raining. Classic, we skipped school. I didn’t know exactly
Yesterday my sister called us together to tell us some news. She’s keen on this where the Cafe was where my sister worked. I took the girl from school with
new guy and his job. I heard her ask him if she could go and fill in an application me because she was the only one I wanted. With no suitcases. Only a five Euro
form, for them to take her on there. My mother agreed. My father said he would note and some change. I saw her looking at the little bottles of make up and
drive her over to meet the employer. Better than nothing I think to myself. She lip-stick being thrown away in the bag for ‘forbidden’ items the passengers had
might give me some pocket money now and then, if they take her on. For a with them. I knew how she felt. I looked far over to the left, beyond the heads of
film. Or a pizza with the guys. people coming and going. I picked out the most miserable of the lot and looked
The Cafe is directly opposite the arrivals gate. So much the better, said my sister at him. He was holding a woman by the elbow and kissing her on the cheek,
when she first went. I want to see happy faces. Hugging their loved ones with on her lips. And I was saying to myself, no mate, don’t kiss her on her eyes.
tears of joy. I on the other hand was thinking that in ‘departures’ things might I took my girl by the hand and picked up the pace as fast as I could till we got
get more interesting. You could sneak off and vanish out of there when the going to arrivals. I went past the flight information board without giving it a second
gets tough. My mother says that the going is tough now and we might as well glance. She asked me what the hurry was, but I said nothing. Everything was
digest that fact. My father says that you can’t digest when you haven’t eaten. confused, aroundme,insideme.Therewerescentscomingfromalltheshops,but
We all live together, eat together, but we all see time differently. The way we her perfume was overwhelming. Announcements in English and Greek changed
divide it I look at the future, my Dad at the past, and my Mum straight at now. channels in my brain fast. People are so small, the thought flashed through me. I
It is dreams that keep us going, I tell him, and get out of the way quick because didn’t stop to look at the lighted shop windows, nor at the well-dressed women
he’s ready to thump me. In the evenings we have a laugh with my sister. She likes holding magic tickets in their hands and waiting in a line at the check-in. I had made
describing people at the airport and I give her my take on it. I imagine people a decision. I wanted to kiss that far away expression on her lips. Here, in arrivals.
80
