At 4:21 am I set out for Bangladesh. It was the 14th of the December 2004. I did not sleep through that night, choosing to dedicate what hours remained to washing my dorm room’s floor, manically forcing what clothes remained into my suitcases, or walking up and down campus, staring at the stars and the flickering lights of Santa Fe off in the distance.
I made my way to the front of the school before the appointed pickup time. And so I waited. Over the absolutely dead campus lingered a reticent and corpulent moon ready to break at the seams. I was completely alone, but before I could give way to my thoughts and ultimately my fears – in 24 hours time, I would be in the Subcontinent, a different world altogether – the shuttle arrived.
Everything proceeded quickly from that point, an irreversible moment. The shuttle transported me from Santa Fe to Albuquerque. Halfway, I finally succumbed to sleep and awoke, as the Shuttle was entering Albuquerque, to the unsavory taste of wet saliva. Each action that followed was perfunctory. I went through the interminable vexatious security checks that have turned what once was a delightful experience, into something I absolutely dread and want to be done with even before I have begun. The inquisition was then followed by waiting and finally more waiting, but this time on the airplane itself. And then, takeoff!
And there was to be more waiting. Upon arriving at the Baltimore airport, I had to wait six hours for the next connecting flight, which would take me to London. At Heathrow I waited some more. I intentely gawked at everything and everyone, voraciously consuming every scene in my periphery. Children flocked around their parents, these lost in their own worlds, only taking a second to reasure themselves of their children’s presence, before returning to their own affairs.
I made my way to the designated gate for my flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh, only to discover that it had changed. Unlike other times, I did not need to rush for I would have to spend four hours before my departure.
, the zero-tax shops, the magazine stands, and so on.
gaucked at But the waiting at Heathrow, an airport that seemed stuck in the 80s