Wings

When I was nineteen, the airport was the holding room of my dreams. René and I―united by that ferocious hunger for new skies―often found ourselves at one of those pedicured balconies overlooking the runway, where we'd watch the Boeings taxi towards take-off with wistful silence.

'One day, some day,' We'd say, with that sort of morbid hopefulness made possible by youth. I remember her eyes―how her lashes were beautifully curled even then, and how her expression was brightened by the sun, but still shadowed, somehow, with wandering worry. It was a worry that I'd shared―the anxiety of not knowing, the fear that our one day becomes a random thought back in '99, the possibility that our some day will degenerate into a broken verse from the doomed anthem of our coming-of-age. Yes, darling, one day, some day―and we'd be too old to sing.

The calendar pages have come off rapidly since then; time has bled past our fingers. Some of that old fire has simmered into something more tepid and less tangible. We still talk about 'running away'―it's our thought du jour, and it gives colour to our monochrom routines. Doesn't matter where to, doesn't matter how we'd get there. That's the beauty of imagination. It doesn't wait for your logic to take flight: it only needs the hyperkinetics of desire.

I'm still gunning for that some day, still running. Run with me; we'll find the chalk to draw our own finishing line.