An Aeroporto Aventura
Read, and You’re Never Alone
NKW / Nkech N (all/any pronouns) is a queer Writer-Artist-Human Hybrid who is currently (and constantly) curious about the world we live in.
8 September ‘26 — BCN to BER
BCN El Prat, Aeroport Terminal 1
Between LEGO and BREADWAY
4:00am
Airports are crazy cute little places. This one at least.
There is a woman in front of me, the clear nail of her left little finger tracing slowly down early stages of a beige page. A silver ring waives the right to shine against her active wear, and catches on her curls whenever she knocks a strand away. With her chin in her other hand, she presses an index finger hard against her forehead, and I wonder from the other side of the charging station we occupy, typing as I sway to The Wannadies, if her book is frustrating to read? Emotional, oder einfach Difficile, vielleicht? Or is she, like me, trying her best to fill her head with words, just so that she doesn’t think of all those other little frustrations that love to pile as soon as the Present becomes Purgatory..?
A baby behind her, in front of me, releases his mother’s breast, and mother; she laughs at some small treasure buried in his face. A father, travel-bags weighing down his lids, smiles but he has to grip the shutters of the LEGO store that they, three, are leaning against in order to stand. He shuffles away, and I wonder if Emirates really does Fly Better, and if he will return to his duty with a bottle of spenny-Spring Water, or a lighter bladder, or his limbs relieved.
I stretch out my wrapped ankles in response. Everything feels stiff. I’d love to curl up ground-level too, but my restless legs won’t let me.
I’d like to be home, and I wouldn’t.
BCN. Almost exactly a year ago, I was here too. It was after roller blades and revelations with Lou, my heavy heart full. Second time in the city, nine-point-five years later. Guess that means almost a year ago I was calling – and being answered by — exactly the person I wanted to speak to.
I remember the first time we lay in a quarter-full Berlin apartment, shortly after someone arrived from abroad — I feel like it was you, or him, or her. We shared blankets and beanbags after cleaning floors and walls into the night. I felt like I should go home – I’d just met you, new friends. But all those empty walls and all that floor space beckoned that my young bones and butterfly heart stay. Why not rest my head in foreign company?
I don’t remember if we ate together, but I remember all our covid-compromised heads ever-so close to one another, and five shades of laughter, and placing my arms around myself as though gearing for turbulence that I knew would eventually settle. Sometime after, I remember stroking a dog named Axe, unable to know that my heart would be split forever and spoiled for every other creature – it’s Axe, or no hound, I’d say, not long later.
Fly Better coaxes daughter – where in the world was she? – who pushes him towards the play park in a trolley-substituted-seat, where they have decided to set up camp. I see the appeal. Much more comfortable than LEGO shutters against their backs, and I smile as colonies stream past them – and you.
Regulation cabin bags and regulation wheels sound so steady against the black-red and reflective, soundtracking a Pastel Blue Blazer, wiping one of a thousand bench-seats before sitting, elbows tucked in. Neurotic or necessary, I find our parallel: tinfoil, cautiously unwrapped to reveal food from home. Was it provided and prepped for you, Blazer Blue, like mine was for me by somebody dearly beloved?
Are all of us stuck between a lingerer, a lover, a cliche and a hater?
I hope so.
A coffee machine behind me, in front of her, whirs into life, and I wonder if I might need a cup to help me take off; forget when we were three heads close to each other, tension buzzing. But not the kind that leaked my way. My heart rose to the clouds before diving down when Zodiacs, Star Signs and Compatibility were discussed, and I felt my significance seep into Berlin Fakewood Linoleum like lemon-bleach, the sting drifting fast through open windows. Object permanence means I’ll forget. Unless —
Look at me, silly. She’s gotten up and left, now. Towards the gates, or the toilets, or the whirring coffee machine, clutching a yellow bag and looking as lost as I feel.
Her replacement is quick to take his place at the Charging Station. He watches a dark drama and I feel ill. His thumb drives into his cheek and nudges the rim of his 70s-thick specs up, before adjusting them down repeatedly. Perhaps he’s simply sick of keeping his eyes open.
I don’t blame him as I close mine, continuing to type. His knees are knocking ever so slightly as his left leg trembles, toes tapping the ground.
I try not to mirror.
I’m told to let go of what I no longer want to be, and I’m considering it. But, then, when I stand to go, wouldn’t my cabin bag from a two week getaway remain right here?
I’m to leave no luggage unattended.
Now he’s leaving, hastily. Perhaps he noticed that I wanted to soak up and scribe more of him here on the page, while wondering if I’m only holding onto you because I want to be the person I was when we first met.
It’s not true.
How much does it cost to run an airport like this? How many pennies or pounds per second for the COCO CHANEL advert that makes my feet itch? How many are employed to keep clean the bathroom I finally wrapped my hypermobile ankles in while I hopped, trying to avoid the puddle of unidentified fluid on the floor..? And the harbours for all these flying ships? How much do they cost? And do they cost as much when they’re vacant as they do when they are docked?
It’s all bright, and brighter still. Open 24 hours and blinking neon, trying to keep us awake but failing gently. Dozens curl up and snore soft, and I’m allured by them. I wish I could also let my every guard down.
Calm enough to sleep in an Aeroport. Energy to walk, but choosing the conveyor belt— Yo también quiero eso. Adults crawl inside children’s play area slides and cylinders and tower-houses to dream only until they have to fly, and I wish we could too.
I just want to see that one, please…
…a mini-human says to her guardian, wild as an adventurer, wide-eyed and excitable as the shutters of the LEGO store groan into action. More lights fracture against two white-haired newcomers in functional floral; endearingly Texan tones arriving to perch at the socket to my left. But one has lost her phone. It isn’t a minute before there is a scream of pleasure on her way back to the bathroom, Handy found in her pocket at 100 percent, and I’m grinning when I find the courage to turn and share in her joy.
I’d been right there too, not two weeks ago.
They wave and they nod and they drift away.
Holiday Purgatory.
Never alone for long, I think about the length of your legs knocking against mine as we travel inside the stomach of a tram some time ago, going from a bar to home, or home to a bar. We were watching grey skies, and the static of an engine was blocking my ears as to all that you said as I tried to figure out how to illustrate to you the weight my heart was holding.
New arrival. He comes with even less of a smile. Shoulders high. Almond and spiked eyes with lashes that whisper how much they wish to hide, watching another show with another arc I don’t recognise – and he doesn’t look up when I rise, accidentally bumping into the Charging Station we have occupied. Nor when I apologise. Not when I unplug or pack or roll away. And, honestly, I feel some type of way. We shared a 60 centimetre space, but— I hadn’t said goodbye or hello or hey, neither to the ring that waived its brilliance, nor the 70’s specks that fell and were raised.
Should I linger longer? What does that say about me? I’m cling-film-wrapping my humanity beside some who prefer to risk it. To lock it. Codes and Keys protect what we own from who, exactly? Fuck a lock, and –
An alarm. Running out of time. Ha! I thought I’d be sleeping.
Instead, I’m snapping closed my laptop. I’m clutching my backpack and trying not to buckle underneath it. Pulling my suitcase as I search the signs, though I know where I’m going to go; giving in to nicotine.
The terrace smells like coffee, tobacco and warm rubbish. When I’m almost done, smoking and typing and sipping spenny Spring water of my own, I accidentally drop burning ash onto my laptop and skin. Tired. Time check.
It’s 5:40 am, and salvation is still 1 hour and thirty minutes away.
But what is 1 hour when that memory of you and I is just 5 years — and 2 minutes — away?
