bye

The plane took off precisely as the departure schedule had read: 2:10 PM, June 9. Just another numb lift-off, up into an endless expanse of blue shrouded in white. She sat on the right window seat, passenger class B. In her right hand, she clutched a red iPod nano, scratched on both faces, scratches marking the times she had used it for comfort when nothing but music could fetch and shoulder her heart home. Now was another one of those times where therapy was valid only in the form of rhythm and melody. In her left hand, rested a locket mirror, large enough only for the clutch of a small hand. She unfolded the mirror and remembered what he had told her. From the reflection, his words seemed to emit back a gaze as strong and fixated as the gaze she gave it.

You are powerless if you believe yourself powerless. You are powerful if you believe yourself powerful.

She shifted her gaze from the reflection - that was all the while poking holes at her conscience and spitting an image of his face, rubbing salt in the wounds of decaying memory - to out the window. The surreality of the clouds against such blue backdrop made her heart leap bounds. The colors seemed to splash beyond their normal thresholds, an intensity she was unable to characterize or since, relive. Way up here, 10,000 feet above ground zero, everything was 10,000 times more beautiful. Could life down there ever be lived as it were up here, basking in glory and beauty, timeless? She wondered if his words would truly validate her potential or wholly confirm her doubt. Regardless of outcome, she was glad enough to have known him and everything he had managed to show her about herself, intentionally or unintentionally.

3 and a half hours and what seemed like infinite contemplations later, flight 647 landed in sweet compliance to the forces of gravity, at her destination. She dragged her luggage off the plane, each step growing heavier, but barely perceptible. She stepped in the airport, alongside hundreds of other faces. Each face had likewise left someone behind, had left the known for unknown. Each face loved someone or was loved by someone. For her, airports seemed to always affirm the common thread of humanity in mankind, let alone strangers from scattered corners of the world.

Then, she saw him. He was leaning on the wall, already looking at her. Why was he here?

And what if saying goodbye is, in some underground, impossible way, really saying hello?