I Recognized Him at a Glance

In human life, people are most often trapped by the past, and whenever a problem arises, they blame it on their history. If only we would turn and look back at the past we have always fled, perhaps all our problems would be solved. But I had chosen to run. My heart wished it were otherwise, but most of what the heart desires never comes to pass. While the August sun scorched my skin, I found myself at an airport. Thousands of people rushed about everywhere, their faces bearing the expression: “Will I make it?” I had no need to reach any destination. I had already lost everything I could lose; I had left my past behind and come here. I did not know where I was going—only that I had to run. I began to walk calmly. Eventually, I managed to leave the airport. As I walked, every face I saw resembled my mother or my father. They would not let me go; the farther I moved, the more they closed in. I had to face them—I had to surpass myself. While sitting at a bus stop, I saw a woman crushed beneath a car as she tried to cross the street. That was when I realized I had made a mistake. I ran back toward the entrance of the airport, and now I was just one of those people with the expression “Will I make it?” on their faces. I bought another ticket in the direction I had come from and sat down on one of the rows of seats waiting for the doors to open. I touched my face with my hands; my swollen eyelids had long since made peace with my tears, and I had not applied any trace of makeup. I touched my eyelashes, stuck together by tears. Suddenly, I closed my eyes as I felt them filling once more, and I pulled my hand away from my face. I did not need to cry again. I did not cry. I waited. I thought—how had I come to this? How happy I had believed myself to be when I woke up that morning. I understood how a person’s life could be overturned in just a few hours. Life is not more beautiful when turned upside down; whoever said so was merely comforting themselves. The time had come. I returned to the city I had begged and screamed to escape, ready to confront again the thought of losing my family.

The people passing by me, every pair of eyes I saw, every sound I heard—all resembled my family, pulling me back toward them, back toward the past. When I boarded the plane, I once again thanked fate for choosing the window seat, and I sat down. I believe the only right thing I did in these days was to choose the window seat, both on the way here and on the way back. I put on my headphones and tried to close my eyes, until the memories of my losses returned before me. I could not even bear to relive those moments in passing. I turned my gaze to the clouds, to the sky—the same heavy sky I had always loaded with my emotions, which some find gloomy, others lively, but for me, the only refuge. I wished my thoughts would leave me, that they would scatter across the earth. I wished the tears I had held back, as if I had not cried enough, would flow now in my place. I was tired—I had been tired for a long time. Perhaps, in the final moments of my life, I simply wanted peace. I do not know. There, too, my past appeared before me—I had never been able to escape it, and I never will.

When the plane landed, I removed my headphones at the sound of the announcements and tried to exit the cramped aircraft as quickly as possible. Again, people stood there with the same expression on their faces, as if waiting, moving from place to place, trying to reach the exits. I sat down and waited until everyone had left. When the area was clear, I stood and walked calmly down the stairs toward the baggage claim. Toward my past.