UnconsciousFeelings

You know when you keep saying you’ll write something but keep postponing it, and then you’re afraid you won’t be able to capture the intensity of the feelings you had back then on paper? Well, that’s how I feel now, but I’ll try. I glance down at my sneakers; I probably should’ve bought new ones. How do you buy sneakers and on the first day sew them where the laces were frayed? The hour on my phone doesn’t seem to move forward. I try playing Candy Crush again, and it annoys me. It usually works when I want to clear my mind of various thoughts. I open WhatsApp again and send an emoji to make sure it has a signal and will write to me when she’s ready. I leave the phone on even though I know I’ll be scolded: ‘How do you have your phone set not to turn off? And you leave it on again?’ It’ll be a small price to pay for the nerves I’m feeling now, and I think it’s worth it.

I lift my gaze and look around. I like observing people. A man, probably also waiting for someone, without luggage, looks around as well. A step forward for humanity, I think, not glued to his phone. I turn my gaze behind me, and I had already thought too soon. Someone is pulling a suitcase and looking for a place to sit, obviously holding a phone in their hand avoiding people and looking just out of the corner of their eye. He finally finds a spot and sits down with such force as if he was testing if the bench is solid enough to support him.

To my left, some people are sleeping. Initially, I see a woman with her head bowed and a hat on enough to cover that she’s asleep. Strange way to sleep, I think, sitting on a chair. Then I judge why she’s not sleeping like the one next to her, bent with his head resting on luggage. Wait, it’s not okay to stare like this, and I throw my gaze back to my phone. I received a photo with the exact location, almost reaching the gate. I write to her that I miss her already, and once again, the messages don’t send.

Panic seizes me again, and all sorts of scenarios run through my mind. Meanwhile, the lady with the hat wakes up and seems to be scolding the person who was sleeping on the luggage. Quickly, I judge how dare she wake him up senselessly when she actually sits next to him and moves the luggage to make him more comfortable, and the surprise is even bigger when I see another person lying on the other side. She seems to be a middle-aged mother between two children. I appreciate what I see; I already put mothers who take care of their children even if they’ve passed a certain age, on a pedestal. It doesn’t take long, or so it seems to me, because I check my phone again and the new messages received, new precious information for me, where she is, what she’s doing, etc.

I lift my gaze again, and it seems the three of them have woken up, talking among themselves. He stands up and looks for something in one of the bags under the seats and puts it in his pocket. Wow, his pants are ripped exactly where nobody should have them, and I quickly judge why he doesn’t change them in one of the bathrooms, and I come up with the answer myself: maybe he doesn’t have any. As he leaves, the two women talk to each other, and wait a minute, the girl has a torn jacket on her, and I start analysing the older woman; her sneakers have a problem, they’re so torn that her toes stick out, or were they just too small, and she somehow managed to wear them.

He comes back with a Costa coffee in his hand, and once again, my human nature wins, and I wonder how he could spend money on it when they actually seem so troubled. He takes out the bag he had put in his pocket before leaving and takes off the coffee lid. It was actually a bag of cheap transparent noodle soup that he shakes into the cup of hot water…In a world where we change our wardrobe just because we’re bored of it, in a world where we see excessive purchase of unnecessary clothes just to keep up with fashion, one thing is certain, there are still people who don’t have anything to wear, and here I mean the bare necessities. And no, in case you’re wondering, they weren’t homeless, nor were they begging.