YD6-39 Boys' nightmare, echoes aetheria’s shaping destiny

 

Overall, this chapter is a compelling and thought-provoking piece of writing that offers a rich and rewarding reading experience. It is a story about a father's love for his sons, and his determination to overcome obstacles to be with them. The narrative is interspersed with vivid descriptions of the protagonist's surroundings and his interactions with various characters, creating a multi-layered and engaging reading experience. The themes of family, perseverance, and the influence of external forces on personal destiny are subtly woven throughout the narrative.

My open-ended flight ticket, looming in a 72-hour window, weighs amidst risking my managerial position at Carmichael Vitagliano’s joinery shop, to brisk strides from home that morning. Boosted by my little boys after a year’s absence. As I'm feeling a zephyr’s bites through my clothes, the length out Forest Hill’s 3rd Road. I emerged from and around the brick quoins of apartment blocks, and Queens Boulevard bustles to an open field of traffic, feeling caught by Hermes’ swipe through me, dropping off a harsh message. ‘_Winter is in the coming!_’ the chill passes through with such ease, while distant blurry Manhattan skyline are telling of my destination. Shivering in my shoes, I circumvent my habitual "3rd Drive-Rego Park" handrails gaping the staircase, telling myself. ‘_I ought to find a jacket?_’ From my affixed subway E, or R routes. ‘I ought to find a store on this busy artery,’ scanning across a river of traffic for the resemblance to clothing stores, while skirting none else than entrances. 

From brick walls, to my dismay, slight mannequins stand by to liven in their clothes, and step out of a glass aquarium engaging the deserted sidewalk. The glass wall opens a gaping hollow, drawing my curiosity toward deep lingering shadows. I'm passing the sentinels of the facing plate-glass doors swung back confusing my reflection while upfront I encounter a factory of tight stocked clothing racks, ready for dispatch. The illusion foiled by luring dressed busts me to the inside maze of puffed up racks, out of which a voice slinks into my thoughts. “Can I help you?” a store attendant asks me.

I’m not sure of myself, my eyesight immersing the racks flanks of a wing aisle. The slender tailor’s demeanor, seizing me up, his hand reaches into a rack, returns a jacket unhooked. With a valet's discretion, presenting in my path a jacket, ‘Would this suit you?_’ along my leading eyes, ‘_Or this?_’ he gestures. Calling my gaze at the rate, I discarded his presentations.

When I'm perturbed by peering eye flints, through the jacket rack, and persistent, I'm spied on. ‘_For what reason?_’ soon answered, when I spot in the backdrop an aviator’s jacket on a mannequin torso — a reminder of my apprenticeship days, a teenager lunacy. With my brother Igor, leaving home, in Kyalami. I wore a leather jacket, saddled our road race bikes as the horizon peek first light. Igor, his shirt stuffed with brown paper. We cycled into the biting glacial air, biting. Rush out the valleys, as sun rays lay the night away with a golden stroke on the bristly savanna rolling hills to arrive in Pretoria underarm trickle sweat.

I tear away from the tailor-valet-salesman, stepping across toward the athwart rack of charcoal bomber jackets. The salesman heading my eyesight, picking a tailored jacket. While in the corner of my eye, the spying eyes unveil a flabby face with sunken eyes lurking behind the adjacent rack trying on a jacket, eavesdropping as I asked the salesman. “What’s the largest size you have?” 

 I'm advancing as sunken little eyes’ envious glares, in dire need of help. He tugs at the cuff of a jacket, straining seams stitches about to tear the puffed fabric. While the tailor-salesman feeds me an open breast jacket, to slip my hands into the sleeves. Feeling constricted, I repeat, “The largest?” I plead, slipping out a tailored jacket.

“The biggest size you have!” I insist.

In my mind, ‘puffing up my chest with a frilled-neck lizard as a deterrent to attackers._’ The salesman grasps my extraordinary request. He side steps, returns from the end of the stretch-rack. He cloaks my shoulders, my hands slip out of the sleeves as I turn away. ‘_That’s it!_’ I smile at the salesman. Under the stalker’s envious gaze, the salesman ignores the stupidity of the flabby man’s struggle, from who we are walking away. We split sides at the counter. Behind the cash register, he cashes for the jacket. I insisted with a further request.  Obliging, as I turn, he comes from behind the counter. In a pause, cuts the tags off. I step away, alike a man’s absurd jealousy, etched into the salesman’s gaze and my mind, en route backtracking to the subway meeting Yael in Central Park, to her wishful day.

As the first light dawns, my mind in the skies with an eagle’s eyes circling the quiescent suburb, assertive still as a Sunday, I glance at my wristwatch, edging the morning to frustration. When, at 10 o'clock, and dressed for the day, my finger dances the phone keypad, rhyming to mind, ‘on the wings of love. . ._’ leading my aura across the Atlantic Ocean, to the tip of Africa. I hold on, a distant ringing in my ear. Until Jean’s high-pitch voice breaks in. “Hello!” I stutter, “Can I speak? …” The line cuts off, echoing my voice mocking me, “… to Lionel and Gavin.” I cringe, but a Pygmalion sculptured of sevenish and tenish in my heart since birth until Jean took them away with her divorce procedure -- two small boys’ innocence, I swallow my irritation. After a deep breath, I dialed again. “Hello. . .” Gavin’s little voice melting my giant ego. 

‘_. . .and, what now?’ I wonder, as I hang onto a nestling atmosphere. Jean’s distant voice in the furthest corner of the house, the play-TV room. Time ticks, as a one-arm bandit spilling winnings, but I stop listening to the jingling fall of coins, mounting my phone bill. ‘I can’t hang up, miss out on speaking to them.’ when “Hello,” in an emotive intone, Lionel's voice breaks through. 

I sense the head-ramming Aries, raise breathtaking concerns. As my eldest boy, careful not to hurt himself -- snitching on his brother. Lionel bursts out, “Dad!” he says, “Gavin is sick — he’s gone to bed!” 

Then, by Lionel’s silence, I'm lost on rough seas, sandwiched by turbulent convoluted dark skies. 

“But, I’ve just spoken to Gavin a minute ago?” I protest. “Gavy didn’t say anything about being sick?” 

The Warthog in me spikes a skeptic brotherly concoction, ‘_Why?_’ I buffer in quest. “Lionel. What is your brother worried about?” I ask.

“I don’t know, Dad!” Lionel whines, thick with fear, and ruminating. I feel he’s on the verge of revealing, and to accelerate a response, I leapfrog my Ego. “It’s about me… Lionel?” I ask. The open conduit of the phone line, and quiet, to finding my words. “What about you, Lionel?” I ask.

“Are you also worried?” I prod, demystifying a rivalry.

Lionel’s words hanging — “Yes, Dad.” he whispers, distressed. 

‘_Whoa!’ I exhale, standing in the limelight, on the verge of tears, my boys’ silence unbearable. ‘_How ignorant of me!’ I reprimand myself. ‘They’re my children?_’ The chill of a shadow crosses over me. “Lionel!” I called out.

Their Pygmalion world sculptured in me, as they rushed toward me, the length of the sun white panhandle driveway, let loose from the shadows of their nettling house’ entrance. Lowered myself to hunkered in front of the gated grills. Gavin appears plowing through the steel bars, running through my body and upheld his little being, in a spirit billowing embrace. With a hand, I shifted Gavin onto one knee, and brought his brother to the other knee — overwhelming.

I’m sentient of a feverish burdening on my little boy, carrying an invasive fright, radiating -- echoing the chill of a South African Airways 747’s mysterious disappearance over the Indian Ocean. A Korean airliner blown out of the sky by a MIG over Soviet territory. 

“Lionel,” I affirm, saying. ‘_Remember the accident in my Audi Coupe! Remember the accident in your mother’s Toyota!_’ My words are clear and unwavering. “Can you imagine that driving a car is more dangerous than flying? Or, even standing on a street corner, walking across a traffic light?” 

As I speak, the skies open and the seas calm. Lionel’s anxiety volatilized. “Lionel.” I say with emphasis. “Will you call your brother?”

“Gavin’s in bed, Dad!” Lionel replies. I hesitate to pressure him — taciturn, to my mind, Lionel bathing in neon plasma in the amber spill of the entrance doorway, he figures ghostly. 

“Lionel!” I insist. “Just call your brother on the phone.”  As I feel holding the remedy for Gavin’s dizzy spell. “I want to have a word with Gavy.”  

Lionel’s figure retreats from the phone cradle, but vanishes midway down the floor-through hallway to the front of the house. He reappears in the window light of Gavin’s room. Standing along his brother’s bed, lying on his pillow, in a conversation, and volatilizes. Lionel's ghostly shadow reappears in the translucent corridor. Fallen silent, Gavin’s little worried voice breaks the quiescence. “Yes, Daddy?” 

“Cooks!” I say, softening my voice. “Are you worried something might happen…?”

I'm taken aback by the interrupting, “Daddy!” abrupt firm voice articulating. “If you have to stay in London? Can’t you get a flight sooner? -- Will you spend more time with us — Will you stay longer?” 

His heart piercing request, to ache for my little boys. I'm offering what comfort I can, for the moment, I'm replying. “Sure, Cooks!” Unaware, translating into a promise. “I'll try to cancel my time in London, but I can’t promise. I’ll try my best.”

My body contorts, as my heart aches, passing the handset under my elbow to hang up on its cradle, and further. My left hand’s heel props me on the corner of my worktable, while reaching for the Manhattan White Pages on the floor. With riffling the bulk of the pages, I uncoil to my seat scanning the alphabetic corners of pages, while lowering and spreading the open directory on my lap to both hands. Fingers walk paging, trailing the listing, jump columns, to the bottom and in bold print of “South African Airways.” I jot the number in my diary, which wallet I return to my pocket.

Beyond my cluttered work table, overseeing my Compaq Portable’s little screen’s WordPerfect page, driving my mind into psychoanalytic taming of my restless mind, fingers dancing keyboard keys, and inadvertent call over text scrawl down the page. As I lift my eyes through my window. Helios’ reign glow in the neighbors backyards dwindles. Until golden rays fade to encroaching Nyx’s rising shadows, the darkening face comes to glue, with giant cupped hands peering through the glass panes, to mirror my reflection bright in my studio. 

a neighbor’s TV, flickering bright in the far-left corner of my panoramic window, their family comes to the table as the massive plasma screen flickers programs. Children go to sleep. Parents lounge deep into the night. I switch off my Compaq’ screen, and jump into bed, eager to arise on a workday.

Morpheus releases her arms, bringing a chorus of birds chirps, in priority. ‘Call South African Airways, annihilate my stopover in London,’ At the thought. 

I dress to step out onto 3rd Road, holding back on my eagerness in long strides. Only to get entangled with a flock of people descending to the subway station. I board the R train. Pulling away to a rumble and rattling of carriage fright, breaking through the dark tunnel. Flash of light punctuates station stops. Until, I step out, emerge onto the deserted platform, ascend to the street, zigzag to the backstreet. Eager blindness strikes through the bleak terracotta brick walls, to surrounding warehouses mingled in the industrial blocks.  

Entering the workshop, its depth glazed, perturbing my plans, I find the Vitagliano couple in their office. I weave through a Sahara Desert of saw dust, past cabinet casings in the making, along machined timber and panels of chipboard. I approach the glazed partition, sidestep Vitagliano's wife at her desk, for the adjacent doorway. Stepping inside, greeting Carmichael. The stubby little fiftyish man croaks me backtrack into the workshop. He thought it was funny, hit me with a filthy question. I don’t blush, respond, thwarting him off, biding by the blueprints pinned to the wall. 

The filthy little man leaves me behind, as I feign to fit-out a store, but across the half-assembled cabinet casings, I seized the Vitagliano woman's busts. Until mid-morning, above the wainscot, glazed offices are vacant. I near out of the sawdust, the phone cradle amplified shine. I approach the pillar between the Vitagliano couple’s doors. Unhooking the handset, I dialed the number I’d noted in my Seven-Star diary. After a few distant rings, standing up to the wall cradle. “South African Airways, may I help you?” a man’s voice answers. 

The words tumble over my lips. “I need to cancel my London stopover in London for a direct flight to Johannesburg!”

“Put it in writing,” the man obliges. I jot his details on a page of my mini diary, feeling washed off and the gears turning toward achieving my promise to my little boys. ‘That’ll be easily solved!’ I think, hanging up the phone. Turning away from the offices. ‘I’m left to write a simple letter making my demand official.’ I thought, ‘Understandable.’

By evening, I'm leaving the chaos of raw chipboard to melamine sheets, to gallon tins of contact adhesive, a lamination that doesn’t leave me, as effective or lasting. But I step out of the workshop, a free path to mind, ‘writing a letter.’ I backtrack my steps to the subway, in the season of my ‘Mishaps’ weaving the streets, to descend underground and catch the R train home.

With a bewitching rattle through the subway car, occupying my mind reversed engineering the harsh rumbling echoing the steel rails wheel through the undercarriage void of dampers of the more modern carriage. Fixated until the disrupting crackling announcement. “63rd Drive - Rego Park’’ Emerging onto the quiet street, at length in my strides, by my learned habit of shedding my mind free of encumbering thoughts, leaving my head space for fresh ideas — I’m walking thoughtless, until the house sketched the steel staircase underneath appears the driveway to my homecoming sunken door, to a breathtaking dread, ‘_Ho no! I have to write a letter_?’ the task clicks to mind.

At the turn of the key to the door’s open and closing sighs, my mind jumps to duty across the galley kitchen. I catch up to my electronic pets couchant on the little table. arching over the backrest, with a feeding finger, I press the button, with a hips swing to my seat. The C/: prompt appears. WP/M/L I type, flashes WordPerfect’s logo. squaring up to the screen. The macro runs, uploading the address form — the constant update chess game with the unknown of software and hardware factors, leaving me stupid from mastering -- I transcribe the address: “Robert Adair, South African Airways, 900 3rd Ave., 9th Flr., New York City, NY., 10022.” 

I finished typing the body of the letter, ‘_Child of the Jungle_’ I thought, ‘_You’ve got the tools!_’ a strategic maneuvering to run the spell check through Grammatik III software. My insecurities oiled, in WordPerfect, I launched, merging the address with the letter’s body. 

My mind jumps to the warming Okidata printer, loyal, though we had many differences — reminiscing, I bought off a black friend. Then, before an audience in the Small Claims Court. Then the judge asked. “How did you pay?” My ego stood strong, humiliated, having had Barclays bank bounce my check. “Cash!” It was the wrong answer. The court orders the befriended black man’s boss be paid another whopping printer. ‘_I’m not paying twice!_’ resolute.

I jump to WordPerfect, to press F7, launch whirring and clicking fills the room as the printer sucks a sheet from the feeder tray, spills a printed sheet emerges onto the top tray. Feeding an envelope into the printer, I'm breathing again -- an efficient letter.

“Dear Robert Adair,” I dare not read the letter in fear of finding mistakes, but my last thoughts are on my letterhead, and saved to file, with the automated date: “New York, 20:31 (Mon) October 23, 1989. 

Feeling stress hands and fingers on my head -- a small victory, but a significant one. Hiding behind my giant ego, rising and folding the letter, and slipping into the envelope, to seal, affixing a stamp. scheduling on my next outing to drop in a mailbox. I switched off the electronic equipment and jumped to bed.  

I arose from the arms of Morpheus, dressed, grabbing my bomber jacket. Stepping through my galley kitchen, in the shadow of the tailor-salesman, cloaking my shoulders, my hands slip out of the charcoal cuffs, to pull the zip up. With a hips kick past the worktop corner, to a sighing door, I step on the driveway ramp to the street. While comfortable, in long strides, crisp air aggressive in my face, I’ll ward off any malcontent praying eyes.

Remembering a woman I approached in the grid of streets. “Do you know where I can post a letter?” her face etched with confusion, ‘_You speak English, don’t you?_’ I asked. I lifted my envelope to her eyes. “Ha! … you want to mail. . .” In the aftermath, if thought, in her reply. “There’s the post office.” She pointed at an old doorway, a mere street crossing away. 

I pull the zip down the breast, dig my hand into the warmth, the letter fluttering at my fingers to the squeaky door, the heel of my hand open. I locate a clerk’s friendly face, among a few customers. Without choice, I step up to the counter, greeting. “Lady!” Her heavy bored eyes resting on me, while dressed in a United States Postal uniform, I ought to have a friendly face. “May I have a stamp?” I ask. A flabby tentacle to her hand reaches a credenza to return with a set of postage stamps. I pay, turning around, peeling one stamp, transferring to the top-right corner of the envelope.

By the squeaky overused aged door, my eyes turn in rounds, to find a dark wall slit. I walk away with a feather stroke through my chest, with the letter drop. ‘_That accomplished,_’ I say to myself, amidst a flurry of pedestrians, losing myself to the downtown streets.

After I stepped through a small door within a large workshop entrance, to a cavernous joinery shop. Crossing by scattered partial-assembled cabinet casings sketched under a cloak of sawdust, I advanced into the depth, toward the sculptured busts in the shadows behind the glazed partition to split offices. In the right office, at sight of my approach, the stubby fiftyish man raised from his desk. I’m meeting Carmichael Vitagliano in the doorway at my encounter, with a croaky-raspy voice, and huffing-a-whistle of breath. The ringed-nozzle of an implant in his throat, kept my mind divided, as he invited me to follow him out, by the pedestrian door into the street.

Carmichael climbs into the hulking Chevrolet Silverado, where I join him to the passenger seat. Eight pistons roar, gliding the cabin into the deserted street. The man consumed his ego, laughing at himself, the ridicule of his lifestyle, as he recounts, his smoking habits, and smoking himself onto the operating table. While fast gathering traffic, creeping with a traffic build-up.

Traffic at a crawl, we crossed the East River, entering downtown in the shadows of diminishing skyscrapers, to dwarfing blocks, where Manhattan aerated its streets. Carmichael pulls the pickup truck to a stall, walks out of the cabin, to sprightly step. He leads me down, skirting small retailers’ bright-colored displays, to an abrupt freeze facing a boarded-up storefront. Carmichael pushes a panel crack, hinges open to a ghostly construction site. Tradesmen volatilized in thin air. “Here you are. . .” Carmichael said. Gazing at the suspended ceiling, not so finished, with the grid's gaping strip the through-floor. “Count the tiles. . . ” Carmichael croaks.

By dangling teasers of exposed electrical wires mocking a half-half unfinished construction’s silent message: ‘_Can you do something here?_’ Carmichael disappears into the street, leaving me alone in the space. I plodded, counted rows of tiles, multiplying by the columns. In the depth, I encountered a continuation of the L-shaped ceiling. I spent adding hollow points in the grid, as my numbers didn’t balance. 

My expected reply from the South African Airways, faded in the morning. The next, pursuant of the yellow disk as I descended the staircase, worming to the platform, I stood by a preemptive draft flowing past me, to gaze in at the dark tunnel. The R train roars out, figuring the driver behind one of the paired wind-windows to head. Leaving the rumbling coaches, a canvas of childish scrawls, screeching and lurching to a stop. Graffiti doors rattle open, I climb aboard amid a trickle of computers.

Into the following weeks, wane with distant aural reminders, as doors behind me - clack - shut, and the fluorescent lit station platform recedes with a mounting metallic rumble creeping through the ensemble of the coach, echoing through the dark tunnel. Station platform lights, punctuated intermingling commuters, until I step out of the train. Worm the zigzag bright tunnels to climb to a muted daylight street lining brick facades, barred and screened windows, the face of industry.

In a come-and-go from the joinery shop, or fitting out the Manhattan store. Picking up my mail, routing entering the galley kitchen, searching for a sharp utensil, and resort to a steak knife. I slit open the envelope, to a dismaying electric shock. Sent my mind scheming around a $600 telephone bill. The alarm wails to mind, a thought bubble gum stuck reminder, apart from the initial reach out not other than Sunday to my boys, following up on the South African Airway's cancellation of my London stopover. 

At the beginning of the week, I spur out of Vitagliano’s construction site, reaching the street corner’s telephone booth, my wallet at hand. With a flip of the flaps, opening my diary, I lift the handset, dialing the scribbled number. “South African Airways, may I help you?” the male voice answered. My words tumble over each other, to irritation. As no man or woman at the SAA reservation counter are the wiser, after my call gets transferred. I keep insisting, until I resume the underlying motive of my call. “But! What happened to the letter I sent you?”

My mind’s Hydra head breaches the misty distance, to materialize in a catalytic neon plasma, to sight nestling in the ceiling. During my phone call, I’m hovering over the man in a suit at a stretch counter. Lackadaisical on a coaster chair, facing a stretch-window to the public. In fairness, I accommodate, hanging up the phone, echoing in my mind. “We haven’t received your letter.” My mind races, as I rant at staff who dare not break protocol in the service of clients. My fever of suspicion mushed the reservation desk’s friendliness. Echoing into oblivion the essence of my letter, my ranting, “A letter doesn’t disappear. . . It doesn’t volatilize?” The SAA reservation desk man’s voice cuts through the windmill of my thoughts. “Send us another letter.” He said in simplicity. 

In the evening, I left Vitagliano’s construction site, sentient of a recurring pattern of mishaps, prominent during my career to a growing awareness — the moons’ spiraling staircase orbiting the sun, the year ends plaguing me. That evening, descending to the subway platform. Stepping into the R train, sustaining focus through the rumbles and shudders, punctuating stations. Until, announcing, “3rd Drive - Rego Park.” I step out, worming my way to the surface. 

Urged in long strides, along 3rd Road past a dwindling evening crowd deeper into Forest Hill, to deviate as the steel staircase etch and I descend the driveway ramp toward the sunken door. I turn the clumsy key to a door, sighing, and latch shut behind me. Across the galley kitchen, to the light of the room. Arch the backrest I press the screen illuminating and the Okidata printer warming up. I sweep into my chair, square up, the WordPerfect logo flash, and load to screen. As I retrieve the SAA file to screen, the letter updates. “New York, [20:18] (Wed) November 15, 1989.” I added a postscript: “PS.; This letter is a copy mailed last month.” pressing F7. 

In my morning, I step outdoors with athletic strides. My mind ought to shriek and pant in desperation!’ in orbit climbing the spiraling staircase, farthest from the solstice nestling my birth. Before I learned to outwit a witch’s spell, in minimizing risk taking — cloaking myself in my felt bomber jacket, pocketing the letter, and zipping up. Out in the street, abandoning myself, into the habitual 3rd Road. Crossing sidewalks to the far corner of the street junction. I pull down the breast zipper, to find the envelope monkeying on the edge of my jacket’s inner pocket. Twitching, ‘_Eager to leap to the mailbox,_’ I would have thought. Hermes, messenger of the letter, but with a flick of my wrist, I dropped it to the blues mailbox lid, clanging shut and continued toward the subway.

Following the blue disk of the E train, the stainless-steel carriage shining, the undercarriage buoyant smooth, through dark tunnels mirror commuters to punctuate flashing bright station stops. I walk to Vitagliano’s construction site. In the early afternoon, a Teratorn crosses Helios' path, the shadow feather strokes a welcoming chill. On a reigning autumn day, I reckoned Hermes’ message passed the reception of my letter at the SAA. Yet, I’m not free from turmoil. 

My rides from Manhattan on the E train to 63rd Drive - Rego Park, to a lonesome walk down 3rd Road into Forest Hill, amplifying the looming anxiety of the year's end. As Sunday's first light dawn’s painted the neighbors’ terracotta roofs in warm hues, the night lingered in the backyards, the 72-hours window gone into oblivion, while ranting over my London stopover annihilation. Search the  “Sandown Travel Agency.” white plastic jacket.

I trace the plastic jacket’s journey from the depths of storage, where it has lain for the past four seasons. I lay the jacket in evidence, atop of the CD player. Then, on Monday morning, I’m dressed, I scan the room on a last thought, to step over, swipe a walking advertisement jacket to my pocket. Stepping through the galley kitchen, and by the whispering door outside. I zip up my jacket, engage the familiar stretch of 3rd Road toward Queens Boulevard. Descending underground, to the R platform. Rumbles through the tunnel, punctuating subway stations, to a mental leap, I walk into the joinery shop. In the depths, I approach the couple’s glass partition, and off right. “Carmichael,” I begin. “I have to take off from work. . .”

The little stubby Carmichael Vitagliano’s croaks and gasps, through the orange lips of a tube stuck in his throat, unhindered, grants me leave. I track back to Steinway Street station, descend, to board the R train. I ride through tunnels, my head swims with thoughts of the SAA ticket booking office at 900 3rd Ave., to claim my 72-hour window before my open-ended ticket goes into oblivion. 

Brief and bright, emerging from the subway into the bustling city streets. Before I reached the South African Airways ticket booking office. I'm punched in the heart. My world looms in abyssal darkness. I’m a walking zombie, caught in a whirlwind of people along the sidewalks. I tumble through barriers of metro turnstiles, lost in a maze of downtown Manhattan tunnels. Desperate for my sanity, I headed toward Vitagliano’s construction site. 

I’m gaining my senses, holding my ARC coupons to sigh, the flimsy red carbon pages eager fluttering wings to take flight, reading a year from the engraved date of issue, to Lionel over the phone. I imagined a failed pick-pocketing attempt, my guaranteed return to my boys. Which, I had taken for granted, and vulnerable in the year-end festivities, historic coming to mind. 

It wasn’t that I discovered the SAA addressed envelope, monkeyed to perch on the edge of my inner breast pocket. So innocent as to vanish into oblivion, I pushed the envelope nestle into the depth of my pocket. With the next envelope addressed to the SAA. Again, the envelope’s corners clawed, raised monkey-hands in the air, it crawled a flex leg to foot the pocket's edge, before I scowled it back from toppling over. I should have seen the warning patterns, when the “Sandton Travel Agency,” slippery plastic walking advertisement jacket, arched over the edge for a jump, leads to fearing the wizard’s spell of the man’s clothing store. 

I kick my feet, with a hand, sending the duvet billowing, leaping out of bed. Crossing the aisle, plowing into the shadows of a hollow doorway. Turning the cold and hot faucet to hissing, a spray billowing steam. Strip my underclothes, step in the shower, wash, standing in the steam until my skin, flesh, is cleansed through my skeleton, and I'm one. I step out, turn off the water, grab a towel off the rail, rub myself dry. Emerging in the room, I dress, cloak my bomber felt jacket, my mind urging me to focus onto getting a seat on a flight to my boys.

After the 3rd Road brisk walk, to the subway, riding the rumbling R train to punctuate bright stations, to step off, and ascend to the streets. I skylarked the dusty joinery workshop across the cabinet casing and raw material, through the dusty joinery shop. Greeting Carmichael Vitagliano in the back office. Toward mid-morning, he had left, and his wife hadn’t appeared. I grab the handset off the wall cradle. Dialing out. “South African Airways, may I help you?” a male voice answers. 

“May I speak to Mr. Adair?” I rush asking.

“He isn’t in right now,” the man says. 

I’m hesitant, ‘_recount the whole saga, months in the making, to a stranger?’ but with mounting fever, impatience is taking the better of me. “Well! Maybe you can help me!” 

“I lost my ticket — How much does it cost to have it replaced?” I asked.

“Forty-four dollars, if you have a copy. Otherwise, the ticket will have to be re-issued at the place of origin.” The man at the ticketing counter said.

I’m breaking in a cold sweat, the man’s words transport me across the Atlantic Ocean between Johannesburg and Pretoria, to Sandton City mall. Walking along the lower walkway, reaching the Sandown Travel Agency. I’m struck by a blizzard, of improbability to reach Chrissa, the Greek woman, for the absurd — asking to reissue my ticket without proof of purchase. 

“Johannesburg,” I exclaim, with little chance to attain results. As I brood over the few details: a 9 pm departure, I shared with Lionel and Gavin on the fifteenth of December, the night flight to land in the morning.

In a piping silence, to a rhythmic click-clack, as I hang on with the SAA clerk. The keyboard he types after requesting my name. ‘_Raising false hopes,_’ I thought. Then his voice jingles through the deep fog of my mind. “We have your ticket here.” 

As if, the screen in front of the man flashed a red alert. ‘[This isn’t a village!]’ I’m ranting to myself. My mind riding subway trains, to downtown Manhattan's bustling streets, over an absurd childish story, I have to listen to. “We have your ticket.” the man’s voice breaks in. 

The man’s voice breaks my thoughts again. “We have your ticket,” he repeats, and softens his voice. While I’m ranting, my mind chasing a wind blowing litter through the gutter, my ticket fluttering amid a street. I am holding on to hear the SAA clerk proceed with reissuing my flight ticket, as my boys loom waiting for my arrival. 

In the belief of a ticket lost in city chaos, between Brooklyn and Manhattan, “It’s impossible,” I say, discrediting the clerk with the likelihood of confusion with another traveler. The SAA clerk’s headbutting, the Warthog in me, wants to hear. '_We’ll issue you with a replacement ticket,_’ seeing myself anchored with the Vitagliano couple, from seeing my anxious boys. The clerk with a deep breath, “We - have - your - ticket - here!” he exhaled, hammering the words.

Echoing into a cosmic distance, ‘It’s impossible!’ the chaos abandoning my mind, spurs single and comical my mind laugh off the eager paper envelopes’ break out my bomber jacket — shaken by the wizard’s lingering spell. The ticket with a slippery plastic jacket, in the darkness of the zipped up jacket breasts, slightly drops from the waist to lay discarded among a shoes traffic, while I’m ranting. “I lost mine somewhere in the streets of New York.” In a finality tone of voice.

The SAA clerk, counter-arguing, stops me in my misty obsession to listen. But before I can respond, he’s held me online to a piped silence. The Hydra of my mind stretches its head. Hovering. At sight, the SAA man’s figure swivels away from the glazed counter. He rises and walks along the stretch of public reception window into the light of a flank door.

He enters the adjacent office, where two men across the desk exchange a brief explanation. The seated figure behind the desk swivels in his chair, stretches an arm, retracts his hand, uncoiling and squaring up with shining, at a guess, a sheet of paper.

Before long, a call transfer breaks in, and a voice in my ear says, “Mr. Adair.” It’s breathtaking. “Hold on!” fades away, leaving me in suspense online.

The voice breaks in again. “We received a letter with it,” Mr. Adair says. The beacon of Lionel and Gavin shines through, breaching my obsession. I plead with Mr. Adair. But he says, “We can’t help you change the date of your ticket.”

“No. Forget it then,” I reply with sarcasm. In vain, I cower and the hydra’s eyes fade the clerk’s tall figure retraction to the reception counter. While Mr. Adair says. “Your ticket will be at the airport for collection.”

I hang up the phone, my been thawing to disbelief. The lack of goodwill to cancel my London stopover leaves me battered. My thoughts shift. Ruminating on the Good Samaritan who found my lost ticket jacket. ‘_Going out of his way to find the SAA’s address. Likely, as I did, in the White Pages. Found an envelope at the post office. Addressed it, affixed a stamp, paid, and dropped the envelope in a mailbox._’ Such a selfless deed in the heart of New York City leaves me flabbergasted. 

My mind drifts to the zodiac’s moral wilderness. The preemptive celestial force in turmoil shifts the pieces of a puzzle to fit an existential material narrative.

Hopeful of the subsided cosmic turbulence. The taxi pulls up at New York International. Reflecting on the terminal glazed door, as I step to the curb, fetch my beige bloated suitcase. “Thanks” I say to the driver, pushing open the door, towing my suitcase to the concourse’s far distant corner shadowing a crowd of activity at the check-in canopy. ‘_But first!_’ I tell myself, whirling away.

At sight of a manned “Info” Kiosk, in the line of sight, by chance an orange cubicle splashes SAA to tail the winged springbok logo. Beginning to feel a flow, Aetheria’s aura vanished, over the raw patches, approaching the counter at a studious pace, to my best chances. A ground hostess dwarfed, finishing with a traveler collecting a ticket walking away scarce on luggage, I butt myself against the ticketing counter to the ground hostess’ question eyes.

“I’ve been told to collect my ticket at the airport!” I ask. She rises after giving my name, vanishing through a side doorway. My heart flutters in disbelief after all my wrangling. She returns, with the ticket, a profound look at me, scrutinizing and connecting my passport. Then, emboldened, I chance my luck. “Please, I need to cancel the stopover in London for a direct flight to Johannesburg. . . Can you help?” I ask. Overseeing the seated hostess frown, she says. “We can’t do it here, but try at Heathrow.” 

Disappointed, I turn away, towing my calf-suitcase, failing to proceed through my dilemma. I walk toward the herded people, lessen intensity than shadowed from the distance, I arrive in front of the Pan Am ground hostess. Hauling my swollen suitcase onto the conveyor belt. Walking away from the hostess, tagging the handle, light on my feet, with my Pan Am's boarding pass. With a trickle of people, I pass through passport control, entering the tax-free shops, a giant step closer to meeting my boys.

Reaching the boarding gate, to a hallway seating, I wait until a Pan Am steward and female attendant are paired to service the boarding gate. Among fellow travelers crossing the 747 Jumbo’s crew in uniforms, ushering smiles, guiding me to the staircase, rising to an illusionary royalty, sweeping the stairs to an upper class. The upper deck air hostess guides me off the half-moon bar, in the aisle of a short cabin to a window seat. As engines whistle to life, the cabin to motion, the aircraft taxiing to the edge of the runway. whining up the whistle to a thrust. Accelerating and shaking, nailing me into the depth of my seat, soaring to clear skies in the portholes. With Lionel and Gavin, buoy in mind. ‘Here I’m coming!’

I carried Gavin’s aura, as the aircraft’s cabin chased the eastern horizon. Far below, innocent folks of clouds adrift and skimming the ocean’s blue glaze. Until, floating in my seat, to a prolonged glide, brakes tug the air, to touch-down, onto taxiing towards Heathrow’s terminals. Impatience gnawing, eager for a lucky attempt, mishaps at last coming to a halt. 

Saying “Thanks” to the aircrew, to walk along in a thinning flock taking in their strides the stretch walkway to a trickle and to my regret I'm heading straight from the branching passengers to in-transit. Herding at the barrier of glass cubicles to creep past the officer glancing at passports, feeling no shortcut than herding by the baggage carousel. Swiping off with my bloated suitcase, to worm my way into a swarm of travelers, bogged down amid punctuated British Airways logos, to the departure terminal.

I scan the crowds, venturing toward a uniformed marshal. “Sorry!” I say creeping up. “How can I get to the South African Airways ticketing counter?” 

I catapult a stone across a swarm of crowded heads. The marshal demystifies across a flood of heads. Vague amid widespread bright countries of flagship airlines into the depth of the concourse, spot the familiar orange SAA tail with a winged springbok logo.

As I'm raising, one problem is bugging me. ‘How am I going to get across? . . . And in tow my calf-suitcase?’ The marshall's hand waved. “Don’t take this lane.” He says with a Cockney accent. “Go over there, on the other side!” guides me to a blind contour.

I'm coming out from edging the crowds to scan the world's flagships, punctuated cubicles, my calf-suitcase tugging my hand, to fixate on a woman's sleek bob dark coif dwarf behind the counter, towered by a supervisor to the SAA orange backdrop.

As I snail-inch in wait, scanning past their glints of a suit lapel winged springbok pin, and from an overseeing passenger taking leave. I take myself from intruding on the women, farther approach offside a slender steward in a SAA blue suit.

“Can I help you?” the steward asks. I feel the aura of luck befalling me. Relieving from the harsh grip tugs my hand. Unevenly sharing between fingers my passport, and slip my ticket out of the plastic jacket, my heart pounding with anticipation of whisking through.

“Please,” I say, “can you cancel my London stopover for a direct flight to Johannesburg?” Fluttering flimsy airline coupons, I came to lean against the bar counter, arch over to rest on elbows, urging the steward’s eyes to peel off his ear from the women’s endless discussion. “Can you cancel my London stopover?” I plead. The steward flips the cover, examines, and flips the carbon side for counterfeit signs. “You’ll have to pay. . .” he states. 

As I’m ranting, the steward’s praying on my lost expressions. He waves a gaze over my shoulder, where I follow across a sea of heads along the punctuated British Airways check-in counters, to a throng of backwash at a sluice open to a hallway. 

‘_You want to send me through there?_’ I objected in the quiet. But I didn’t have a voice sending me into a mob. I'm frozen by his words to head across the concourse flooded with people. In fear, I turn away, seeking refuge besides the Stewart, in the cubicle. “Can’t I leave my luggage here?” 

“No! We have no room,” the steward replied. Left to feeling doomed in front of a mis-chosen person.

“You can’t let me trudge this. . .” I snarl, pointing to my calf-suitcase. But the steward wasn’t moved. When a young man paused beside me, straddling his luggage, coming as a sign, ‘Leave it or take it!’

I tug my calf-suitcase away, humming in tow as I’m plowing for the crowd. “Excuse me — Excuse me…” I snap. A slender figure wearing a dark barred mustache, frozen a glare, with a dreary frown, retarding a mechanical back push of his bag, press into the feet behind him.

With a determined glare, I forged ahead, “Excuse me — let me through…” my foghorn voice. pushing into a sea of travelers, awaking, startled from their stoned sculptured reveries. a symphony of eyes and yielding bags and suitcases folding back in a parting wave effect. With my lingering suitcase in tow, I traverse intermingled astray queues, a jumble punctuated by an unwavering British Airways branded canopy figuring attendants at check-in counters. 

In pursuit of the SAA steward’s vague directions, I’m swept with a lingering crowd through a sluice, turning the corner, to an insects buzzing hallway of travelers, to find a currency exchange sign gravitation wreak havoc amid a disarray of efflorescent retailers and bright-colored luminescent signs. I’m meandering downstream, through the throng, dragging my unwieldy suitcase, frustrated, I stop relieving my grip.

My hand throbs in pain, I glance back, scheming the hurdles of my return. ‘_It’s not an option -- There’s no way to abandon now,_' sparing a thought, although in London, it feels that I haven't yet left the international world. I shift my grip from my sore hand, pressing on, meandering through crowds of bronze sculptures passing the retail stores. Then the hallway smooths out while I scan its lateral walls, into desperation as a gleaming floor washes past a crowd thinning out figures. a window crack, stretches out a turquoise-glaze heist shield, to figure a dark balloon suit to a man’s bust, confined in a small booth, beckoned me squaring up. 

As I pulled a hundred-dollar bill from my Seven-Star diary, my eyes glazed over, the flabby-silicone palms flat on the white Formica. Dispatching, both hands creeping with locked eyes, fingers walk the hundred-dollar bill from the window slot, retracting. “Do you want Sterling?” he huff. with a sense of conspiracy at confusing me. “I want pounds!” I replied. In my mind, stumbling and juggling, ‘_Pounds… Sterling… What’s the difference_?’ 

The teller’s hands release the hundred-dollar bill, hands slide further to slip over the edge, guarding of a drawer beneath the countertop, fingers reaping, returning a paperweight hands, pushing forward past the hundred dollar bill, before me counting the notes, “sixty-two,” he says topping with coins, resonating trustworthy. As I scoop off the package from the window slot, his paws wipe my hundred-dollar bill into the drawer, wide with international currencies. I poured the coins shute from the bills into my cupped left-hand, to my hip pocket. With relief I hang onto the banknotes. with a left-hand grip my calf-suitcase’s swinging away.

upstream meandering through the crowds, angry at myself, feverish and hesitant at returning, having failed to check the exchange rate. But moving further from the exchange window, until I seize my regret, write-off my negligence, and cool down. Beyond the broader absorbing travelers amid efflorescent goods in store, I’m tracking the crack in the wall. Countering a sluice of travelers, I creep around the corner, cool-minded. Until, bogged down by a sea of people widespread at the British Airways' punctuated check-in counters. I forged my traverse, melting down my restless irritation to shine the handlebar mustache. He kicks his bag, and awakes a daydreaming young woman. she backs up and clears the frayed crowd to a middle-aged woman shoving her bag back. “I’ll be back—‘_don’t move. It’ll be a moment.’_” I said, emerging to a gleaming floor wash, fixing the nestled SAA staffed cubicle.

The SAA attendants, in crisp suits, with an expectant regard for my return. As I paused, relieving my burning hands. Gambling my luck, I lay three ten-pound and a fivever on the counter, joined with my unused flight ticket. The banknotes vanish into the steward’s hands. but his fingers ventilate the flimsy coupons, attentive to the red carbonize backing. With a magician flick of the hand, a blank coupon flips up to lie on the counter. Swift, a pen arises in his fingers. deft strokes of acrostic capital letters inscribing blank boxes, tears off the middle coupon. the steward hands me the ticket, I grab my suitcase with an overexerted hand, brush away the pain, only to walk away toward the SAA punctuated banner.

The crowd melted away, in my approach to the stewardess at the check-in counter. presenting my newly issued ticket, turns her eyes to the screen - click-a-tick, clack - to point alongside her counter. In a last effort of mind over pain, I whisk my suitcase to land on the conveyor belt. She hands me my boarding pass. “Thanks.” I uttered, walking away. When the song, “On the wings of love. Up and above the clouds. The only way to fly. . .” rhymes to mind, and my heated hands feel the cool air, as I head towards passport control.

I tug my calf-suitcase away, humming in tow as I’m plowing for the crowd. “Excuse me — Excuse me…” I snap. A slender figure wearing a dark barred mustache, frozen a glare, with a dreary frown, retarding a mechanical back push of his bag, press into the feet behind him.

With a determined glare, I forged ahead, “Excuse me — let me through…” my foghorn voice. Pushing into a sea of travelers, awaking, startled from their stoned sculptured reveries. A symphony of eyes and yielding bags and suitcases folding back in a parting wave effect. With my lingering suitcase in tow, I traverse intermingled astray queues, a jumble punctuated by an unwavering British Airways branded canopy figuring attendants at check-in counters. 

In pursuit of the SAA steward’s vague directions, I’m swept with a lingering crowd through a sluice, turning the corner, to insects' buzzing a hallway of travelers. I find a currency exchange sign, gravitation wreaks havoc amid a disarray of efflorescent retailers and bright-colored luminescent signs. I’m meandering downstream, through the throng, dragging my unwieldy suitcase, frustrated, I stop relieving my grip.

My hand throbs in pain, I glance back, scheming the hurdles of my return. ‘_It’s not an option -- There’s no way to abandon now,_' sparing a thought, although in London, it feels that I haven't yet left the international world. I shift my grip from my sore hand, pressing on, meandering through crowds of bronze sculptures passing the retail stores. Then the hallway smooths out while I scan its lateral walls, into desperation as a gleaming floor washes past a crowd of thinning out figures. A window crack, stretches out a turquoise-glaze heist shield, to figure a dark balloon suit to a man’s bust, confined in a small booth, beckoned me squaring up. 

As I pulled a hundred-dollar bill from my Seven-Star diary, my eyes glazed over, the flabby-silicone palms flat on the white Formica. Dispatching, both hands creeping with locked eyes, fingers walk the hundred-dollar bill from the window slot, retracting. “Do you want Sterling?” his voice huffs. With a sense of conspiracy at confusing me. “I want pounds!” I replied. In my mind, stumbling and juggling, ‘_Pounds… Sterling… What’s the difference_?’ 

The teller’s hands release the hundred-dollar bill, hands slide further to slip over the edge, guarding of a drawer beneath the countertop. Fingers reap, returning paperweight hands, pushing forward past the hundred dollar bill, before me counting the notes, he says topping with coins, resonating trustworthy. As I scoop off the package from the window slot, his paws wipe my hundred-dollar bill into the drawer, wide with international currencies. I poured the coins shut from the bills into my cupped left-hand, to my hip pocket. With relief, I hung onto the banknotes. With a left-hand grip, my calf-suitcase’s swinging away.

Upstream meandering through the crowds, angry at myself, feverish and hesitant at returning, having failed to check the exchange rate. But moving further from the exchange window, until I seize my regret, write-off my negligence, and cool down. Beyond the broader, absorbing travelers amid efflorescent goods in store, I’m tracking the crack in the wall. Countering a sluice of travelers, I creep around the corner, cool-minded. Until, bogged down by a sea of people widespread at the British Airways' punctuated check-in counters. I forged my traverse, melting down my restless irritation to shine the handlebar mustache. He kicks his bag, and awakes a daydreaming young woman. She backs up and clears the frayed crowd to a middle-aged woman shoving her bag back. “I’ll be back—‘_don’t move. It’ll be a moment.’_” I said, emerging to a gleaming floor wash, fixing the nestled SAA staffed cubicle.

The SAA attendants, in crisp suits, with an expectant regard for my return. As I paused, relieving my burning hands. Gambling my luck, I lay three ten-pound and a five on the counter, joined with my unused flight ticket. The banknotes vanish into the steward’s hands. But his fingers ventilate the flimsy coupons, attentive to the red carbonize backing. With a magician flick of the hand, a blank coupon flips up to lie on the counter. Swift, a pen, arises in his fingers. Deft strokes of acrostic capital letters inscribing blank boxes, tears off the middle coupon. The steward hands me the ticket, I grab my suitcase with an overexerted hand, brush away the pain, only to walk away toward the SAA punctuated banner.

The crowd melted away, in my approach to the stewardess at the check-in counter. Presenting my newly issued ticket, turns her eyes to the screen - click-a-tick, clack - to point alongside her counter. In a last effort of mind over pain, I whisk my suitcase to land on the conveyor belt. She hands me my boarding pass. “Thanks.” I uttered, walking away. When the song, “On the wings of love. Up and above the clouds. The only way to fly. . .” rhymes to mind, and my heated hands feel the cool air, as I head towards passport control.

My boarding pass tucked away inside my passport, returned to me, I head into seeming delaying tactics. But I’m being breezed by a guard after my body scan. To pull to a halt, collect my keys and belt from the tray, buckle up my belt, and snap my bag onto my shoulder. Breathing a sigh of relief, I crossed the duty-free shopping area. My eyes scan shelves amidst a trickle of passengers absorbed in a widespread display. Spotting an array of key rings, I step in, pick out a pair with the Union Jack flag for Gavin’s collection. Rambling further on, red and heart-shaped sprinkled goods, mugs caught my eye, ‘_Perfect for Lionel and Gavin sharing drinks!_‘ I thought. I settled my purchases with the cashier. My mind drifts, entering the food court, drawn to a mock café terrace reminiscent of the Champs-Élysées.

As travelers straggle through occupied terrace tables, I joined the queue behind a West-Indian family. Behind the counter of the French-style café, a blonde woman, with side-swept hair, serves. I grab a pre-wrapped cheese sandwich from the display case. Then the blond barista, pausing her flurry of activity, freezes in front of me. “What’s your order?” She asks. In a swift swirl, she returns, uncoils serving my cup of coffee, without tipping me a glance. A pang of sadness strikes me. Her seductive, icy beauty and malaise, Aetheria’s aura, at the strings of her celestial harp, plays a tune rhyming in my mind. ‘Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see. . .’ My hurt ego softens, as my eyes fall on the brass-striated shelf. I spare myself sliding a tray forward, as my mind hums, ‘… I asked my sweetheart what lies ahead? Will we have rainbows day after day? …_’ The cashier cashes me out. Breaking the spell of the tune. ‘_I’m left with more pounds than I can spend,_’ I thought. Stepping away, I reason her chilling beauty out of mind, before I’m driven crazy. Jumping the exorbitant price I just paid for a simple snack.

Out of tune and harmony, I weave through the crowded, Parisian-style terrace, scanning for an empty table, only to spot a single vacant chair at a small round table. I hesitate. Dare not sit crammed with strangers for hours ahead. I inch deeper, pausing behind a middle backrest of three empty chairs. Comfortable in my puffed-up charcoal jacket, towers over a black head young woman. “May I?” I ask, but the young woman doesn’t look up.

‘_four hours to my flight!_’ I thought, to insist. “Can I join you?” The woman’s eyes flick up from the page of her book, fixing me through black and thick-rimmed spectacles, frame her intelligent gaze. I point my eyes at the trio of seats, their backrests huddling her table, which justifies my intrusion.

“Sure!” she says, with a melancholic bit. But, I arch over the middle backrest, placing my sandwich, and coffee. Palm the backrest, and swivel the seat at an angle from facing her, and slip into the seat. Offside, I unwrap my cheese roll, to a bite. As I eat, I steal glances at her. Reminded of Nana Mouskouri frozen in time from a vintage SABC broadcast during the testing phase to birth the South African television network. I’m wielding my eyes’ glowing swords, in the roundabout from thwarting her consciousness. Stealing glances at the blond barista, cold and not granting the flip of a recognition glance. 

Pygmalion sculpture both women exude the poise and control of Libra, the blindfolded woman of justice. The enigmatic elegance is captivating. Yet, to my subconscious, Aetheria's aura whispers, ‘Have your choice -- Aetheria doesn’t mind.’ Far from my milieu, absorbed by my little boys’ anxiety. Aetheria is aware of my vulnerability, teasing destiny, phasing out Yael, aware of her unwillingness to bear children -- ‘no good if Aetheria wants to be born!’ It’s about Aetheria’s stirring new longings. 

I find my cup empty and cold, the coffee taste faded from memory, my mind wrestling against a reining silence. Orchestrating harmony to a dull setting, my thoughts spill out. “Where are you from?” I ask.

“Greece.” the young woman says, in a not so shady-dainty English. After a pause, my mind gets the better of me. “What brings you here… ‘_At the airport’_?” I ask.

“I’m waiting for my friend.” She replies. 

‘Wait, a minute._’ I think. ‘_Airports aren’t typical meeting spots. . ._’ Her evasive answer raises my suspicions. I’m tempted to ask if it’s a boyfriend or girlfriend, but I hold back. Instead, I probe further. “And what are you doing in England?”

“I’m a student,” she answers.

Lionel’s worried voice echoes in my mind. “Dad! Gavin had a bad dream about you.”

My mind, in a faster spinning mill, drops another thought. “What are you studying?” I ask.

“Engineering,” she says.

‘_Whoa!_’ I think. Impressed. “How long are you here for?”

“Three months,” She replies.

‘_One hasn’t studied engineering in three months?’ Skepticism rises within me. I stand up, gather my trash. Excusing myself, by a mounting irritable wait. Leaving her waiting out a long-overdue flight from Greece.