Well-Built Fire

***

She wakes with a start, temporarily forgetting where she is. Bright white lights, cold white tile, a toilet nearby, and a sterile feel. Bags strewn about, a wooden chest painted with a stormy ship scene, and a luggage cart-- ah yes, she remembers now. She is at the London airport, hour 20 of a 30 hour layover. Her body aches in testament to this assessment.

***

It was a different time for airports now, not because of the terrorist attack of 9/11, those added security measures were normal now. But a new threat rocked the world and airport security. A global pandemic for a flu-like respiratory virus known as covid-19. Now it wasn’t enough to take off their shoes in security, now everyone had to wear a mask and obtain expensive medical tests and have good reasons to travel. Essential reasons. And don’t try to explain to officials that wanderlust is essential for an artist on the move.

Why, you might ask, was a toilet nearby where she slept? Ah, because as a part of pandemic safety measures, the airports were no longer allowing people with overnight layovers to pass the time in the airports. They insisted that a hotel must be booked. But she didn’t have any pounds to spend, and so she decided to hide away in a private restroom while officials kicked everyone out for the night.

***

There is time to kill until her flight at 18:30. Still without pounds to spend, she steals a water and rolls a couple cigarettes and that is her sustenance for the day.

Up the elevator with her cart of luggage, which weighs nearly twice as much as she does. Check departures. Check-in doesn’t open until 15:30.

Down to arrivals and the smoking area. Inside to the warmth, leaning on luggage, napping to pass the time.

Over and over, like an obsessive lunatic, she goes up and down and attempts to sleep. It is Sunday now, and the last day she slept through the night was Tuesday. The journey to here had truly been long.

***

It took a lot of daydreaming for her to get to this place. She couldn’t tell you exactly where it started, perhaps it started with her first breath upon entering this curious world, or perhaps it started when she realized her corporate retail job was as soul sucking and growth-stunted as a bad reality show. All she knew was that she was tired of feeling like a modern day slave, so it was then, at that job, that she started daydreaming about what she would do and where she would go if she suddenly obtained a million dollars. As she dreamed, she pretended she already had the funds to realize it.

And then fast forward a couple years of drudgework, and that is how she ended up here, at this godforsakenly long layover in London during a global pandemic.

She didn’t particularly like London. In fact, she almost despised it, feeling like it was a city for people who valued money more than soul. It was a dirty, shiny thing. She was warned of pickpockets, and twice had beggars asking for change, of which she didn’t have in the local currency. Funny enough, she had never had such an experience in Eastern Europe, which is where she was headed, and oh how the people back in the states had warned her (with great fervency) of the poverty and stringent government and human trafficking that surely awaited her upon her arrival. No, she had visited London and her Eastern destination once before, and had decided the latter was much more welcoming than the first.

With that being said, she didn’t truly allow herself to despise anything, for she understood that everything could be viewed subjectively and objectively and, all in all, life was much more sumptuous for all of its disarray and opposing natures. And besides, there was word from a proclaimed holy book to judge not lest ye be judged, and she knew better than anyone that she had plenty to be judged for, if anyone was looking.

For instance, she had a keen skill with dreaming, such a skill that if she lived in the times of witch burnings, she would surely have been roasted years ago for the prophetic nature of these dreams. And it was partially the nature of these prophetic dreams that brought her on this journey, or at least had routed her through London for this extended layover.

But her dreams could be quite cryptic, and the only clues she had this time were delivered in a dream involving a lion, a feeling of royalty, and a little black book inscribed with the words “for you, a queen without a throne, I give you my loyalty” followed with “£”, the currency symbol for the U.K. She didn’t get a good view of the cover of the book, although she could see that it was black and the holder had an air of importance to them. She had recently read that the lion was the national animal of England.

Anyways, she didn’t really expect anything from the dream, she dreamt odd things every night after all, but when booking her flight, she saw a connection in London and booked it just in case there was some merit to her cryptic case. And then, as dreamers do, she all but forgot about that dream, trusting that if it meant anything, it would unfold naturally; and if it were frivolous, it would simply slip away into the abyss of underdeveloped and forgotten fantasies.

***

She wakes again and checks the time. Two hours until the gate of her flight opens. She feels a pain in her neck and bladder, and notices a man dressed in a long black jacket, black shoes, and a little round hat with two curls coming down the sides of his face. She doesn’t know much about folks who look like that, but the connotation is that he is Jewish, and probably with enough morals to watch her bags for a moment. She asks him to do so, and he obliges. Ah, the simple joys of running to the toilet without all of her earthly belongings weighing her down awkwardly! She never gets tired of finding small pleasures in life.

When she returns, the man begins to chat with her. He asks to make an odd request. “Go on”, she prompts. He says he is booking a hotel at the airport for the night so he can get a shower and rest, and he asks her if she would consider taking a shower, since she had confessed that it had been a few days since she last cleansed herself. She asks him if she really smells that bad. He smiles and says it’s not her fault..

***

After a brief, yet intuitive consideration, she found herself in the hotel room of a strange Jewish man. He says she can shower first if she likes.

After her shower, he showered, and then they spent time holding each other innocently, knowing they would never meet again, enjoying the closeness of another human with no desire for outcome. An hour passed like this, and that was all the time she had.

As they said goodbye, his parting words hit her like a forgotten memory which she couldn’t quite recall, “Remember your dream. There is someone you will meet, and now you are fresh and ready for your encounter. Remember that love is always with you, and it will greet you in unexpected ways, and mysterious places. And always, when it is time to cry, allow yourself to do so.”

Why was life so achingly poetic, she wondered.

And why did it seem that strangers conspired to help her?

And off she went to finish what she had started. A great move in the direction of her heart.

***

In line for her flight, bags and chest in tow. The chest is heavy, but she wanted to bring a substantial piece from home in order to feel that she is moving across the world, and not just visiting. The painting of the ship at stormy sea reminds her of her bold voyages through life.

Her heart flutters as she remembers all of the steps it took to get here.

An official asks her why she is flying to her destination. She states her work, which is secondary in her mind, and retrieves a document referencing the governmental decree that her work is considered essential. The official takes a photo of the document and sends it somewhere to gain approval, telling her to stand aside until further notice.

She is left there with nothing but a fervent prayer in her heart. “I have come this far, I will reach my destination. I even sold my car! There is nothing to go back to. I command that this dream is realized, and I receive my request with utmost gratitude.” Then she quiets her mind and focuses on feeling like she is flying through time and space to her destination, visualizing herself dancing in her new home.

The official returns, and simply asks for her negative covid-19 test. Relieved and elated, she has made it past the final gateway to her new life.

***

As she moved towards security, cumbersome chest in tow, she was approached by a distinguished man who mentioned that her chest looked heavy and offered to carry it. She declined, but he insisted. So she allowed him to carry it, and he gave her his light bag in return.

Upon making it through security, he wanted to get a drink and had her follow him to a fancy lounge which he checked them both into. He told her she could help herself to any food or drink available, that it was all included. She wondered at her good fortune, since she hadn’t eaten at all since she arrived in London yesterday.

As they chatted over the meal, he disclosed that he was a long-standing diplomat at her destination, as well as CEO of the venture he ran. She began to realize that this was no common encounter, and was curious why he was sharing so much with her. He told her he saw something in her, like a well-built fire that only lacked a certain spark to set in motion. Then, as they prepared to separate for their respective flights, he pulled out a little black notebook from his bag, and upon flipping to a designated page, smirked to himself and uttered a conclusive sounding word in his native tongue. She felt a pull of something like deja vu, briefly remembering the little black book from her dream, and thanked her stars for her warm meal and welcome company.

***

On flight, preparing for takeoff, she reaches down to her beautiful chest which fits perfectly underneath the seat in front of her. She opens it to retrieve the book she is reading, and her heart skips a beat as she finds a thick envelope with a note attached. It reads, “My dear, I have been searching for the lady from my dream, whom I was supposed to help. I do not know why, but I was led to leave this sum of money for the one with the chest of the stormy sea. May your fire be ignited, and your dreams realized. -Leo” And inside the envelope are several stacks of 100 pound notes, which she roughly calculates to be the equivalent of $20,000! When had he…?

She closes her eyes, breathing deeply to calm her wildly beating heart as her mind races with images of a forgotten dream of a stranger, a little black book, and a lion.

***

And as the plane took off for her next grand adventure, she remembered the words of the Jewish stranger. And she wept for gratitude, for humility, for the absurdity of life, for the promise of following her dreams, and for joy; pure, tantalisingly playful joy.