Gate C13

I was early for my return flight home. So early, my flight wasn't even showing on the information board. Not that I was particularly enthusiastic about going back but then again things here haven't turned out the best in this trip either.

It was an annual work conference but my boss had offered me to take a few extra days to “de-stress" myself. With a doomed marriage, an empty life, restless, sleepless nights, I had become somewhat distracted, irritable, hardly delivering. With our main project at risk, he needed me to get back on track.

True enough, the trip had proved a distraction. That is, until I had met her. Carla had just joined the Italian regional office. When her colleagues had introduced her, something deep inside me kind of clicked. I couldn't explain what or why. Something about her drew me in. Maybe it was the way she looked at me, maybe her smile. Whatever it was, her mere presence just made me feel good, it enlightened my day.

On day one, a canceled presentation left us with a free afternoon and a map of the city. By the third day, the exhaustion that had weighed on me for months had vanished, replaced by the easy rhythm of her company. But on the fourth night, in the quiet space of her hotel room, the atmosphere shifted. She sat on the edge of the bed, held her hands in her lap, and told me she had something to say. 

I didn’t know what to expect. I guess it could have been worse but she very matter-of-factly announced she was married. I was taken aback, but on the other hand so was I. It's not like I could say much except to come clean as well. But she wasn't done, there was more.

"I am literally just married."

"What do you mean just married?"

"Like just last month," she paused to let that sink in. "I literally flew here just after our honeymoon..."

For a moment I didn't seem to get it. Then the weight of those words suddenly hit me. This was just a fling to her, an adventure. There was no way this could go anywhere. I felt miserable. Fate had handed me a taste of paradise, only to pull the rug from under me just as I was getting used to it.

Life was just unfair. But I could not remain there cursing my bad fortune. I had to move on. I grabbed my phone and stared at it. I could just picture both my wife and me doing just that over dinner. Anything to avoid those embarrassing silences that have become more pronounced of late. Suddenly the phone beeps. It’s a text message from Carla:

"It was magical…” it started.

Magical, it certainly was, I think to myself, but it was also over. I pick up my phone to read it but the display suddenly dies. I recalled it was on low charge, but dead? It couldn't possibly have died on me. I curse to myself wondering what else followed and slump the phone down in frustration.

With nothing better to do, I stare blankly at the information board ahead of me. My eyes glance through the rows but halfway down, the display flickers and the words seem to blur as tears form in my eyes. I was leaving a sweet dream that had turned sour and yet my escape from here was an equally depressing and hopeless situation.

No incentive to board, much less to stay, I decided I would sit here and wait. I'm not moving unless they page me to get to my gate. 

Even so, I can't help glancing at the display ahead in search of my flight. Except things look strange. The city names are all blurred out and unreadable. I look away from the board to see if anyone else is equally confused. But I realize there's no one else there. The whole terminal section around me is empty and silent.

Where is everyone? I question my sanity as I scan the vast vacant room. Signs lit, neon lights blared, everything looks normal except for no one there. Waiting areas, coffee shops, aisles empty, check-in counters unmanned. Even the duty free shops are empty, their cash tills abandoned. I look around in disbelief, the only movement is an escalator nearby heading upwards, creaking in the awful silence of the deserted hall. A sign next to it exclaims "Gates B & C". I glance behind me at the coffee shop I had just ordered from earlier on my arrival. The coffee machine is still emanating a little whiff of steam, but it kind of felt off. Almost like the oddly sweet smell of a blown radiator. Neither the barista, nor all the hundreds of fellow passengers I swore had been there until moments ago. Just the disarray of half empty coffee cups and plates with half consumed titbits scattered over the tables. Where was everyone?

Has something happened? If so, how could I have not noticed? True enough, I had sat there for some time, lost in thought and oblivious to the world around me. Cursing my luck and the sour hand life had dealt me. But that was just minutes, right? Or was it?

What if I had dozed off and had been there for hours? What time was it anyway? Some city airports close down at night, don't they?

With my phone dead, I look around and spot a big clock on one side showing 10:13, but the second hand isn't moving. What if everyone had just gone home and the place had closed? What if I had lost my flight?

In panic, I look back at the board. One line unblurred as I focus on it. My flight was magically there, clearly showing "Gate C13" .

I opt to move. What else could I do? I grab my hand luggage and my coat and head for the escalator. As I walk toward it, my footsteps echo eerily in the deafening silence of the massive empty hall. The ride up seems endless. Beyond the hum of the moving stairs, my weight adds a harsh, scraping sound of metal grating against metal, the kind that makes your skin crawl.

The irritating screech subsides at the top, only to reveal an endless corridor with a moving walkway. I get on to it and head on. At the end a sign points Gates C to the left. I turn, another moving walkway. At first I stand there, the walkway slowly edging me forward, but it's taking forever, so I start walking over it with my hand luggage in tow, giving me a sensation of running. My steps fall into a rhythm. I close my eyes and see Carla back at the hotel. “You’re different,” she tells me. "I never met anyone like you…"

Looking ahead at the massive corridor, I see the end of the walkway, only for another new one ahead. I look at the distance. Nothing, emptiness, no one in sight. A sign at the end of the second walkway points Gates 01 to 16 to the right. I follow the sign. Another endless corridor. At the end of the next walkway, there's a restroom sign. In need of freshening up, I enter the men’s bathroom. I wave my hand under the automated faucet, splash water over my face and neck. I grab some tissues and rub my face vigorously like my life depended on it. My tired face looks back at me in the mirror, almost with a life of its own. Feeling uncomfortable, I try to look away, but for a second there, I swear I catch a glimpse of my wife standing behind my own reflection glaring at me. I look sharply back up but she is no longer there. It's just my tired and weary self, all alone in my thoughts. I look away and pick up my coat sprawled over my luggage and head out.

As I open the door, I reel back in shock. I don't know how but I am back in the departure lounge. I can't believe my eyes and go back into the bathroom half expecting another exit I may have missed but there wasn’t one.

Back outside, I look around me in disbelief. Same flight information sign, same seats I sat on earlier, same coffee shop and same very empty, very bare departures terminal, and silence. I swear background music was playing earlier. My unfinished coffee cup is still on the nearby table where I had left it. I glance at the clock, it still reads 10:13.

I have no choice except to head once again up the same escalator towards my gate. Same creaking and same endless paths and corridors. Confused, uneasy, not sure what's happening, I try to distract myself with the ads on the sides. That is until one woman in a large poster reminded me of my wife.

“But you did love her at some point, didn't you?” Carla had thrown in.

"I mean yes of course I did,” I had justified myself. "It's just that... She changed, I changed. Things are just not the same…"

The end of that walkway interrupts my thoughts. I reached the point where I had entered the bathrooms. I can’t help but look suspiciously at the doors that had deceived me earlier but this time round I made sure to walk past them. Somehow, something at the far end of the next walkway catches my eyes. There’s a man in the distance. He’s dragging a carry-on like myself except he’s wearing a coat. I can’t believe my eyes. He’s somehow the only other person here other than myself.

“Hey!” I shout out to him, but he ignores me and keeps walking away. I quicken my pace and try my best to close the distance between us. I am getting closer but at the end of the corridor the stranger makes a left turn. Obviously I follow and quicken my step to get to it.

I reach the turn, another corridor, another endless walkway, except the stranger is not in sight. Where did he go? I’m confused as I don’t see any exits but I have no choice except to proceed. I walk fast, this time in fear. I have a distinct feeling I am being watched. I don’t know why or how but it just feels that way. I quicken my pace to get to the end of hopefully the last corridor.

To my relief, up ahead I see an opening where I trust the final gates should be. Reaching it confirms my assumption. Large illuminated boards indicated the gates C01 through C16, except of course there was no one around. No passengers, no ground crew, no security, but by now this is my new reality so I’m not even expecting to find anyone. To be honest, I don’t know how I am going to get myself aboard the plane without anyone guiding me but I just know I have to somehow escape this nightmare. My eyes quickly zoom in on my gate, C13. No one to stop me from reaching it, I just head in. At this point, I realize that the gate is not empty.

There, smack in the middle of the empty seats is the stranger I had tried to follow. Except he is sitting with his back to me. I walk briskly towards him, glad to have someone else in my same dilemma.

“Excuse me,” I tried. I get no reaction.

I reach out to tap him on his shoulder. The man stands up and faces me. I am in utter shock. I see my own face looking back at me. Somehow he is myself except that his pallid face is grim and expressionless. Cold shudders run down my spine and I pull back instinctively in fear and in disbelief. He gives me a piercing look that goes through my very soul, thrusting something into my trembling hand - a piece of card. Without a word he turns and walks past me towards the closed glass doors leading to the apron outside and walks right through them.

“Don’t leave me here!” I cry out to him in despair. I run towards the door but I hit the glass panes hard and I bounce helplessly backwards. The back of my head hits the metal frame of the nearest seat with a dull thud. My head bounces off it unceremoniously and I drop to the floor in a heap, hand luggage, card, coat and phone all sprawled around me.

My knee hurts though I do not recall hitting it. A blackness surrounds me like a dark veil and it takes me some time to recover. When I come to, I pick myself up off the floor. I look down at the card the stranger had handed me. It was a printed boarding pass. I pick it up together with the rest of my stuff.

I slump back on to a seat to recover and I find myself once again in front of the flight monitor, in a completely empty lounge, coat and dead phone in hand, luggage in tow back at the same starting point.

I tilt my head back in resignation and a whiff of fresh coffee reaches me but the coffee shop behind me is still abandoned. I glance at my newly found boarding pass. It has my gate clearly printed on it. But something isn't right, the rest is empty, no flight code, no airline, above all, no destination. Maybe that’s why I could not go through.

Confused, I stare at the pass, when suddenly a bright red blotch appears on it. Soon another, then yet another. I realize I’m bleeding profusely. Instinctively I reach for my open wound, I look at my blood soaked hand and somehow feel I have seen this before. Not just my hand, but this terminal, the gate, this very trip back home.

I have already done this, haven't I? I have already gone home so why am I back here again? What is happening to me?

The blackness around me closes in. I hear muffled voices, I'm not sure what they're saying. I open my eyes and I'm seated in my car in the middle of a road. The driver’s door is open and there's a crowd around what's left of my vehicle.

"He's conscious," someone says. 

I look around me. The car is at an odd angle. There are people everywhere. I realize the radio has stopped playing and look down at it. My knee is resting against its broken face but there isn’t any pain, at least I do not seem to feel it.

"Are you ok?" a man asks. A lady behind him asks if I want a coffee.

I look at them but I do not answer. Someone says to bring it anyway. My head feels heavy, my neck stiff. I feel an odd sensation, disoriented, out of place. There's a strong feeling of wetness at the back of my head and down my neck. Instinctively I reach back. I glance at my hand, it is soaked in bright red blood. Looking down I see a crimson blotch increasingly spreading down the front of my shirt. I touch my forehead, there seems to be a slight gash there as well, blood trickling down my cheek. I look at the rear-view mirror to check how bad it is, but the mirror is no longer there. I look around, it's on the floor on the passenger side.

I'm not sure what to think. The last thing I recall is overtaking a truck round a slight bend. There was this oncoming vehicle, I deliberately aimed for it. I wanted to end it all. My hands clenched on the wheel, but instinct took over. I swerved. A loud dull sound rips through me. Spinning, flashing images, darkness. A siren sounds in the distance.

I seem to be floating above the wrangled mess. I'm no longer in the vehicle, I'm on the ground, lifeless, a pool of blood around my head. There's flashing lights and people around me. An emergency responder is desperately pumping on my chest.

“We're losing him," someone says.

The darkness beckons. It somehow seems inviting. I am tempted to fall helplessly into it. But a sharp voice reaches into the dark void.

I am back at the terminal all alone. It's the airport PA System. I am being called to board my flight. It's the last call and I need to rush. I look down at my hands. I am still clutching the blood soaked boarding pass tightly. The same hands that had held that steering wheel, the same hands that had involuntarily decided my fate.

Maybe that’s why I’m here. Maybe that’s why I have no destination. I need to decide my own fate. I need to take control.

I can't give in. I can't let go. Not here. Not now.

I get up, abandon my luggage and my dead phone and run towards my gate.

I run up the escalator and down the corridors. I can’t breathe but I keep going, my heart pounds inside my chest. I can't stop, I have to make it.

I get there, blood-soaked boarding pass in hand. I sprint to the exit. The glass doorway is open, but a sudden gust of wind slams it towards my face. I jump towards the opening, barely scraping through and end up crashing face-first onto the wet tarmac outside. The smell of spilled fuel and burnt rubber envelops me.

Behind me, the abandoned terminal collapses into dark shadows. A hand grips my wrist, hard, grounding me. "Stay with us," a voice demands. I squeeze back with everything I have left, a sharp pain envelops my chest as I gasp for the cool night air.