Just a little Misunderstood

When the stewardess went to hand me my food, I explained to her that I wouldn’t be eating. She smiled at me with an air of hostility, like I’d in some way put her out.
I was ravenous but if I can’t enjoy my food, I’d rather not eat at all. On planes, more than anything, it’s the smell of kerosene that puts me off. Not to mention eating alongside a total stranger. Plus, the so-called nutrients in those devilish plastic boxes play havoc with my skin; its pores struggling to breathe amongst the smog of recycled air.
I told myself that if I refrained, I wouldn’t look so pale and rundown after my next connecting flight. Encountering your own reflection in the airport toilet mirrors after a long haul isn’t pleasant. Your face tells the story of a kidnapping escapee.

All I’d eaten so far that day was breakfast. Aboard the plane, the habitual mechanism of smoking was plaguing me once again. As a substitute, I sipped black coffee nervously throughout the flight’s duration, from a cup, which seemed to refill itself. It was the stewardess impersonating a circus clown; bad at putting on make up but extremely vigilant at monitoring the levels of everyone’s refreshments.
I was a mess, continuously waking up the person beside me, by flinching and accidentally jabbing them in the ribs. I worried I might spill my coffee on the poor woman’s lap. My fingers were like worms trying to wriggle away from the tight claw they formed around my cup.

We landed eventually. I stepped off the plane and into the connecting tunnel. By this point, I could easily have devoured a good portion of sumptuous human thigh. The business lady in front of me had on a tight, short skirt. Her smooth skin shimmered in the early afternoon light. Two airport officials walked by and observed my downward stare.
At that moment, I recalled a quaint, little food kiosk situated not far from my gate. I was no stranger to Schipol airport. I’d flown in and out of Amsterdam several times.
I was nearly out of the claustrophobic cylinder of doom, when I noticed a slow-moving family blocking the exit. What a perfectly reasonable place to dawdle, I thought to myself. The two parents, with their two small children either side of them, were an impenetrable wall: their hands linked tightly. I couldn’t just squeeze past for the small boy on the left was dragging a large teddy bear across the ground beside him.
I remember deciding not to open my mouth, out of fear that I might blurt out something incomprehensible to the pair of them. Perhaps even, accidentally spit on one of the children. My tongue was like a deflated balloon; I’d taken too much diazepam on the plane, to control my inane fear of flying.
The impending feeling of an anxiety attack, all of a sudden, surged inside me and I decided to make my move. Optimistically, I pictured myself hurdling the boy with great ease and grace, like a show jumper, laced to the neck with steroids.
As I lifted my leg up, the boy raised his arm, in a haphazard, childlike manner, flinging the bear into my path. A shroud of panic came over me as I detected how close the boy’s head now was to my genitals. The bear seemed to catch between my legs and in an attempt to steady myself I skipped forward. The bony tip of my knee caught the side of the boy’s skull square on. The noise was like a falling coconut striking a tree branch.
The boy began to wail immediately. I’d just kicked a minor in the head and the reasons for such an act of unsolicited violence were purely selfish. In sheer terror, I turned to face the father of the boy.
His expression was one of horror. So too was the mother’s, which was noticeable out the corner of my eye. Before the situation had any chance to develop, I spoke hastily and with a tone that pleaded sympathy.
‘I’m awfully sorry!’ I said. ‘I need an injection of insulin immediately, and with these new terrorism laws, they don’t make it easy for us people.’
The line sounded authentic enough and so without looking back, I fled from the scene.
I immediately realised they had been denied a much-warranted explanation, when the verbal shrapnel that prickled my back came in the form of a foreign language. Yet upon realising this, I still walked on and simply hoped that one-day, they might understand, for I was too hungry to go and purchase a phrase book.

Once outside, I stepped quickly onto a moving walkway, doing my best to blend in with the crowd. Straight away, over the shoulders of the people in front of me, I could see the familiar food kiosk up ahead.
It seemed the enraged father had decided to leave me alone.
When I reached the conveyor belt’s end, I joined the back of the queue and noticed that the woman in front of me smelled of mothballs. I’d rather have holes in my clothes than smell like that, I thought, until distracted by a question posed to me.
‘Are you ready to order, Sir?’ said a voice. I found myself delighted by the sound of it. It was as soft as summer breeze.
She was stunning.
Her light green, stripy uniform made her look indescribably cute. The tight-fitting, collared top she wore, accented her perky breasts. She had red, vibrant hair, which excited me a great deal. She’d gathered it up high at the back, in a ponytail that bounced around playfully behind her head, tickling her neck. Underneath her visor, she had orchestrated a fringe, which was bizarrely endearing. And her eyes were light blue, in stark contrast to the hundreds of sexy, orange freckles that decorated her innocent-looking face.
She was smiling at me in a very friendly way, evidently amused by something about me. She attempted to hide her laughter with a dainty hand she brought up around her lips.
‘Is it nice this time of year?’ she asked me, her eyes bright with excitement.
I bumbled my response. ‘Erm, is what nice this time of year?’
Her look suggested I should have understood the question. ‘The place; wherever you were then, in your head. Is it nice this time of year?’
I wasn’t sure whether she was mocking me or being playful.
‘Oh! Ah, I see. Yes, it’s extraordinarily beautiful actually,’ I said. I wasn’t sure why I used the words I did. It didn’t sound like me. I bashfully moved closer to the counter.
‘Ooh, anywhere I might know?’ she asked, still smiling at me.
This is quite fun, I thought to myself, perhaps the most fun I’ve had with a complete stranger, after such a short period of conversation.
‘Well, it’s this little horseshoe beach on a Greek island I went to as a child. There’s a cut through the trees that takes you right to it. It’s only small but the water’s magnificently clear and the sand is as soft and as white as snow.’
I’d never been to Greece but the fable paid off. She seemed impressed by my adlibbing.
‘Hmn, it sounds beautiful. Maybe you could take me there someday.’ When she laughed, I sensed that she was mildly embarrassed by what she had allowed herself to say, as if there was a degree of legitimacy in the proposal. At the same time, she upheld an unwavering air of confidence throughout the delivery of the line. This consolidated the fact that I was now wildly attracted to her. I had no idea what to say next but thankfully, she spoke before me.
‘Are you ready to order?’ she said, in an all of a sudden, formal tone. Perhaps the lady now hovering over her shoulder was her boss. She had remembered she was at work.
‘Yes of course, sorry!’ I said.
I ordered my food and watched with fascination as she skipped over to fetch the baguette I had chosen. She wrapped the paper around it delicately; it seemed with more care and attention than she would, perhaps, for others. When she handed it to me, there was a twinkle in her eye.
Disappointingly, after taking my payment, she looked away and called up the next customer. I moved away but couldn’t help glancing over my shoulder back towards her. The action caught her eye and to my relief, she returned my stare. Yet again, she smiled at me. It was brief but unquestionably cheeky. For a second, I deliberated over whether I’d met her before. Her eyes seemed to imply that she knew something about me. Perhaps even everything about me.

As I walked away, I had to accept the fact; the encounter with the girl had come to an end. I was immediately regretful of things I’d left unsaid but knew that looking back one more time could ruin everything. I hadn’t even paid her a compliment or learnt her name.
I was left with only vivid recollections of the event. Her piercing, husky-blue eyes seemed to stay with me. They embedded diamonds in the tissue of my brain. When I blinked, I saw the image of her, imprinted on the backs of my eyelids. I wanted to believe that her last evocative look was intended as a cryptogram of sorts. Just maybe, she was hoping I could decode it.

I feel like we share something in common now; a secret only the two of us know. Maybe she wants me to walk back over to her, hoist myself over the countertop and take her in my arms.
Unfortunately, I was aware that her flirtatious behaviour could have been nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps, it serves simply as an outlet from her most likely, mundane and monotonous job.
What had happened left me wondering whether the strawberry blonde girl I fell in love with that day, felt a genuine attraction towards me or had forgotten about me already. Does she enjoy playing havoc with the emotions of all the men she serves over that counter, during her day?

I was deliberating over whether I’d mistaken friendly service for something far more fruitful when I realised I hadn’t purchased a drink. At first, I was grateful that I had a perfectly reasonable excuse to return to her. It didn’t take me long to decide that I’d probably just end up making an idiot out of myself.
I headed to the sushi bar a few gates down after realising that in a moment of fluster within her presence, I’d chosen from the glass cabinet a dreadfully bland and unappetising baguette. With a beverage by my side, to swash the thing down, I may have contemplated eating it. But the anger of not capitalising on my chance with the girl built up inside me and I ended up just throwing the damn thing in the bin.

I sat down at the sushi bar, ordered five of the most colourful things on the menu and swivelled around on my barstool. Around the perimeter of the eatery was a black marble wall that provided some shelter. It served as a barrier from the mob of strangers that lurked outside. Sat there, I became almost oblivious to their existence. It was only short snippets of passing conversation that disrupted the peace and quiet I’d found within the Japanese restaurant.
The sound of an authoritative voice came from behind me and to my right. Without even looking, I could tell it belonged to an officer of some sort. His tone was too serious for the type to be used in light-hearted conversation. As I listened more carefully, I could hear him addressing a woman. She sounded exasperated. There were pauses between her words, left by short attempts to catch her breath. When they walked by I peered over the sidewall to take a look.
She was crying. Two large men in security jackets walked alongside her. Together, they marched on past the sushi bar, scanning the area with searching eyes. It was clear they were looking for someone. When she had walked past, I could sense the urgency in her eyes.
I began feeling great sympathy towards this lady, for the unlikely tragedy she may face. I wondered whether it was her little girl they were looking for. I couldn’t help thinking the worst, imagining a child abductor reaching down and snatching her up into his arms. Next I saw an adventurous son, off exploring, tumbling down an escalator unsupervised and cracking his head open on the metal plate at the bottom.

The chef behind the counter was filleting a fish. He shuffled over to the back of the bar and placed his knife beside a large sink and a small lady began to clean it. Above her, there was a film showing on a television hanging in the corner.
In the film, two men were sat at a booth in a low-lit bar. The matter they were discussing appeared to be very serious. There was a large bottle of liquor on the table that they appeared to be sharing and a pack of cigarettes they both seemed to be smoking from. Their 1950’s attire and suaveness intrigued me. I asked the small Asian lady if she wouldn’t mind turning it up.

“I had a friend once,” the one man said to the other. His accent was typical of a film-portrayed New York gangster. “Tommy was his name,” he said. “He was a good kid; the quiet type, you know, but if you ever needed him, he’d be there. We was outside playing cards on the street. Then all of a sudden, BAM!” The man slammed his fist down on the table, shaking the glasses they drank out of. “Kid drops dead. His face, bash! Like that, on the ground.”
“Gees!” the other guy said. “What happened?”
“Heart attack. Just like that. Dead! Fine one second and gone the next.”
The other man shook his head from side to side, before taking a big swig of his drink. The man telling the story continued.
“And no-one saw it comin’! The kid was fine. He ate good food, played sports. Hell, there was no one that could beat that kid in a race. And he had a good mother, who took proper care of him.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, for sure! But it just goes to show, just when you least expect it, that’s when it gets you. Oh, believe you me; there’ll be no warning. Death has a way a sneakin’ up on ya.”
“You got that right Tony!”
“And that’s why Leo, you gotta grab the bull by the horns. Live each day as if it’s ya last. It’s no good wakin’ up one day in hell thinkin’, oh boy, but what if? Am I right?”
“You sure are right about that Tony!” The two men clinked their glasses in salute. There was a silence between them for a moment, and then Leo spoke once more, a confused look on his face.
“Huh!” he said.
“What’s that Leo?”
“Ah nothing! It’s just life, you know, it sure is fickle ain’t it!”

For once, a television production company chose an appropriate moment to go to commercials. I immediately requested for the sound to be turned off.
In essence, the scene depicted two simple-minded characters sharing recycled ideas in the form of irksome clichés. But the sudden pause in the film bestowed a mark of poignancy upon the scene’s final remark, when Leo said, “…life, you know, it sure is fickle ain’t it!” It’s what the other character, Tony was trying to say, but he was more of an analogy man, using expressions like, “…grab the bull by the horns”.

There are moments you look back on in your life. At the time, staring up at that television screen seemed insignificant. Over time, certain events can come to withhold great meaning. I will always remember this to be one of those moments.
The scene from the film left me feeling rather capricious. I felt like doing something impulsive and spontaneous.
It made me think, what the hell! I could be living one minute and then dead the next, like the heart attack kid, or the boy slumped at the bottom of the escalator, with a pool of dark blood spilling out from underneath his cranium.
All of a sudden, I felt confident. I felt like anything I might do next, could be great, from the perspective that at the very least, it would be better than doing nothing at all. For the first time in weeks, I remembered how it felt to be an optimistic person and even if it was all because of a cheesy line from a film, I embraced it.
Upon reflection, it had surprised me how comfortable I’d been, talking to the beautiful girl with the strawberry blonde hair.
What, aside from my dignity, do I have to lose?
I still had plenty of time to kill before my next flight. I considered for a moment the embarrassment I might suffer, in the event of it all going wrong, but before the negative thoughts had a chance to sink in, I simply ignored them.

It was a strange feeling when I realised I was going through with it. I experienced anxiety, fear and pride all at the same time. It didn’t take long for the nerves to kick in. This was going to be one of the ballsiest things I’d ever done.
As I walked my legs became rubbery. I thought I might lose control of them entirely and just flop onto the floor. My throat dried up and I endured a small bout of dizziness. I would have used this as an excuse to reroute but I knew if I didn’t do it now, I’d never do it. I convinced myself that my deteriorating condition was a good sign, knowing that the best things I’d ever done in my life, had terrified me at the time.

As I approached the kiosk, I wondered whether I’d worked myself up to the unthinkable task for no good reason. I couldn’t see her.
It was like a moment from a film when she rose up from below the counter. Her smile, so well decorated, her lovely face.
She handed a lady her change and signalled the next customer. I was close to her now and her beauty distracted me from the duty I had delegated myself. Her blue eyes had a calming effect on me. They seemed to slow down time.
Once stood before her, I didn’t allow myself a moment in which to falter. I lunged in, interrupting the man she was serving. He was a large and towering piece of work. I wasn’t sure he’d allow such an act of insolence. In a paranoid state, I pictured him drooling from the mouth, out of fear he might be starving. He looked like he wanted to consume me.
He was more curious about my doings than I’d expected, as was she. The pair of them stood facing me, awaiting an explanation. I hadn’t prepared one. She looked somewhat startled. I had broken the flow of their conversation. How rude! It could have been even more delightful than ours.

To my relief, she smiled. It was a smile that welcomed me back into her eyes. Her lips, in their subtle movements, sang a million songs.
She did recognise me from before. I was sure of that. She was pleased to see me, I could tell. She was pleased that I’d come back to her.
I turned to the giant beside her and spoke with haste. ‘Excuse me Sir!’ I said. ‘But if you would be so kind, I request simply one moment of this young lady’s time.’
She had given me eloquence.
The man obliged my request. He smiled at the two of us in a happy-go-lucky kind of way, and moved to the side. He even turned to face the other way like the perfect gent, allowing us privacy. I liked this man already. In fact, it seemed my whole world was becoming more glorious minute-by-minute.

I now faced her. Swiftly, before meeting her eyes, I stole a glance at her nametag. It read Sarah. When I looked into her eyes I felt a connection of sorts, physical and loud in my head, like both parts of a ferry bridge interlocking. Her shoulders flinched upwards and she gave me an encouraging smile, as if she knew what I was about to say.
‘Sarah, I have a flight to catch soon to San Francisco, but I wouldn’t be able to set foot on that plane without saying what I’ve come here to say.’
At first, I couldn’t quite read her expression. Anxiously, I paused for a second, before saying, ‘I hope that’s okay!’
She bit the corner of her lip and continued to smile at me. Out of nerves, she pushed down on the countertop with outstretched arms. The movement, ever so gently pushed together her breasts. She held my eyes and began to giggle at the absurdity of the whole thing. Regardless, she continued to hold my stare. She was curious enough to humour me. So too it seemed, were the people in the queue, who’d grown silent out of interest.
I willed myself to speak on.
‘Sarah,’ I said. ‘I think you’re beautiful! I just…I just think, you’re beautiful!’
She breathed out a small sigh. I found her so sexy at that moment.

When the final words left my tongue, so did all of my inhibitions. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. I didn’t care if Sarah thought of me as a lunatic. I didn’t care if she simply thanked me for a compliment that was potentially inconsequential to her, or whether I was soon forgotten about. Even if the gesture was nothing more to her than an unusual event that broke up her day, I had said it and that was the important thing.
The corners of her lips receded back to their normal position. Her smile faded and then out of nowhere, she spoke.
‘That is the most straightforward compliment anyone has ever paid me. But it was lovely. Thank you!’ Her face looked almost inquisitive, like she was trying to figure out whether I was for real. Her right hand moved up from beside her waistline and rested upon her chest. She didn’t strike me as a religious or spiritual person and I felt this was the first time in her life she had made this gesture. She was genuinely moved by my words.
I smiled at her, relieved. I was overwhelmingly excited. This was the first time in my life I had envisaged something going so well, and it had gone better. Before she had time to speak again, I continued.
‘I fly through here a lot. Amsterdam, I mean. I don’t suppose, if I extended my stay one time, you’d care to accompany me to dinner one night, somewhere in the city?’
As the proposal left my lips, a glimmer appeared in her eye. It looked promising. She took a deep breath in. She was poised to answer.
Her delicate lips opened in preparation. I noticed how her lip-gloss had temporarily bonded each lip together. Slowly, they peeled away from one another.
Her fresh scent seemed to escape her. It was sent over to me by a flick of her ponytail. My whole world became Sarah, the girl with the strawberry blonde hair. I felt like my entire future hinged on what she would say. I could see only her and hear only her stunted breathing. Everything else around us, melted away into oblivion. There was silence. And then, the silence was broken, by a voice, but it was not hers.

‘Daniel,’ it said. ‘Daniel!’ I heard it from behind me. Whoever was saying it, their tone was orderly, as if addressing a misbehaving child. ‘Daniel!’ There it was again, even louder this time. It sounded closer. The voice sounded familiar in some way.
A tight claw of a hand grabbed the back of my arm and tugged viciously until I was swivelled around. My name Daniel was barked at me again by the person now stood directly in front of me. The wretched, screechy voice just about burst my eardrum. Sarah looked mesmerized, as if under a state of hypnosis.
I turned and met the disapproving stare of a middle-aged lady. The creases in her skin, particularly those of her furrowed brow, looked like cracks in the desert floor. She looked deeply concerned; her eyes, starkly set with worry. Who the fuck is this woman?
I had no idea how to deal with the peculiar situation I’d found myself in. What must Sarah think?
‘Daniel, where have you been?’ the woman said, in a voice that warbled as she spoke. Catching me unaware, with one strong arm, she pulled me away from the till. As she did so, I cast Sarah a glance of bemusement, to let her know I was equally as confused as she. I watched as the tall and patient man, who’d been waiting, intercepted my place at the till. Immediately, I grew furious with this woman, that she might have ruined this special moment between the girl and I.
‘Where have you be…’ she attempted to ask again, still holding my arm. I was having none of it. I interrupted her and pulled my arm away from hers.
‘Excuse me lady but what the hell is this game you think you’re playing?’ I said.
With her head held shamefully to the floor, she looked around her, as if gauging how much attention I’d attracted with the outburst. I didn’t care. I was prepared to cause a scene. In a quiet, teacher-like voice, she had the audacity to dish out a warning to me.
‘Do not take that tone with me, Daniel!’
I was astonished by her arrogance. It was as if she owned me, like I was her disobedient handbag-sized dog, yapping away. Yet I’d never seen this woman before in my life, I was sure of it. I was done bargaining with the madwoman. I turned away from her, not knowing what better to do. Unbelievably, she grabbed me once more, with a firmer grasp this time. I looked at her with disbelief.
As I did so, I asked myself the question, do I know this woman? All of a sudden, I doubted that I was wholly unaware of who she was. Not only her voice but also her face, now, seemed in some way familiar.
She looked right into my eyes. Her pupils seemed to focus in on mine like sights on a target. I felt like she was pleading with me to snap out of whatever state of madness she believed me to be in. Her eyebrows arched over, like the stem of a flower, succumbing to heavy rain.

Like the cringing memory of a drunken act, it dawned on me. It was a horrifying realisation. I bit the knuckles of the top of my hand. I knew this woman who was staring desperately into my eyes, concentrating all her hopes on me not making a further scene. I could see the sadness in her eyes. I had confused it with desperation. She was welling up. She was hoping that I would finally recognise her. She was pained by how difficult for me, it seemed. I did know this woman well, but still couldn’t quite remember how.
I had fallen numb under the shock of it all. Everything around me slowed right down. She had been saying something. I hadn’t realised.
‘Daniel, it’s Audrey. Don’t you remember me? Don’t you remember who I am?’

As she said the words, the memory flooded back to me. A whole ocean of memories flooded back to me. I suddenly felt like I was drowning; battling hard against the undercurrents; too disorientated to see which way was up.
It was like I’d been hit by a tidal wave. It pulled me deep inside itself, before swashing me about and throwing me around. At the very instant my lungs emptied, it spat me out.
I breached the surface. With the oxygen came the replenishing sunlight I needed and with my survival came the understanding.
I could see it all now, as clear as the sun above the horizon. I was not independent in the way I was imagining myself to be. I was not an independent person at all, in fact. I had someone there to stop me doing things; things I shouldn’t be doing; things I had been doing, off on my own accord. The memories stunned me. Remembering I had such little memory stunned me even more.
I looked into her enormous eyes. As best as I could, I forced a smile. She needed assurance of some kind. I had to let her know that I had acquired some understanding of who she was. I was taken aback by the compassion in her eyes. I knew then that I’d known her for years. Audrey.
The longer I stared at her, the brighter the memories burned. For a moment, as if breaking through a layer of cloud, the sun shone brilliantly over the horizon. It didn’t last long, though. I heard the sound of Sarah’s voice, beside me. I trembled with fear. Its ordinarily, beautiful resonance, this time, reverberated inside me, causing excruciating pain. It reminded me of what I had done. It signified the embarrassing thing I’d attempted to do. And all the while, I’d become aware of how I’m not capable of doing such things. A dark cloud descended upon everything and I was left, standing there alone, lit up by a gloomy light.
I had to be careful not to make too visible, my concern. The worry Audrey had been under up until this point, seemed sufficient for one day. I concealed the dark emotions churning ‘round inside me, with the continued pretence of a smile.

Respectfully, I surrendered myself to her. As a tear fell from her cheek to the floor, she began to smile. She could see that I was safely, back under her guidance.

‘Where have you been all this time? I’ve had airport security helping me look for you.’
Unbelievable. I was the abducted child. I was the dead boy at the bottom of the escalator. I was the worry subject of a woman I’d deemed to be a total stranger.
‘Where did you run off to?’ Her tone had changed. She was no longer telling me off. Her voice expressed profound care. Everything about her mannerisms indicated to me that we shared a deep and meaningful, relationship. My poor memory wouldn’t allow me to think of her as anything more than a stranger. But in my mind, I knew to her, I was practically, family.
‘You broke free from me as soon as we stepped off the plane,’ she said. ‘You ran out of the tunnel so fast, I couldn’t keep up with you. Where did you go? Why didn’t you stay put, somewhere where I would have been able to find you?’ Her voice broke again and I could see that she was about to internally collapse.
‘I….I…’
I tried to find the words to explain but I felt as though I’d been disarmed of speech. Her very presence seemed to have disabled all of my motor skills.
The people behind Audrey suddenly came into focus. They were watching the two of us intently. They had expressions similar to Sarah’s. Some of them looked on awkwardly; some of them seemed confused; others simply, intrigued. As Audrey tucked her head under my shoulders to hug me, I looked over to my right, at Sarah. She was busy serving another customer. The smile she wore was not as genuine as the ones she saved for me. She looked unsettled. As I returned Audrey’s hug, Sarah looked over at me a couple of times. They were fleeting, nervous glances. Their meanings were too hard to decipher. I hoped that she aimed to console me with her looks. I detected sympathy, for sure.
Had she been simply humouring me? Was her openness towards me led only by pity? If it was, I didn’t blame her. I couldn’t remember what was wrong with me, just that I needed Audrey beside me. The term, legal requirement, came to mind.
Suddenly, I heard the release of a trigger let off another round of ammunition. I felt the sharp pain of another memory pierce right through my brain.

I struggle to remember what’s wrong with me. It’s part of what’s wrong with me.

Audrey released me from our embrace and wiped away a tear from the side of her eye. She looked up at me, picked up her bag and linked her arm with mine. She turned towards the kiosk. She leaned over the tall man’s shoulder and spoke to Sarah. It all happened before I had any chance to intervene.
‘I’m sorry if he offended you,’ she said to her. A look of shock came over her face.
‘No, not at all,’ she replied, politely. ‘He was very charming.’ She glanced my way.
‘I apologise for whatever he might have said. He suffers from a very rare condition. He has trouble separating his words from his thoughts. If he said anything inappropriate, it’s not what he would have meant to say, I can assure you.’
Sarah smiled at the both of us. It was a symbol of her understanding. ‘Oh, it’s fine. Don’t worry. He was very pleasant.’
I couldn’t believe it. She was talking about me as if I wasn’t there. But still, I didn’t blame her. Audrey had just said it. I don’t know what I’m saying. I could have said anything to Sarah and I could just as easily have said nothing much at all.
A wave of humiliation crashed down on top of me and took me down below the surface once more. I remembered how much trouble I have, speaking.
‘Have a nice flight,’ she said finally to Audrey and I, as we slowly moved on and away from the discomforting scene. Before I was too far away, I took one last look at her. I stole one last glance at the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I could smell her fragrance, dancing in the air. Pulling her eyes away from her task, for just a moment, she looked my way. She winked at me. It was a torturous gesture. It left me reeling inside. I was trapped within the prison of my dysfunctional body, by a mind that did as it pleased. Did it mean something, even anything at all? Do all things relatively meaningless mean something to me? Or was I right? Was there a reason I’d singled her out? Does she understand me in a way others don’t?
I had a wild thought. Should I rebel against this woman, who’s grappling my arm? Should I break free from her and see this crazily romantic pursuit through until its end?

I restrained myself. I knew better now, after all. The more time I spent with this Audrey woman, the more sensible I became. It seemed that her presence tranquilised my condition, perhaps, simply by way of confinement.
What was clear was that without her, I was off outplaying the silly fantasies I conjured up in my head. Audrey, when stood by my side, saved me the discomfiture of carrying out these infantile, obtuse ventures. She had a calming effect on me, on par with Sarah’s eyes. In the time away from her, I’d shared seemingly pleasant conversations with people who had simply put up with me. They had no choice but to talk to me, either that or appear rude.
Audrey had been talking to me but I hadn’t been listening. I turned to her. ‘What were you saying to that girl? You can’t just go up to people and start talking to them. That girl was working. She was busy doing her job.’
I felt like defending my case. In my head, I was certain that I could eloquently do so. But I’d been reminded of the fact I couldn’t. I was now aware that anything I said in response to her questions would not in any way match the way they would sound in my head. I could already feel myself slipping back into the day-to-day routine of fighting a losing battle with my over-powering brain. I couldn’t help thinking, wouldn’t I just be better off not knowing all of this?

‘I’m sorry Audrey, truly I am.’
She relaxed to the sound of my apology and then took a moment to gather herself.
‘That’s alright, Daniel. It’s okay. We all make mistakes. I know you can’t help it.’

Audrey must have heard what I said. She responded. Or am I just making up Audrey’s responses? Are we even having a conversation?

We continued on in the direction of our gate. I felt that a tender affection was growing between us. I began to enjoy her company. Having her around was comforting. And it was better for me, I’m sure. We walked on until I became confused about something.
I came to a standstill and she asked what was wrong. I looked down at her and said, ‘Audrey, if I don’t know the difference between what I’m saying and what I’m thinking, how do I know what other people are saying to me?’
She looked defeated. She looked up at me with a worried set of eyes that strayed from mine and said, ‘you just don’t Daniel, I suppose, you don’t.’

At least, that’s what I think she said…