Written in April 2010
It was spring and In other lands bees began pollinating blooming flowers. Fireflies blinked and twinkled in backyards while tiny children chased after them giggling in the night. Loving parents looked on with smiles from immense panes of glass. Large white clouds in the shapes of tiny rabbits, teddy-bears, and friendly dragons blew on soft breezes sprinkling light mists over the morning sunrise. Wind chimes dangled from the hums of soft voices. Colors radiated from nature, humanity was as beautiful and innocent as my childhood. I dreamt of seasons, of grass, of mountains, and of peaceful lonely canoe rides down the long rivers of my Independence. I cherished my rights-my desires to go where I want- when I want. I was leaving for spring, I was lucky. Kuwait,on the other hand- was oppressively hot. Sweat ran down the brow of the laboring populous. The sun was a large orange-brown disc that oozed damaging rays. It felt broken, over worked and overused. You could hear the heat, the awful monotonous throbbing of the heavy non-empathetic sphere. Where seasons stay still and dead, for there is no anticipation and no waiting.
On April 15th 2010 I left for the airport to catch a Kuwait Airlines flight to Mumbai/Bombay, India. It was early in the morning and I waited amongst a crowd of Indians, like cattle we struggled towards the gate. We trudged with slow heavy feet scrapping our way closer and closer. Skin, old and worn, creased with each frown. I cannot remember their individual faces though, they were one, together soaked in melancholy. Quiet murmurs came from tired broken travelers like the tiny buzzing of maggots. Luggage was made of taped garbage bags, pendulously slung over sweaty dirt smeared button down shirts. Parts of their beings fell off like jumping lice. They tried so hard to discard those memories of loss and pain. Soon the filth began to funnel slowly like slugs through a meat grinder as our hoard oozed sludge onto the floor. Their raw, malnourished bodies emoted a pungent and awful smell that accosted my nostrils. These people, these travelers, were milked for everything they had emotionally- but it was during this great exodus that their sadness was apparent and almost perfect.
Upon boarding, anarchy was thrust between the aisles and over the tops of the seats. Bags were flung into the storage compartments, people began yelling in tongues- dialects from subcontinental India. Frantic, freedom was upon them, but even though everyone had been given a seat it seemed that they didn’t realize that all they needed to do was relax, sit down, and wait because soon they would be home. Like animals breaking from their cages, a zoo unleashed. It was then an arab flight attendant looked at me with large eyes and said, “these Indians are crazy”. I agreed at the time but later I was to realize that these humans craved freedom.
After the massive rush came to a close the sound of seat belts clicking reverberated off the cocoon shell of the plane. A large Indian man fell into the seat next to me. Breathing heavily, he struggled to grab his seat belt at first but after shimmying his large posterior around he succeeded. He sat back, fixed his shirt, and turned towards me with a brilliant smile of perfect white teeth. He had a neatly trimmed beard, combed hair, clean clothes, and newly manicured nails. “Hello”, he said in perfect english. “Hello’’, I responded. We then remained silent for several minutes during and after take off. Excitement flowed and flickered from the back towards the cabin as the landing gear retracted into the plane. People began to speak, quietly and with a sense of eagerness. I did not understand a word but I gathered they all spoke of home, India- their great mother-Their springs, summers, autumns, and winters. I imagined whole families gathered in waiting for their arrival where meals cooked in ovens and over stoves. I imagined the smells, the smiles, the colors, the tastes. I began writing in my journal vigorously as my imagination came over me like a drug.
“So, where are you from?” the man asked. I put my pen down ,thinking, “oh man, not one of those flights, this guy is going to talk my ear off, or maybe he’s just being courteous, or maybe he will tell me something I cared more about then just cordial blah, blah talk. Maybe, just maybe, he was going to tell me about his family, his home and the gathering that waited for him on the other end of the runway in Bombay”. He actually was going to tell me a lot more than all of that, a lot more.
I looked up to his large concerned eyes. “he actually cares? he seemed sincere”, I said to myself. “ummm, I’m from New York City”. “Oh, nice, nice, beautiful place”. “oh, so you’ve been?” I asked. “ha, no, but that is what I have read”. “Where are you from?”, I asked. “Hydrebad, I’m an electrical engineer living in Kuwait, or- I was”. “You were? What do you mean?” “I just got out of prison and now I have to go home, I have been deported for visa reasons”. “What!? Really?” “Yes, look around you, we are all deportees on this flight, you might be the only non-Indian on here”,he said. His large eyes shrunk a bit with self pity and deprecation, he was a humiliated with his situation as he looked down into his lap. “This poor man”, I said to myself. He then spoke again, “So,….what is it you do? What are you writing about?” “Umm, I’m a writer, this is my journal and I’m writing about my trip to India. Umm, do you mind if I take notes as we talk?”I asked. “Umm”, he looked uneasy. “I won’t use your name, you can speak with anonymity, I promise”, I interjected. He then eased a bit and began to speak again. “Do you want to know what really goes on in Kuwait, Do you want to know what I have been through?”
“Yes, I would”. He then began his horrific story.
“I’ve lived and worked in Kuwait for over twelve years. I work hard, you know. I’m educated as well. Someone flubbed on the paperwork and then I was locked up for ten days in jail. They beat me like a pig.” Sighing in malcontent he took a moment for introspection as I sat in silence.
This man had been taken off the street and thrown into a van and hauled to a local police station where they kept him for over ten days. He told me of no phone calls, no lawyer, just a cage. People were trapped behind vertical iron lines of sliding doors that echoed down long grey corridors. I pictured him on the cool concrete floor grasping the bars with his sweaty hands trying to hold on while he was pulled by the legs. Visions of a large platinum key entered the lock as batons struck him over his head and on his arms and legs. His bruises became dark pools of deep blues, greens, and purples. Small gashes spewed shades of crimson tides like minuscule magma flows- his anger built up inside. His internal Earth stricken- damaged and polluted forever. His emotions became toxic as they ran off into pool-less waterfalls drowning into nothing never to be found again. He slowly begun to loose hope as blood ran from his nose, spit dripped from his mouth, and tears poured from his eyes. I pictured him among groups of animals; the rabbits, the teddy-bears, and friendly dragons, beaten and rounded up for slaughter. Childhood innocence was gone as my teddy bear sat in my attic weeping. The cages cried as outside laughter deafened the prayers from within. It was then that with giant footsteps God slowly walked away from this modern-day Sodom and Gomorra, along the coast of the Dead Sea, disgusted.
I did not know how to respond to what he said or even comprehend what I had imagined. I didn’t realize that I would meet someone like that, someone who was willing to tell a stranger such horrible personal stories, especially in transport to India. My hand then began to burn from the incessant hammering of journal writing while he continued with shaky sporadic strums of vocal chords.
“Kuwait?, …Kuwaitis?…I have this one thing to say,…money doesn’t spoil you, you spoil money. It is all the same, the cemetery, you share with a pauper. Even a broke man from Detroit gets himself a casket, you come naked, and sometimes you go naked, but the truth is, your dead”. He then cleared his throat and with muffled focus looked towards the seats in front of him. They became blurred masses of rectangular shapes. Locked in place, he was back in an internal epidermis prison. It seemed he was thinking deeply about what he just said, or he just realized the meaning of what he had said. It was at that moment he finally acknowledged his life was a tragedy. It was his passport, his skin color, and the timing of his birth that made his life tragic. But right before the plane landed, he told me to write down three words. He said to me with a bright smile, “Shai Geeta Gun”. So on a clean white page I scratched it down across the emptiness, Shai Geeta Gun. “If you ever get in any trouble in life those words will help you. Just say them out loud and all will be better, you will be reborn”.
The pilot soon came on the load speaker and announced our arrival into Bombay. We hit the runway and with screeching spheres of rubber we came to a slow halt surrounded by cooling layered clouds of burnt tire. Deportees, a broken man, and myself, an ignorant traveler, were wrapped in the cocoon of the fuselage. With silk woven tightly together, the plane broke open and we all emerged like butterflies leaving our old vessels behind. Each beautiful; each an individual spread its wings and took flight painted with markings- perfect patterns, and distinctly pronounced personalities. The sky was dotted with traces of brilliance as the stars’ imprints slowly disintegrated amongst growing light. Women were draped in brilliant blues, radiant yellows, magentas, and orange. Smiling. Their cloth, soft, wrapped around their delicate skins. It was like a burst of color from their happiness that exploded through the tiny windows. Pupils began to shrink from the bright lights of color. My eye became a pond of blues and greens as my iris smiled under the ambiance of their joy. I felt like a child once again, eager- on a cool spring morning running through tall fields of grass chasing butterflies. Out of reach they took to the immense cool purple sky above. The sun peaked over the horizon as laughter reverberated off my eardrum. The noise was deafened by the flapping of their wings in newborn excitement. The wind from their movements brushed my hair back. Large clouds began to take shape in imaginations once again as I rose from my seat and peered up at the spectacle that was their birth- they were all free, newborn, and lucky.
So, like children-fireflies, we all will play tag in the summer darkness. Shadows grow and fall masked by obstructions riding on wings into the distance. All becomes lost in the blink of an eye- as we move towards the future in blindness and fear plowing and sweeping the air to each side in our wake. False wishes- when all is left to the imagination of waking up from sleep and seeing ghosts that never existed.
