The airport tram rattles as my oversized mask slips down over my nose. I pull it up quickly, eyes wide, weary of accusatory glances from strangers. On the tram radio, a loud, cheerful advertisement boasts, “Your mom’s got it! Your dad’s got it! Even your cousin’s got it!” I listen, intrigued, to hear what she’s selling in her comical commercial voice. “That’s right- it’s the vaccine! Starting April 15, all California adults are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccination. What are you waiting for? Sign up now!” It sounds like something out of Wall-E, but instead of imploring listeners to buy the new food-in-a-cup, or recolor their spacesuit, she’s telling us to “get the jab.”
Somewhere in the back of the tram, a child coughs in the loud, exaggerated, wet way children do. The man across from me scoffs, and leans forward to shoot the parents a disgusted look. I avert my gaze, swallowing profusely lest I, too, get an itch in my throat and frighten my fellow tram riders.
The airport, with its tall white walls and flickering computer screens, its high end malls advertising luxury perfumes, rows upon rows of expensive alcohol- a shrine to modern day consumerism- will have an added layer of futuristic allure. Every few minutes, like clockwork, the loudspeaker will announce, in her charming, robot voice, that everyone in the airport must wear a mask or risk a 1,500 dollar fine. In the security line, we will stand on painted blue dots spaced 6 feet apart, shuffling impatiently in our cattle chutes.
This is life now. An exaggerated dystopian future where where children can’t cough without people flinching, where every false movement- a misstep, feet straying too far from a painted blue dot, a slip of a cloth face covering, an itch in our throats- earns us accusations, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed above facial coverings- a look that says “I know what you did.”
___
I used to love the airport. I didn’t mind waiting at the gate, my heart would flutter in line at security, at the feel of a paper ticket in my hands, tucked into my passport. Absentmindedly flipping through soft, stamped pages. I felt comfortable there, me and all those strangers, awaiting adventures and futures we only longed for. We knew nothing.
The airport was the perfect liminal space, the bridge between here and an inevitable somewhere. All around me, those people, the strangers with their packed bags and tickets, were a reminder that I was not static. I was another mystery girl by herself in an airport, a person with a story and a destination, and in only moments, I would be lifted off the ground, I would be nowhere at all.
I loved window seats. I loved peering through the plastic, watching as buildings and farms and stadiums fell away beneath my feet, as the city turned into a microchip before my eyes. At night, the cars and highways would form red and yellow glowing ant trails, hundreds and thousands of miniature lives in motion; I was leaving them all behind.
The rumble of wheels during taxi, takeoff, and landing. The lurch in my stomach as the plane gained and lost elevation, the lurch in my stomach from anxiety, anxiety because I was alone and afraid but excited nonetheless, because I had bought a plane ticket to somewhere, anywhere, and for a few weeks or months I would disappear. The uncertainty, familiar and foreign all at once, greeting me like an old friend.
The airport was a reminder of beginnings, over and over again. Adventures and stories and inevitable somewheres. But somewhere isn't promised anymore, and instead of beginnings, we’ve found ourselves stuck, still, before the ending.
___
My flight to Phnom Penh cost $190. 190 dollars, January 26, Xiamen Airlines, a 5 hour layover in China. I bought it immediately, breathlessly. Flights to Southeast Asia should be at least $500, upwards of $1000, sometimes.
It was only a whisper then, a telltale tweet, the first few memes appearing on my timeline. Something about a mysterious new virus in China. I didn’t think about it, then. When more people found out about it, I’d laugh- “No wonder my flight was so cheap, huh?”
On January 23rd, Chinese authorities locked down Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the virus, but not before millions of people had left the province for the Lunar New Year. The whispers, now, were elevated, not quite to a shout, but enough to be a topic of conversation. Human to human transmission. China might close its borders. First cases appearing internationally. I remember asking my parents, nervously, if I should still go. They glanced at each other and shrugged: “It’s up to you.”
I dreaded that answer. They would never tell me not to go, it was my money, after all, I was an adult, they didn’t care what I did. But if I was overreacting, afraid of this mysterious virus for no reason, they'd tell me. They didn’t reassure me, did nothing to diminish my fear, because the truth was, they didn’t know, either. No one did.
The day before my flight, my dad approached. “Maybe we should buy some masks before your trip,” he suggested. He went to CVS the next day, but they were sold out. He went to multiple CVS’s, called ahead, even. I laughed when he told me. “I don’t think they ever sold them to begin with,” I reasoned, “Why would people buy out surgical masks?”
___
LAX, January 26th, nighttime. It was my first glance at another world, a world rapidly approaching, but still far out of reach. Everyone at the airport wore facial coverings. I stared out the car window, aghast. In the airport, people walked briskly, nervously, worried hands clenching children and loved ones alike, bodies veering far to avoid strangers, suspiciously eyeing any snifflers, mouth breathers, coughers.
At the Xiamen Airlines desk, I asked the employee if my flight to China was full. He threw back his head and laughed. “Two thirds?” I asked. He shook his head, “Maybe one third,” he shrugged, “No one’s going to China right now.”
I could have sworn I heard sirens going off, I could have sworn I was standing still, everyone around me moving incredibly fast, I could have sworn I was in the first scenes of an apocalypse movie.
___
My dad used to tell me that he'd visualize before every trip. He’d close his eyes and picture himself in the far off destination, picture the great moments he’d have there. If he couldn’t picture it, he said, he wouldn’t go.
I tried to picture it at my gate. Tried to picture myself at Angkor Wat, exploring the streets of Phnom Penh, on a beach in Koh Rong. I tried to picture, but my eyes were wide, staring at the few other passengers waiting at my gate. All of them were Asian. Not unusual, really, for a flight to Asia, but I couldn’t get the nagging thought out of my head, I couldn’t shake the image of the desk worker laughing, the one-third full flight. Everyone here, I convinced myself, is going home. You are the only idiot tourist dumb enough to board this flight.
I grabbed my bags, suddenly self-conscious, all too aware of myself, my ugly backpack, American passport clenched in my sweaty hands. I locked myself in a bathroom stall, pulled up the Twitter app, and searched: Coronavirus. On the news, it was a passing topic, no cause for alarm. But this was the internet, and when my search bar loaded, I was greeted with a plethora of miniature horror stories. Most of the tweets were written in Chinese, detailing cases, doctors who died, mass graves and ventilators and the Wuhan lock down. Every time I pulled down the screen to refresh, the number of cases increased.
I tried to picture it, closed my eyes tight and saw nothing. I couldn’t picture anything but the phone in my shaking hands, the numbers lighting up my screen in the tiny bathroom stall, grey walls rapidly approaching.
I called my parents from the toilet. I told them I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t get on the flight, they needed to pick me up from the airport, I wasn’t going. “Are you sure you want to do this?” My mom asked. I didn’t know.
We didn’t know how deadly it was, how it spread, how deadly it could be. We knew nothing. Uncertainty clung to the walls, crawled up the ceiling, foamed at the mouth- an alien creature, waiting to swallow me whole. There was no death rate, no Worldometer, there was only Google Translate and Chinese twitter, a mass hospital rapidly constructed, a steadily climbing case count.
I waited at the gate until the last person boarded, waited for my parents to pick me up. I couldn’t bring myself to leave the gate, couldn’t drive myself toward the plane, either. I waited until the flight attendant called my name on the loudspeaker, stood up, numb, handed her my ticket.
___
Every day, we would catch a boat to the next island over, sit in an internet cafe, and refresh our feeds. There was no service on the beach in Koh Rong Samloem, no internet either. We had nothing but each other and card decks and alcohol.
The world hadn’t ended the way I expected it to, but I got reminders every once in a while. Like the forms I was handed at every hostel, declaring my recent travel history. When I mentioned my layover in China, I was ushered into another room for temperature checks. I bought masks for the first time, when I lost the few I had requested from my airplane flight attendant. And most of the people I met, the people I sat with in the internet cafes and played cards with, had recently fled a newly locked down China. They were teaching English, had a two week holiday for Lunar New Year, and now had no idea when they’d be allowed to return. So every day, we’d go to the internet cafe, they’d check for emails from bosses, updates from China, and we’d read the news, relaying updates from each of our respective countries. February 6th: “UK’s got its third case.” February 7th: “Diamond Princess is fucked.”
Then we’d take the boat back and drink. Drink, cards, and dance, until the bar closed, and everyone meandered to the beach, sat on the sand. Every night, two German guys brought their speaker, and this is where we congregated, moths around a flame. They played nothing but German techno, scoffed at all other requests. Every night, a gathering on the sand, every night, a different, empty conversation. When the conversation grew dull, we’d slip into the water, warm in the Gulf of Thailand, drift on our backs past the rocks, look at the stars above.
Far enough away from the shore, glowing phytoplankton lit up the water. Waving a hand along the surface would conjure electric blue sparks, kicking feet, a dull turquoise glow. Every night, we’d swim shimmering constellations through the ocean, lights flickering above and below.
Hauntingly beautiful, the stillness, the repetition. Every night, like purgatory. I couldn’t help but feel melancholy on that beach. Couldn’t help but feel like we were trapped, time slipping through our fingers like water, stuck just underneath the folds of reality.
Maybe it's just the purple grey haze of my memory, but it felt like something was ending. We just didn’t know it yet.
Was that it? Was I dreaming? Is that all there was?
___
March 20th. That’s the day the world ended. At least, that’s what my American friends will tell you. March 20th, the day school was let out forever, the day they closed the beaches.
On March 25th, I got sent home from Australia, two weeks into my study abroad semester.
March 20th, “the end,” as if there was a concrete beginning. As if the world wasn’t ending all around us, as if we didn’t slip under its tongue like a sugar cube and melt slowly, slowly, till there was nothing left. Every time I hear that date I think of Cambodia, I think of the beach, the uncertainty, the airport panic.
The world was ending in January. Gavin Newsom didn't know it yet.
___
Stuck at home, in purgatory, I kept thinking about airplanes. Kept thinking about uncertainty, my old friend, about anxious butterflies, about being in motion. I kept surfing Google Flights for a plane ticket. Borders were closed. Americans, in particular, weren’t allowed anywhere. I wanted to go somewhere, but somewhere didn’t exist anymore.
My best friend’s father passed away in October. I flew North for his memorial service. I went to the airport by myself, and imagined I was going somewhere else. I slipped the ticket into my passport, thumbed through the stamped pages, felt my stomach lurch with excitement.
In the window seat, I stared through the plastic, watching as the world fell away beneath my feet. It felt like home, the mystery of it, the nervous anticipation of a destination not yet known.
Sleeping on carpeted floors, arm tucked underneath a backpack. Cold metal bars against my palms, a bus to another terminal. Sprinting to a new gate to make a connecting flight. Long layovers, exploring futuristic gates in Asian airports, window shopping. Looking out wide glass windows, at glittering lights in a city I was only passing through. Cargo ships dotting the Singapore Strait at night. A pod, 10 dollars, for overnight layovers between cities.
If you asked me then, I’d tell you, what a beautiful feeling, not knowing.
But that was then and this was now, and those were adventures and this was a funeral. When I touched down, the feeling was gone.
___
In the beginning, we thought, naively, that there would be a concrete end. That one day, if we only waited long enough, two weeks, or a few months, maybe, there would come a day where it was over. It would be like the movies- there'd be a supercut of optimistic news clips, the President, beaming on his pedestal, would announce that “We did it, together,” and then it would happen, all at once: We’d open our doors, maskless, and greet our neighbors. People would dance in the streets, embracing, crying, pale skin finally kissed again by a golden summer sun.
But it didn’t happen like that, and by now, we know the day isn't coming.
Instead, we have waves. An endless circle of platitudes: I think things are opening up, you know, I went to dinner the other night, ever since I got the vaccine I feel more comfortable going to bars. I’m fully vaccinated now, that second dose really hit me.
I got Pfizer. I got Moderna.
Do I have brain damage? Am I dreaming? Is this all we have left to say?
Sometimes, in those empty, nothing conversations, I find myself drifting back to that beach in Cambodia. Like at the end of those beach conversations, I want to slip into the warm water, lay on my back, spin into endless nothing. I want to float through the stars, drift right off the edge of the galaxy, into outer space, lose myself under the folds of reality.
The beach was the perfect middle, the liminal space. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were trapped right between the now and the then, a temporary reprieve before the world we knew left our fingertips. We were somewhere, for the last time, and all we did was drink and play cards.
___
In late April, a month after I’d been sent home from Australia, the beaches in Southern California lit up bioluminescent blue. I had spent a month with my parents, with no social interaction, and decided to visit San Diego to see the plankton bloom.
The beaches had just opened up again. Esme and I went at night, walked along the sand with our masks on, and watched, breathlessly, as each wave cut a perfect, glowing turquoise arc along the shore, as each splash lit up a shimmering constellation.
All along the shore, people in masks gathered to watch the plankton. I hadn’t seen so many in one place in so long. Everyone was spaced out respectfully, distant, of course, but all, collectively, observing the same miraculous spectacle. I imagined it as the scene in the movie, the part where the people emerged from their isolation to come together once again. My heart swelled with every crash of the waves.
I thought it was over, then, I thought that was the day.
That was a year ago. I have yet to wake up.
Comments