Another airport. Another land. Another culture. Another life. Something normal for her. Her life our of a suitcase. She likes the idea.
Like every time she is way to early at the airport. Not because she worries about missing the plane – for sure the only reason her mother would accept as a reasonable one. The voice of years of maternal educational treatment speaks loud in her head 'They wont wait for you', 'One day you will loose your head', 'You will be too late on your own wedding'. She smiles. If her mother would know. She grins. No – for her it is pure enjoyment being at the airport, waiting to leave a country, waiting to leave a life behind, feeling the arising curiosity inside her about with what life will welcome her at the new place. New experience. New people. New adventures. New stories. The early arrival at the airport is like a pleasant mediation. It gives her time so say grateful 'Goodbye' to the past and joyfully 'Hello' to the unknown future.
Her favourite place, of course: The smoking lodges. Well, such smoking rooms and cabins tell a lot about countries and their people. In Malaysia for example one has to walk miles over miles to find a small tiny dark room, hidden in the most fares corner of the building, while in Mosque the very first thing you see, entering the airport building, is a smoker cabin. This time it is the Sri Lankan airport smoker lodge. A small airport, a good seized smoking room, easily accessible, close to the main duty-free shops, restaurants and cafes. First an arrow passageway, than a 6x3m square, filled with a hard plastic- aluminium bench in dark blue forming an oval, two pass ways, six over dimensional round ashtrays. The very first impression is the most precise and accurate one – every time.
The door to the corridor is open. A young Bob Marley copy squats in his cotton baggy pans at the side. The door to the smoking lodge is glassy. Her first look spots six men. Smoking – of course. Well, she doesn't spot them actually. There is no need for spotting. Thos
e six men they just are. It's more that they jumped into her perceptional awareness. Man male habitat. Smoking man. Smoking testosterone. The whole lodge is full of them. Groups of four to six men sitting, smoking, talking. 'Where are the women? Where is the other gender?' She is the only female, young woman and white. She starts to smile inside. No it is more like a loud big laughter inside her chest. 'Of course! What else should she expect?' Actually nothing particular, nothing special. She just wants to have a cigarette and her coffee. (The most valuable combination ever, just topped with the ingredient of a good book.)
And exactly those unexpectednesses, because of no biased expectations, are the most inspirational, accurate and intense insights of ones inner perception and personality as well as ones inner awareness and consciousness. She smiles. She is a kind of a feminist. She must grins. 'Alright. Let's play the game. Act like a man. Act like it is the most normal and natural thing to do in the world.'
And she enters the male habitat. A silent second. A change in the air. She walks like obvious towards the only free space on the dark blue hard plastic aluminium bench, knowing a thousand and one eyes are laying on her, observing her. 'Yes they making lists of people interested in this and their scanning all the data-bases hunting terrorist. Yes they making list …' Agents of oblivions lines are popping up in her head. She has to suppress the urge to sing loudly. Some kind of a unaware strategical behaviour of hers to cope with unusual situations. 'Sit down. Let the movie begin.' She loves it. All those changes in their faces, those changes in their way of talking and behaving. She just can get a glimpse of it through the corner of her eyes, but she feels and hears the mutation. 'No, don't look one of them in the eyes, look slightly beside of them. Just look straight forward. Determined. Just look normal, god sake.' How funny. Inside herself she is bursting for laughters. Every single movement of hers is observed from at least one men of each group. 'All right. Take your smokes. How do they smoke? Okay the cigarette between the ring and the middle finger, slightly underneath the first joints, slightly over the filter. Is the cigarette in the right hand, than they put it into the left corner of their moth, covering with the hand their whole face. Is the smoke in the other hand, it's the opposite way around. Okay. Easy.' She is good in imitating. She becomes one with the situation, one with them – still observing, still observed.
A newspaper is a perfect tool for observation. Hers just misses the two cut out eye pieces in the middle. She is a pro in pretending to read and observing her environment. On the right hand next to her – disgust. An old greasy men in a purple striped satin shirt, suit pans and out worn sneakers. Grey walrus moustache hairs hanging uneven over his lips. The whole time his hands are playing with his walrus moustache. Twisting, twirling the coarse bristles. His head seems way to small for his over dimensional and awkward looking body. He is staring and glaring. Ripping her cloth from her body. Staring and glaring. Caught in his own world. She gazes back, he recognizes – shamefully caught. Poor little fellow. She doesn't pay attention anymore. Lost interest. Opposite of her sits a group of four middle aged men, dressed casual but stylish. They all look the same. Same dress, same cloth, same shoes, same haircut, same jewellery. Same facial expression. Same rhythmical movements. All vie for her attention. Even there they are the same. Boring.
'What's that?' Fingers ticking next to her leg on the dark blue hard plastic, moving towards her. 'Lighter!' - the low deep voice reaches her ear just in the moment the fingers are already grabbing after her lighter. 'Harry. Harry. Praschnejak ne.' The cigarette is lit. The lighter returned.
A new man enters the room. He looks different. Doesn't fit properly into this bunch of loaded testosterone. Younger. More casual. He has a funny happy way of moving through the room. He smiles. Bright shiny eyes with a lot of pleasure. She smiles back at him. He passes her, sits down, lights his smoke and starts to read. She likes him. Than there is this lovely old granddaddy. He looks so calm and pleased, just being here in this smoky, smelling room with his son next to him, having a puff. Those both are up for a holiday. 'If the old man ever left Sri Lanka his country of birth and living before?'
Now she is one under many. They forgot about her presence or maybe they just accepted her, being there like one of them, sitting there like a man, smoking like one of them. Their talks come back to their normal tone and intensity. They drink their beer. They burp. A body appears in front of her. 'May I have the lighter please'? Oh, one with english manners. Na, thats not fair. 'You are judgemental.' Well, this bunch of testosterone is judging her, too. Still, thats not an excuse. She passes the lighter. The serious try of him to catch her eye attention makes her smile. In this one nanosecond she can read all their words in their heads about how to engage her in a conversation. Than they realize in even this nanosecond that the moment of talk already passed by. Funny.
Just a group of middle aged men is left. They are talking about her. Well, never talk about someone in an other language, when one can't be sure, if the person whose spoken about understands the language. Her singhala might be poor, but she knows the words for 'woman', 'girl' and 'white'. An asian man enters the room. He doesn't feel comfortable. He looks lost. Standing in the middle of the room, lonely, smoking way to intense his cigarette. It's addiction, not pleasure. He looks like someone forgotten in the wrong place. His cigarette is not even half finished, when he lefts the room.
Three smokes, ten questions to light a cigarette, four questions for a smoke later – no one of them seems even to bother to look around whom to ask. They all come straight away to her. Even if they have to cross the whole room. 'Excuse me madame. Cigarette?' A huge hairy hand moves determined towards her package of smokes, expecting the request doesn't get refused. Rings of gold and diamond clasp tightly thick swollen finger. The sun reflected in a huge golden something, one can call swatch around a wrist. 'Sorry? You are already smoking?' Hairy thick fingers point towards another man. He doesn't bother to look. There are two smokes left in her package. Well, she normally likes to share, but his guy just expected a 'yes'. So she refuses. 'Sorry mate.' Torn eyes looking around, waiting for something. Waiting for indignantly agreement from the other smoking men about this disrespectful behaviour of a woman refusing the request of a man? Heads are turning down, She looks tough in his eyes. 'Sorry mate.' He finally turns around to his friend, smoking his own cigarette by himself, not sharing.
So many faces. So many eyes on her. A young white woman, smoking, enters their domain.
… and they become silent.
She feels good - crying for laughters.
Than, another woman enters the room. She cleans the astray. She doesn't get any attention at all.