An aeronautics smell; prepare for movement. Déjà vu.
The ringtone, a Lion King jingle, it beeps, then rings.
‘The Headhunter.’ His voice gravelly, decipherable.
‘Hello?’ That anticipatory swag.
‘K, good news and bad news.’ Courtesies, thankfully waived.
I appear unruffled, wait for information.
‘Which one first?’ he pokes.
‘Bad, please.’
‘What passport? Blue, red?’
Procuring organic cheese off a farmer’s market.
I think carefully, guiltily confess, ‘I don’t have.’
‘What you have then?’
I jog my mind, memory eclipses. ‘Green. I have green,’ I finally recall.
‘Green? Oh shit.’
My fingers move to mute. Inaudibly curse back.
‘Half-the-pay, if not white.’ Glib watchwords, rolling off his tongue. He speaks out loud. Half-pay. Out loud?
‘It’s okay for you?’
Stillness. I swallow something. Anything.
Gingerly unmute.
‘Half-the-pay?’ I long for kindness. A misunderstanding?
‘But why?’ I stupidly search.
The plane revs up, preparing for flight.
‘Why, what?’
‘Never mind,’ I yield.
‘Is it okay?’
‘OK.’
‘Be a turtle, not a hare,’ he counsels freely.
‘Great.’
‘Interview. Straight when you land.’
‘‘And the good news?’ I cautiously nudge.
‘More good news?’
‘Is that all?’
Lights lowering.
‘Now wait just a minute,’ his replies, muffled now.
‘This sketchy signal.’ Phone clicks, closes for the day.
Hula hoops of smoke. Exiting the runway.
Touchdown expected: 9pm, green passport time.
Seat 01C = Half-pay.
‘Champagne?’ the stewardess, she routinely inquires.
‘Champagne? No, no. No champagne for me.’ I’m on a green passport.
‘Water. Sparkling, please.’
To the right, a man, his V-shaped glass, a beerbong for Champagne;
Tilts it carelessly, chugging in a turban
But ‘The Headhunter’, he didn’t say why?
Red. Blue. Green. Funky gunmetal grey?
This eve is sooty.
The fact-checking site tells me, no ‘green’ ever flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
Borders of pain, I switch to brown jazz.
A tranquilizer tonight?
Some sleep. A dream.
Can we disarm evil, set ourselves free?
Not colourless. Colour-free?
Can we?
Shall we?
Will we?
A dream, indeed.
A sky smell. Slight drizzle. Damp earth and flowers.
I need to find some light.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a new day.
Nightfall.
Saba Karim Khan is an author, award-winning filmmaker and educator, whose writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, Wasafiri, Huff Post, Verso, Think Progress, DAWN, etc. Her debut novel, Skyfall, was recently released by Bloomsbury and her documentary film, Concrete Dreams: Some Roads Lead Home, produced by the Doha Film Institute (DFI), has been officially selected and won awards at global film festivals in Paris, Berlin, Toronto, USA and India. She has read Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and works at NYU Abu Dhabi. Before joining the Academy, she worked as Country Marketing and Public Affairs Head at Citigroup. Born in Karachi, she now lives in Abu Dhabi with her husband and two daughters. Saba can be contacted at sabakarimkhan.com and via Twitter @SabaKarim.