Digital Art, by Vihann N
Pg 3, The Lounge, written, Innerdialect
They sat together. Two cultures in one. Three ? Schipol airport. Holding hands , coffee and themselves : the world somehow also there with each their cabin baggage. They were both Caucasian. Mid 20s, Parka , white Tees , well worn jeans. She was a brunette, pixie beautiful violet eyes , a Renoir mouth. He was a head taller than her, easy 6'2" , smiling eyes that somehow came across as serious. Light grey . Their babies dark. Little curls and irises deep black ; midnight velvet. Twins.
They were talking; yes Flemish! His accent was more NewYork. Little half words. You could tell they weren't talking about Roots. Not Kin and cliches they had separately grown up with, but something about where they were going and you wanted to understand their Space ; War and Peace, and Love. You wondered what they had just seen yesterday, knowing you'd never know. But they'd moved.
Maybe it was in the way he reached in and took out the Flute. Piccolo ? Gentle notes , now sharp, now low. She listened. Like she were the only one he was playing for. But he had a following : the German couple in new leather coats , the French lady, electric blue streaks in her hair. To the left, a young man and girl both red heads , white white faces that hadn't rested.
No one really rested in the Transit Lounge. There was always the departure ;you had to be alert. No matter who you were. What the status of your ticket or life back home at work or where no one else suspected.
After the man put down his flute, there was that stillness : like at the Opera. And some other Places sacred to each . She leaned her face against her little grey pillow ; he leaned into his self and they rested the way people do over conversations and other Trade, that can wait for a telling tomorrow.
Outside some one laughed and there was that familiar mangle of scents. Perfume and deodorant, carpet, wheelies, a distant click, a nearby rattle of wrap and cellophane : some of the things associated with people in movement..
the flute was new today, its notes a new presence among Travel Pictures, and other Glossies. Mona Lisa smiled knowingly. What had she seen ?
It was 1 am. That in between moment , sometimes an exit, sometimes an entry. You never knew which. Somehow now, both mattered. Both mattered. They went together. The man and woman , the Germans, the French lady, the young couple, Madame Lisa, the Twins.
The young man was looking at a Brochure from The Crest Hotel , deep maroon and white Crest. Beneath that a rectangluar white card : The Rai. The girl with the Red hair yawned, " Ja". He put the brochures away, and they smiled at the twins who woke up and cooed at the New Yorker. New Yorker's name was inaudible. He called her Martine. Martine Schraeppen read her tag. Martine nodded at the French woman who suddenly frowned. She looked sharply away as a new day sifted in through the pale blue lights in the Lounge.
It was never midnight dark in some Places. Unlike other Places. The French woman hugged herself and steeled everything within for the flight she was about to catch. ..
to be contd.
