Corners

There's a lot of things I don't understand,
why so many people lie.
It's this hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me

-"Empty", Ray Lamontagne

On our way out of the park a knobby kneed, tow haired boy asks Nathan a million

questions about his camera. He reminds me of Kleenex Kid and I can tell Nathan is annoyed 

so when the precocious child shows me his carved komodo souvenir I smile as brightly as I can and try to 

seem interested. 

Back on the boat our fisherman friend wants another $60 to take us to Komodo Island so we head back to Labuan Bajo. I ask Adik to ask if we can stop on one of the islets for a swim and, with the exception of the precocious kid who calls out excitedly to show us where his room is as his houseboat leaves the dock alongside ours, the trip back is quiet.

I wrestle with your ghost. The last time I saw you was through the same window I had been sitting at the night we met. My friend thought you were cute but had her back to you so I'd been giving her the play by play on all the girls who were hitting on you. I thought pigtail girl was the prettiest but you were doing your best to ignore them all.

"Well, this is ridiculous," I said, slurred "he's standing out there smoking with all those cute girls ogling him and he's just staring off into space. I'm going to help him out."

"No! Don't do that! Stay out of it," my friend protested. But it was too late, I'd already knocked on the window.

"Oh god, I can't take you anywhere."

When you turned around and our eyes met, your face lit up like a fireworks and I saw what all the other girls saw that I hadn't when you were playing stony and aloof; Russell Crow with a hint of Brad Pitt in your steel eyes. I tried to tell you, through a series of poorly mimed gestures that pigtail girl liked you and you should quit being a douche and go for it. Instead you made fish lips on the window and, laughing, I fish lipped you back. You nearly knocked over the barmaid trying to get to our table.

That table. In front of that window where you were now sitting with a woman I was relieved to note was neither pretty nor plain. Seeing you sitting there, laughing, with her, I was surprised that, even after what you'd done, I could still love you.

When I got your e-mail it was only two short sentences:

"I seen you last night. You look good."

I didn't bother, in my response, to try one last time to impress upon you the difference between "seen" and "saw". Instead I wrote:

"I saw you too. You looked happy. That made me glad."

And I meant every word of it. Still, I changed my e-mail address, double checked my locks and poured myself a bottle of wine.

The beach we stop at is sandy and clean and the water is surprisingly cool. I begin to feel calmer, think more clearly. I tell Adik I think we should at least try to catch our flight and her face falls though she nods in agreement.

"What, you don't want to go? What's that sad look about? Do you want to go or do you want to stay?"

She's quiet a moment before answering. "Stay!"

"Alright, but we better head back then and see if we can cancel our flight."

But back on the boat I fall asleep and have that dream, only it starts differently this time. I am at an airport but there are no planes. An old lady all alone behind a long mahogany counter tells me the planes only fly once a year and I missed them. I am stuck wherever here is. I try to leave but I'm suddenly trapped in the glass room without a door. Now everything's familiar.

When you appear in the window before me you are wearing your favourite brown, wool snowboarding sweater, and when you place your hand up to the window your thumb is threaded through the hole in the cuff of the right sleeve. When I reach my hand out to place it next to yours the glass turns to mirror. I don't know anymore which image is the you I want so badly to touch just one more time so I turn round in circles calling your name. Everyone of you looks worried, you're trying to tell me something but I panic and focus on your image instead of your voice. Too late I understand you're saying, "This is your last chance." Last chance for what? "You have to get out," is your only reply. All I want is out, but how, how do I get out? "This is your last chance." For what? "Get out!" You're screaming now, banging on the window and I'm looking everywhere for a door, a key, a clue but all I see is you in every mirror. "Now! Get out now!" Your voice is muted but I can hear the panic. How dammit? Where? But as you raise your finger to point the glass shatters and I am thrown backwards by the force, an explosion so powerful it thrusts me all the way back to the waking world.

The boat is pulling in to dock when I open my eyes, and my heart is racing miles ahead. I have to catch up with it. I tell Adik I think we should try to make our flight. She looks confused but I don't care. She wouldn't understand even if I tried to explain. "I had a dream that there were no flights out of here New Years," I offer lamely, realizing I sound utterly gila. Still, after sorting out the payment for the boat I hoist my pack onto my back and say, "We gotta run."

"Yup, run away," I hear Nathan say quietly behind me.

I freeze. What the hell is that supposed to mean? I decide I don't have time to figure it out but when we get back to the main street and he says, "Well, I guess this is goodbye then," I realize, I don't I want to say goodbye. I ask Adik to run ahead and talk to the travel agent, see if there's another flight out of here on New Year's Eve, while I give him my e-mail address.

As he gives me a hug goodbye I think, "Damn he's tall," and as I walk away he calls after me, "Geez, you're short."

The travel agent says no we won't make our flight, no there are no flights out on New Year's Eve but they will try to get us at least part of our plane ticket back. I finally leave forty-five minutes later telling Adik I need to go eat and agreeing to meet her back at the agent's when I'm done. "If you need me I'll be at the Corner, come get me."

When I get there, Nathan is finishing his lunch so I order a glass of wine and chicken curry and join him. He tells me he needs to go back to his boat because he's going snake hunting tonight, but he's just leaving when Adik arrives saying, "Where have you been. I wait at travel agent for you for three hours!"

Watching Nathan go I realize I am feeling better and think, has it been three hours already?

I look back at Adik and shrug, "Well, you knew where I was. Why didn't you come and get me?"

"I go back to travel agent by myself. They gave me refund but not you."

"Why not me?"

She shrugs and looks off in the distance, "You weren't there."

"Okay, we'll stop by there now on the way to the hotel."

She shrugs again. "No. They're closed."

"Okay, I'll go in the morning."

Her eyes grow wide. "No. Oh no. Can't. Now is too late. No more refund. Only today can get refund."

"Let me make sure I understand this: Today was the only day I could get my refund and you didn't come get me when they said we could have one."

She laughs too loudly, then looks off in the distance without saying another word.