Farwell

Peering at the lights in the night through the rain wet window of a taxi I’m headed toward a metropolitan airport. The images burn themselves into my retinas, a farewell to a way of life, a place and the one who loved me. She is gone now, reduced to ashes and memories.

Unsure of what comes next, I sniff the aroma of the past as it rises from my paper cup of Community Coffee. She will never share a cup and conversation with me again. I wheel everything I own, two suitcases full of clothes, a laptop full of words, and a small man purse full of my medications, ahead of me as I look for my gate. I pass a waste receptacle and drop the empty red cup into the trash. I feel as empty as the discarded coffee cup. My life is gone, just dry leaves blowing in the winds of change.

I board the plane through the metal tube that temporarily connects it to the earth. A few other passengers walk aboard. There are a lot of empty seats. Covid 19 has changed flying now. Everyone hides behind a cloth mask where in the past people hid behind whatever face they wished to show the world.

One thing about flying on a red eye flight, you can save a few bucks. I look out the plane window at the glow beneath the clouds and breath a silent good bye to the past.