FICKLE HEART

Fickle As It Were

Sands submerging my feet as I walk along side the shore. The waves ripples in small wavy lines. I see a hard covered sea shell. It was coated with the wet sand on the inside and it shined of droplets from the water on its surface. Picking it, I wash it, making it clean.
And then I toss. I toss it so high and plop! It splashes far into the ocean. Where it belongs.
I feel the power serpent along my arm from shoulder to the flick in the wrist as I toss another big sea shell. Plop! I can feel everything alive in flames. But the brows of my face remain smooth, no angry tilt of my mouth, my features aren't scrunched. I am angry but not.

I am in Dubai. A beach called Jumeriah Beach. This isn't my home. It is just another rest stop before I find another rest stop. Except I have been waiting on a woman to rent out her apartment for the next month. Her name is Rachel Sutherland. She happens to be a friend of another friend who enlisted to me that she was looking for a roommate. Not at all fazed or surprised, I jump at the opportunity. Sure, I do make a decent amount of money but I am huge saver. I believe in safety deposits, lucrative sales and eating like a popper. Any good way to save cash is my life's motto. I also find myself getting used to the idea of staying with strangers. With the way I work and how my life revolves, I also hop into other people's homes, quietly and temporarily setting myself in other's lives as I go globe trotting. It's a great way to meet new people, interact and I find myself with abundant friends and resources. Having a great network of people I come to ask, understand, resource and make ends meets.

I find a black smooth rock imbedded in the sand. I watch it as it feels the soft wrath of the waves. I feel a vibration in the pocket of my shorts. I hold my breath as I take out my phone, checking the messages. At first, my insides relaxes when I know I'm getting the apartment but I frown when I find that I won't be alone in the said apartment. I will be rooming with a guy who happens to be her brother. At first, it would be an inconvenience but I don't have a choice and I am desperate. My flight is peak midnight and I prefer to land in a bed when I reach the small town Fortrose in the highlands of Scotland.

I quickly type that I don't seem to mind and just quickly work this out. I breathe a sigh of relief when she agrees. Knowing I have a place for myself is settling. Reassuring. Even now, with the way I am a travel writer and I travel in different places and having no home for myself, I still get peckish when I feel I am homeless. The fact that there is no roof over my head scares me. Yet I feel alive in that moments of uncertainty. I live in these moments.

I pick up more rocks and throw them back into the ocean. They belong out there. Not thrown across the beach, buried under wet soggy sands. I wash my feet in the warm water and I walk further down the shore, looking back seeing my footprints disappear and wash away in the throwing water. I guess we all just vanish one day or another. No permanence. No roots. All one day to be evaporated. That knowledge is probably why I love that I never have to settle because it doesn't exist. I never want to settle, knowing that one day I will be gone.
Better to embrace the inevitable.

I see the sun slowly dipping, knowing it's time to take a cab back to my shared rental suite. I loved living with Taha Uzman. She is a gorgeous middle eastern woman who was again a friend of a friend. She introduced me to her own friends and family. I enjoyed being present in her culture, taking part in it. She was a good roommate too. We had a dynamic rhythm. Knowing what is wrong or what is happening. After hailing down a cab, I say my address. Good thing I live close by because I need to head to the airport soon. My bags were all packed and ready to go. I just have the two suitcases and my knapsack. I live with them everywhere I go.

I watch the cars zip by me, the pretty lights blinking bright as we travel down the highway. I see the Burj Khalifa standing proud and alone in the skyline of Dubai. It was profound in a way that man can make things beautiful.

After I reach my destination, I pay and walk straight to my temporary house. I stand before it. It was a chic two story bungalow. Nothing too fancy or extravagant but it was homey and old school. I enter and awaiting for me is Taha.

"I am feeling at a loss. You cannot leave me!"

I roll my eyes. "Dramatic much?"

She sniffs, continue the charade with robust gestures of the ways of a theatre actor. "I will never forgive you. My life is empty without you. You shall soon come to regret of forsaking my existence."

I cross my arms across my chest, my brow raised up high. "Forsaking? What are we in a bible theatre camp? Really melodramatic, Taha."

In a second, she is back to her usual self. The dramatics leaving her body instantly. "Oh Kiera, if anyone is melodramatic it's you."

I chuckle at her retort. "Yeah and you are the sane pragmatic one."

I go into my room, changing into my clothes. Halfway into unsnapping my bra, Taha barges in. "In sooth, I mourn your departure."

I roll my eyes heavily, uncaring of her intrusion. "Here we go." I mutter under my breath as she recites a soliloquy on how she feels about my departure. The whole thing is very over the top and mostly seeking her as the lone star who has lost a teddy bear or something insipid.

When it was clear, I wasn't entertaining her. She finally drops her act and plops herself onto my bed. "So...Fortrose."

I fold my clothes, neatly arranging it in my black suitcase. "Yeah. Fortrose. What about it?"

"Just that you hate small towns. You are a city gal. You love to be in the big hubbub of life. Center of sun. Why did you take the offer then?"

I huff, snapping the suitcase. All of my stuff finally inside. "The pay was good and I have wanted to go to Scotland."

"Yeah like maybe Glasgow or Edinburg. Not a small town of 1,000 people where people try to spot dolphins as a way of passing time."

I lug my luggages into the living room, checking my knapsack along the way for my passport, essential papers and money. "Yeah it's going to be a challenge but you know me. Always-"

"-Ready." She finishes my line and I stop to stare at her. Hmm. I guess she knows me well. I open my arms and she immediately takes up the offer and squeezes the life out of me. But it was warm and almost a sad awakening prickle in my sculpture of a disembodied statue. I have always seen my heart as beautiful abstract sculpture of grey and white. A huge, enormous figure that is carried in my box and charts to various places as I go. And this heart never has one sliver of a crack. Yet today, for the first time I make out a scratch on its surface.

I gulp, patting her back and removing myself. Can't have myself thinking like this. This is the way I am. I am a runner. A traveler. A person with no destination. A person who longs for journey with no end roads to meet. I have left behind so many friends and friends, all in the hope of finding new ones. This will be who I am. Forever.

"I will miss you, you know." I say to her, touching her elbow.

She nods. "I know. I am delight." I laugh at that. Shaking my head, I see the time and I know it's time to depart. I take a quick scan of my surrounding. The beautiful rustic living room laid out in front where we put the projector out and watch movies in the long silence of the Eastern nights. The kitchen where Taha cooked gourmet meals and fed me even after I said no. My room which was my safety net. I slept so soundly and safely.

I look back at her and I wipe the tear falling off her cheek. "Don't cry. This will be in my memory for eons to come. You and I will have this captured in our hearts."

She sniffles, and lets out a sobbed chuckle. "Now who is being the dramatic one?"

I shrug my shoulders, "Well, you did rub off on me. It's a good thing too. It will be a reminder of you." I shake my head again. Jesus, I have become dramatic!

I say my goodbyes one more time. Another round of hugs and I leave. My eyes are dry. My heart is slightly heavy. But the scratch on my sculptured heart is the first sign for me to will myself and say: This is who I am. This is who I must be. This is all I ever know.

Three hours later, I'm on a plane heading to Scotland.