Soul Harbour

0.38 | when boarding |

0.38 | when boarding |

Sabah sat at the airport terminal, glaring cloudily at nothing in particular. There was still around forty minutes for boarding and she was using all her time to be angry instead of how she had imagine her last moments in Madrid would be. She had imagined everything to fall into place. She had imagined perfect happiness, the correct epilogue to the tale even.

In her inner monologues, Sabah would often chide herself for her excitement and so she had known somewhere that it wouldn't be all that truly, but it would be something.

Now, her heart that had been flowing with joy was trampled on so severely that she had to lay her head back against the metal-backed seats, feeling embarrassed by how heated up her face felt and how stingingly warm her eyelids were.

She let out a breath.

Someone's shoes squeaked across the smooth floor somewhere near her and she frowned. She wasn't even thinking about it but there it was as clear as the day she had first seen it, tucked away carefully in a well-meaning corner of her memory.

A mini-blackboard near the counter-Free Jalapeno Crackers To Celebrate Special Occasion!-written in at least three different languages.

She tried to push it away and it rippled away with some difficulty, only to be replaced by half-eaten-away voices.

"What's the special occasion?"

She thought back, a special occasion, yes, it had been a special occasion, one of the best occasions ever. She hadn't even known she was looking for such a place or such a person or even such a story but it had been special.

It was always going to be special, she realized. No matter how it was ending she would always think back to it with a smile and a mind full of marvellous images, of laughter, spell-bound silences, good-natured quarrels, serious low murmurs, tears, of joy and of sadness.

"Have you ever fallen in love?"

She didn't remember whether she had answered the question. Had she told Carlotta that yes, she fell in love more often and longer than most people. Had she said, that love? Yes, I've loved and still do, humans, rocks, leaves, flowers and strays, and everything else.

She sat up suddenly. Carlotta had never told her what the special occasion was. She went through everything as much as she could remember off the tip of her fingers. She dove into her slingbag and leafed through her journal with trembling impatience.

There was a reason she had thought they were moving towards something; Carlotta had given her reason to believe so right at the beginning itself. Of course, she had wanted to believe in the positive aspects of the special occasion. After all, who celebrates the tragedies of life with show and pomp?

But Carlotta had also hinted throughout that it wasn't going to end well.

Her brows wrinkled slightly as she tried to bring the two opposing ends together. How could something-the same thing-be both happy and sad?

If Carlotta had told Sabah a story of real events, Sabah had in turn interpreted it in her way. Just like there were alternate selves of Sabah in alternate versions of minute even unimportant events, there were hundreds maybe even millions of interpretations of one story. She had looked for an ending and to reach there she had walked a certain road behind a storyteller who pointed out their small world in certain ways and she had recorded them in ways that were bound to be certain in their divergence, even unknowingly.

She now thought of Carlotta not as a storyteller, she released her friend from all that the definition limited her to, and thought of her as she was in the story, a person with several parts, just like anyone else.

Carlotta Garcia. Middle-aged, bitter and lonely.

Carlotta Garcia. Wishing for a family.

Carlotta Garcia. Happy, hopeful matchmaker.

Carlotta Garcia. A family of misfits.

Where did this Carlotta take her? Down the wilderness. There were so much to her. She wasn't the perfect café owner, she was the vibrant, sarcastic, sensitive woman who was beginning to believe that the worst was past.

What would Anthony's leaving mean to her? What did it mean to Auburn? No, no, Sabah shook her head. She was getting off track again.

Carlotta.

She pictured her talking with Anthony that day in her café, that day when she had probably felt that Auburn wasn't coming back. That day when everything that had begun to settle in her life must have appeared so dangerously vulnerable.

But Auburn had come back. Hadn't she?

So, why had they stopped talking? What had they fought about?

And how had Carlotta let them go, after everything? How had all of them given up?

Sabah was silent, thoughts racing her mind. Not answers but questions, they were important. She thought through all of them and they didn't seem to add up. Hardly anything ever does.

But Carlotta had behaved as everything did add up. She had wrapped up the story and handed her the exit as well as the ending.

Everything lead back to Carlotta.

Sad eyes and clever smiles.

Twinkling eyes and kind laughter.

Slowly, very slowly, Sabah's eyes widened as she began to unravel everything. It couldn't be. No, it couldn't.

She rummaged through her pockets, pulling out her mobile and her fingers wavered as she asked herself whether she really wanted to do this.

She had never searched for Anthony Kroff online. Not even once. She had never, not even in her weakest moments, dared for such a spoiler. Searching for him meant that he would become real, that he would no longer be how he was in her imagination but how he was in reality but, she took a deep breath and typed in his name, maybe he wouldn't become real but real would become more of him?

She finally breathed out a sigh and nodding to herself, gathered up her things. She closed her journal and pushed it into her bag. Just as she stood up, the boarding for her flight was announced. She looked at the time and knew right away there was no way she could go back and still catch her flight.

***

And what do you think happened next? I'll try to post the next chapter asap <3