The Edge of Frozen Memories

Chapter 1

A long beep resounded in the phone, leaving the dismissive tone of Anne’s voice embedded in my ears like the buzz of bees overhead. It was the same argument we had had the other day that neither of us was willing to back down from. I wasn’t kid, and she had been acting like I was going to die. To convince her was rather hard to cope with, unless giving in was the answer, for it was the only way to save me from crawling in dismay.

Her critical talks reminded me of how much time that had been consumed. Although the fifteen minutes of her distinctive squawk was over, that by no means could purge me from the exhaustion in my mind. For as long as I counted, ten minutes, a sting had already struck me at the back of the skull. Not too long indeed, but enough to have me drown in pain. A deep breath, meanwhile, no longer could recede it.

Despite the cold breeze, the rapid pace of beats leaping over the veins intensified the heat inside me while the blood rushed roughly over neck and head. Moreover, streaks of red crept into my puffy eyes, sending an itch underneath tears.

Staying up for more than twenty hours during a long-haul flight was inconvenient while I was concerned I would have been lying on someone’s shoulder. In Chicago, when the plane landed for transit, I didn’t sleep, wary of the upcoming flight.

Now in the middle of winter night, the plane arrived at PHL, one of largest airport hubs in the US.

My vision analysed the view of each part in detail while the sounds of crowd chatter, announcements, and baggage carts engulfed me completely. The airport activities didn’t show any sign it would grind to a halt. Instead, the hustle and bustle of it became more frantic. The arrival lounges teemed with people in which some of them hang up white-coloured papers with a name of someone they were waiting for. But none of those had my name on it.

By the time I trudged along the hallway, a wave of nausea surged over me simultaneously with an ache in the pit of my stomach. I halted halfway, among the crowd of passengers near the baggage claim, standing idly to lessen the pain. Nevertheless, for thirty long seconds flat, instead of going away, or at least wearing off, it grew intense.

My attention soon distracted; the thought of a picture slipped in the notebook sent a pulse to the brain. Losing it would pull me into a deep sorrow, even if it was only an old memory, painted randomly—more like typical five-year-old kid drawing. Crumpled, dirty, and some stains of chocolate in that small piece of paper, however, had never failed to spread a smile across my face.

There wasn’t much time left to drift back to the haze of memories at the moment, for I had to hurry up before the dawn broke; otherwise, other nuisance calls would be haunting me all night long.

Eyes back to focus on the surroundings, I swivelled around to get a better look the other way. In a short distance, the immigration counters came into sight. In each row of the lines, ten to fifteen passengers lined up for immigration clearance. Constant, excessive noises floated around when I drifted into the line.

Snatches of a conversation between two people echoed, leaving rapid thumps fluttered in my chest.

“But sir—” said a masculine voice.

A strident tone of voice hung in the air and soared the atmosphere.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

The background noise of the ongoing conversation was interrupted when solid surface of someone’s backpack bumped against me in the face. I flinched; a grunt of indignation sprang up inside me. By expelling a harsh air past my lungs, I spun my head around, eyes blazing up with fury at a man who had shoved me.

No remorse on his facial expression, instead, an arrogant smirk played on his lips as he glanced at me with a look of contempt. It was his fault, for certain; however, I wasn’t going to let myself stampede into yelling at stranger in the middle of crowd.