The girl shivered as she sat on
the carpeted floor. The floor of the airport was hard and uncomfortable and she
was cold. She glanced around at the people who rushed past or came and sat in
the rows of seats within arms’ distance of where she sat.
In her one hand the girl held
tightly to a boarding pass and passport while her other hand was empty. Her
clothing was thin and worn, giving her little warmth in the chilly airport. She
turned her head and glanced out the window at the planes as they taxied up and
down the runway in the dark. It was the middle of the night and the girl was
tired, as well as hungry. She could barely keep her eyes open, despite her
growling stomach. But she wouldn’t allow herself to fall asleep for fear of
missing her flight. The girl was immensely lonely. Not a week ago her aunt had
given her the ticket for the flight and now she shivered in an airport, waiting
to take a trip to somewhere entirely new.
The girl’s aunt was quite poor,
barely able to support herself, let alone her young niece. So she had saved,
for years, a large enough amount to purchase a passport and plane ticket to
send the girl to live with her grandparents in another country. It was a place
foreign to the girl, but hopefully a better place for her to grow up, with more
opportunity. As she sat on the airport floor now, though, the girl felt very
alone and anxious.
A man rushed past to reach his
flight’s gate. He was late to his boarding and worried that he might miss his
departure entirely. It had been a pleasant vacation he had just recently
enjoyed; a satisfying reprieve from work, but all too soon he’d be back to his
old grindstone. As he hurried along, he spied the girl curled up on the floor.
Her frightened and lonely face seemed to leap at him from the crowd of faces in
the airport. The sight latched onto his brain, remaining there, unwavering,
even as he hurried past and to his gate. His heart throbbed as the sight
pricked him with pity. His legs stopped moving and he turned and looked back at
her. She was alone. She looked cold and tired. She was probably hungry. He
stepped towards her, approaching slowly. He stooped low.
“Are you flying alone?” he asked
her.
She startled. Her mind was
thrust from her faraway thoughts and back into the present. The girl glanced
about, making sure the man was speaking to her, but his brown eyes were focused
on her. She nodded and he smiled.
“You look cold,” he told her. He
rose and glanced around quickly and said, “I’ll be right back.” Then he walked
away briskly and headed for the nearest gift shop. He stepped inside and
grabbed a bright-red sweatshirt, pausing only long enough to check the size on
the tag. He smiled nervously at the woman behind the counter as he paid for the
piece of apparel. Then he hurried back out of the shop, absentmindedly leaving
the receipt behind. He flipped through his wallet and pulled out several large
bills which he shoved into the sweatshirt’s large muff-pocket. Then he hurried
back to where the girl was curled up.
“Here,” he said kindly, handing
her the sweatshirt. “That ought to keep you a little warmer.”
The girl sat up and pulled the
sweatshirt over her head. She slid her arms into the warm sleeves and hugged
the warm fleece. She lifted her eyes and smiled at the man. “Thank you,” she
breathed and he nodded. She wanted to ask him why he’d bought it for her. But
he rose quickly.
“I need to catch my flight,” he
told her, glancing at his watch and looking worried. “Have a nice flight, and
good luck,” he told her before hurrying off towards his gate.
“Last call for flight 121,” the
lady at the boarding ramp said into the loud-speaker. She scanned the crowds,
hoping to catch a glance of someone hurrying to her gate. She spied a man
making his way towards her in a mad flurry. As he approached the counter he
thrust his ticket in her direction.
“I’m not too late for the
boarding, am I?” he asked between gasps for air.
She smiled and scanned his
ticket before handing it back to him. “Nope,” she said with a chuckle, “you’re
just in time.”
