Paper Planes

By Sarah-Maria Khoueiry

He looked outside, his eyes following a plane soaring above the clouds and under the

setting sun. It had been at least ten years since he was aboard one but he remembered exactly

what it felt like. The anxiety as the wheels took off the ground, the pop of his ears, the

anticipation once his homeland’s coastline appeared from the window that turned into a

restlessness as the plane hit the ground again—some things never went away. He could never

forget walking through the airport as fast as he could to reach the people waiting for him on the

other side. These trips were a ritual that went on at least twice a year for fifteen years. Every

holiday was spent in a mountain cottage with family and friends that might as well have been family. When it was warm, they sat on the patio until the sun showed itself again playing card games their grandparents had taught them. When it snowed, they built gingerbread houses and icing that was never strong enough to hold the biscuits together.

When he stopped returning, it was like a part of him was ripped away. He couldn’t bear

to watch the snow fall knowing there wasn’t a ticket in his inbox waiting to take him to a place

he could call home. He spent winter months huddled at home, barely replying to messages from

his friends, longing for days spent drinking spiked hot chocolate by a fireplace with people who

knew him better than anyone here ever would. He used to look forward to spending his winter

and summer holidays with these people and he wondered if they still saved him a seat at the

dinner table in hopes that he would change his mind and come back.

Seeing the plane was like a slap in the face. It was a reminder of all the birthdays he’d

missed and those he would never attend. There was a time when he could draw a map of all the

potholes on the way to the chalet from memory. He could list in order the shrines to saints tucked in small alcoves on the side of mountains. He couldn’t anymore. Those roads were marked by history, were carved by lost hitchhikers’ feet, and were stained with the conversations he had once had with friends on his way home. He thought those roads probably looked nothing like how he remembered them. Whatever imprint he once had on them had surely faded with time. He knew it wasn’t his fault they stopped talking to him after the incident. He knew it; he spent days, weeks, months telling himself he knew that it was his family’s bigotry that led them to the breaking point. It didn’t make the separation any less painful.

Now, he was stuck spending holidays with people who could never get the nuances of his

language; who couldn’t understand his jokes. People who would never fully appreciate the way

his tongue twirled over vowels in a language foreign to him. Ten years ago, he tore the chalet

down brick by brick in his mind. He forced himself to forget about the people he had dedicated

his life to. He tried to build a new life with the scraps that remained. He liked his new life in this

new country. He liked his friends and Sunday brunches with them. It just didn’t feel the same.

Ten years ago, his world ended, and he never put it back together again. All was left were odd

pieces that didn’t fit together. He tried to glue them together—fill the holes with icing strong

enough to keep out the wind—but there were just too many planes in the sky.

He hoped one day he would head back East again.