The Journey Home

This is my first attempt to write anything like this, so if its really bad, I apologise in advance. So here goes...

Staring listlessly out of the tiny window, bright lights briefly spied, towns below full of activity and bustle glide underneath and the plane travels on through the storm-wracked night-sky.

A mixture of boredom and apprehension suffuse the cabin, quiet tense conversations are heard, details lost by the drone of the engines, somewhere a joke is made and a laugh is let out, quickly stifled as if here laughing is taboo. Soon silence rules in the cabin as landing approaches. Pitch and roll, the tension increases, out of the window a road flashes by, then a field, then lights, tarmac and then earthbound.

The aircraft stops, relief rises all around as this part of the journey safely over. Leaving the aircraft the whine of engines assaults the ears, wind whips across the empty airport pulling the rain into curtains which sweeps over passenger, plane and building alike, downing the briefly felt relief. Tedium returns.

To the passport control, all queues, rules, questions and induced guilt.

Onward to the baggage hall where tired people stand around like silent hunters, guarding their territory, waiting for the prey to be spilled out onto the conveyor, and then darting up, snatching their possessions and dragging them away.

Onward out past the throng of people anxiously waiting for relatives, each in turn smiling with relief as they see their loved ones, happy words and hugs are exchanged they are reunited, separation forgotten.

Onward out into the night again as the storm worsens, out into a parking lot obstinate luggage dragged and dumped in a car. Now out on to the night time roads, the rain splintering the scene into a yellow tinged kaleidoscope. Litter swept up by the wind crosses the street like some kind of urban tumbleweed wrapping itself around lamppost and railing, along the familiar deserted streets, a left a right and finally home. Shut the storm and the world firmly out behind the door.