This airport is made of glass and angles which let me see the sun. I am grateful to the airport for that. The airplanes see the sun, they run to it and then rise the way storks do. But jets fight weight with wings that do not beat. Sometimes in landing they come out of the light, which makes them shine. They remind me of stories my grandmother told, of great birds that smashed armies when the desert held more water, and plants, and animals with eyes that reflected light as water does. I liked my grandmother’s stories when I was a child but they make no sense here. I could tell them to the immigration sergeant, tell him the tale about the huge bird of light, I think he’d laugh. The immigration captain would make the face he makes when I tell him anything, as if he’s had to fart for weeks and cannot. I don’t talk much when I’m with them because of this story problem and because I don’t speak their language well. When they wish to speak to me they take me to a place without sun. There I have no idea where direction lies. At home the houses are built to line up with sun and moon, and so are the thorny pens where we keep our goats and cattle. And people, too, you knew where they came from. I knew that Ibrahim came from a village to the southeast that treated animals badly and we did not buy meat from him. We knew his story. But the militias came and we did not know them: they killed Ibrahim from the village to the southeast, they took Raina and Joris from our village. Then the army came and killed the militiamen and we did not know the soldiers either. You are not a refugee, the captain says, there is no war anymore, anyway this stamp is false. In another room I would look to the sun for guidance, for the lurking-place of shadow, but this room has no glass. The only light is blue, it shoots from lamps that are long and thin like rifles. They took Raina and Joris and they killed grandmother; that’s what I told the captain earlier, and he made his expression again. We have herbs at home that might help this man. He leafs through my passport and looks again at the stamp my father sold our milk cows for. I think of that stamp as printed in blood. It represents all the hopes of my grandmother, and Joris and Raina and my father and mother: that someone should fly into the sun and make his way to safety and good water. The captain sighs. He is not a cruel man, I think, but he has digestive problems. Also he has no direction. He too cannot see the sun or moon from here. Two days ago he and the sergeant took me upstairs where travelers go. Coffee came from machines that steamed like locomotives, and everyone touched their cellphones the way men and women touch each other at home. This airport is a city and the upstairs city is built of steel and light. The room where the captain puts me while he talks on the telephone to people who must judge my case is made of glass and air. I think of this airport as my friend. It loves light and sun. Its jetplanes will trade everything for direction.
George Michelsen Foy (aka GF Michelsen) is the author of twelve published novels and two non-fiction books. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction. His articles and stories have been published by Rolling Stone, Harper’s Magazine, and the New York Times, among others. He was educated at the University of Paris, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Bennington College. He teaches creative writing at New York University.