Miscellanea from the Lost Quarter and beyond.

Embarking for Paradise

It was late in the afternoon when they left port. The seething heat of the day had briefly been relieved by a downpour forcing everyone into the terminal building where the warmth from their bodies soon overwhelmed the few fans set up to move the thick air around. There were more white faces than they had seen up to this point in their journey among the islands, intermixed with the local brown and various other shades of travellers embarking for paradise. 

They passed the wait imagining stories for various passengers. The two American families loudly conversing about where they had travelled to this point while their bored teenagers focused in on their phones. The young Japanese couple buying an inordinate amount of fried potato slices from the kiosk selling them, as though they were stockpiling for the upcoming journey. There was the man (indifferently dressed, long hair pulled back into a pony tail to hide a receding hairline) slouched beside a woman (tiny, immaculately dressed, LV purse in her lap). She looked much younger than him at a distance, less so the closer they got.  

It was uncomfortable to look at them, though they found themselves unable to stop, noting their every interaction and even the way others looked at them. Suddenly it was no longer fun to imagine a story for these two strangers. Did others look at them the same way and make the same kinds of judgments? Surely not, for there was nothing like the same contrast between them. And yet. A disconcerting thought. 

The ferry was air conditioned and enclosed, the roar of the engine as they jetted out to sea heard only dimly. A movie played on a screen at the front of the rows of seats – some nature documentary – which everyone ignored. They passed under a great bridge connecting the city to an island suburb and soon the shorelines of both vanished behind them. Ahead the horizon was only briefly empty before more islands loomed ahead, dark outcroppings dimly visible on the horizon. 

It was dusk by the time they disembarked at the next port, the shadows and a thick canopy of trees obscuring the island beyond the shore. Everyone dragged their suitcases through the terminal and outside to where the tuk tuks waited to ferry them onward.