Melbourne Airport - January 2010

‘Last drinks guys’, she beams, no doubt glad to be at the tail end of her shift. I down the remainder of my wine while scanning the walls for a clock. Midnight – six hours until my flight. As her hand sweeps across the table, gathering the empties along the way, the man next to me questions her about where he can get another beer. Catching his eye, I laugh telling him I was wondering the same thing. Solemnly he invites me for a drink.

When I booked my trip from Melbourne to Newcastle a month earlier, I had intentionally booked an early morning flight so I could spend the evening at the airport. I know it sounds a little strange, but I have a fascination with airports. For me, there is something incredibly special about them - so many stories, so many different lives interlaced in one space. People are coming and people are going. Excitement. Joy. Sorrow. When I am flying somewhere, I often arrive at least one hour ahead of schedule so I have that extra time. I love meeting people and I love hearing their stories. Where they are going and why they are going, and this time was no different.

Although his English is almost flawless, there’s a slight twang behind some of his vowels, which I soon learn is because of his Swedish heritage. After two drinks his once fixed barriers begin to crumble and his heart lay between us on the tacky vinyl tabletop. Although his bags are packed, he has no ticket booked. A drunken argument with his dad brought him to the airport bar where we met. We go round for round in drinks and soon the morning light is streaming through the glass panes of the café.

We decide to go for breakfast before my flight, but as I stand, the strap of my thong (that’s a sandal, jandal or flip-flop for all you non-Australians out there) gets caught under the leg of the table, breaking my most favourite pair and leaving me shoeless. He retrieves a pair from his bag - a pair he had bought for his girlfriend, and hands them to me.

I convince him to go back to his dad and to make amends, ‘You can’t leave things unfinished’, I warn. And that is where the story lapses. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, my ears pop as we make our descent into Newcastle. In the corner of my eye I notice a boy of around ten years looking up at me smirking. ‘Are you drunk?’ he asks innocently, ‘because you smell drunk!’ After the plane has landed, and everybody has disembarked, I stretch out into the aisle, getting my suitcase from the overhead compartment. It drops down at my feet – my feet that are now dressed in a brand new pair of Australian Havaianas.