Flight Away to Home Yugena Gunawardena

Doors open, then close. Signs in bright colors pop out at every corner. Floors begin to move on their own accord. People bump into one another, pushing and shoving, making a turbulence of their own. A light flashes, a buzzer dings, an engine roars and like that, everything changes.

My first memory of walking through the sliding doors of the San Antonio International Airport comes from when I was 7 years old. It was Halloween night and I seemed to be in the only place on Earth not handing out candy. How could my parents do this to me? Couldn’t they have postponed this trip to Kansas City at least a couple of hours? As I stood in line to get to the terminals, angrily pondering the amount of Twix I could’ve eaten by then, a man approached me.

“Walk towards me son,” he said.

Thinking that maybe this man would hand out candy, I passed through what looked like a doorframe. Suddenly, a green light started flashing and a buzzer dinged. Adrenaline, not fear, filled my body. Was this a game? Had I just won some prize? The man ran what seemed to me a magic beeping wand over my body and determined that not only was everything in order but I was deserving of no candy either.

I bent down to re-tie my shoes and looked up to see more people...