Phillip Vanini | qranthology

The Sea Plane Pier

by Phillip Vanini

Picture yourself undulating, left to right, left to right, with every wave, every ripple bumping into the floating dock. You catch your feet shuffling, your centre of gravity shifting, as the damp, wooden walkboard oscillates with you and the ocean, as if it were inviting you to move, compellingly, along with them. Picture yourself feeling the urge to fly—off to the mainland, on to the big city airport, on to far, bigger places. Your nerves telling you it’s time to check in, weigh the baggage, grab your boarding pass, load your luggage, and take off. Picture the wristwatch you don’t carry anymore hollering at your conscience for your attention. It’s time. Another second flies by. It’s time.

Picture your skin curling up with every waft of ocean breeze, as if the water’s cold breath were whispering in your ears. So you unzip your carry-on. You unfold a carefully packed sweater and hurriedly slip it on. You are alone. You have a seaplane to catch. You have your island, your home, to leave behind. It’s only a few days away, but picture yourself aching in anticipation of your return. You feel the pain as if your stomach gasped for island air with every puff you take. But every breath is a struggle—as if you inhaled to devour more and more of the tasty, moist ocean particles lingering in the atmosphere. Picture every one of those tide-scented particles jammed in your throat, weighing you down, as if with each gasp you bore the progressively unbearable, expanding weight of island gravity.

“Where in the world is Harry?” Twenty minutes to your flight. No one there to check you in, no plane at the horizon. Picture yourself dialing his number in anxiety. Only to hear his forgotten phone ring inside the shack on the pier. No one there to answer it. Picture anxiety making space for dread. Dystopian thoughts assault your mind and body. They can’t be late. You can’t be late. Another second goes by, mercilessly. And another. And with every feeling that it’s later, and later, picture yourself exiting island time, getting sucked into the vortex-like timescape of the mainland. Picture yourself breathing faster—no longer to absorb island air, but to exhale its rhythms. To let it go.

And there’s Harry. Fishing rod in one hand, bucket in the other. Picture him ambling down the dock, smiling, as he babbles a word to Jenn, parading alongside him, strolling her suitcase. T-tock, t-tock, t-tock—her suitcase wheels utter while rolling on the dock, as they hit the gaps between each plank of wood. Picture Harry and Jenn greeting you. Calmly. Still on island time. “You’re here early, today”—you’re told. You’ve got somewhere important to go, you answer. “Oh yeah, that conference overseas you were telling me about”—Jenn acknowledges.

Picture having no boarding pass to collect. Picture Harry eye-checking, then lifting your suitcase with one hand instead of weighing it with a scale or scanning it with x-rays. “Twenty-two pounds,” he guesses. Picture having to show no ID because Harry and your kids play soccer together. Picture John, the seaplane pilot, apologizing to you and Jenn upon arrival for being “a couple of minutes late.” Picture having no glossy magazines to buy on your way to the gate. Or having no gate at all—indeed, nothing but a big watery abyss separating the dock from the five-seater. An abyss dismembering and yet connecting your island with the rest of the world. Picture the raucous engine of the plane drowning out your melancholia, as you stretch your neck to catch a last glimpse, for a while, of your island.