The upper concourse of Washington Dulles Airport. Dimly lit, the seats nearly empty. A man and a woman - Indian I believe - sit in a corner, quietly whispering to one another. A woman veiled from head to toe speaks on her mobile phone with a heavy Arabic accent. Mom is giving her usual motherly advice before she goes, trying to convince me to leave soon since saying goodbye is so hard for her. She went through the trouble of bringing me bread and snacks, yet I lack even a single hour for our mother - and - son talks. I show the old photographs on my iPhone, and together we drift back to the old days. Deep in my heart, I wish the clock would simply freeze; that I had never grown up, and that I would never have to witness the passage of time etched into the lines of her beautiful face.
Translated from Farsi