William H đã retweet
I had been passing through Nnamdi Azikiwe airport in Abuja for 3 years without actually seeing it.
That is what frequent travel does, it compresses everything into gates and departure boards and the specific anxiety of a man who is always almost late. You stop seeing. You just move.
My flight to Lagos was delayed one day for 3 hours. I sat down for the first time in what felt like months and looked up from my phone.
She was at the information desk across the hall.
I don't know how to describe what I saw except to say that some people carry themselves in a way that rearranges a room without moving. Tall, effortlessly so, a kind of posture that belongs to a woman who has decided her space in the world is non-negotiable. Her uniform looked like it had been tailored for her specifically. She had a smile she didn't give to everyone, you could tell, because when she gave it, the person receiving it visibly changed.
Her name tag said Fatima.
A man at her desk was being difficult. Raised voice, shifting weight, a performance of someone who had decided inconvenience was a personal insult. She listened to everything without folding, without matching his temperature, just waited for him to finish, then spoke quietly, clearly, with the patience of a woman who had long decided other people's anger was not her emergency.
He left calmer than he arrived. Hahaha
She turned back to her desk and caught me looking.
I looked away. But it was too late.
When I looked up again she was helping a woman with 2 children and too many bags, crouching slightly to speak to the smaller child who was crying, saying something soft that made the child laugh through the tears within 30 seconds.
30 seconds. Bruv! Oh lord
I sat there with my phone in my hand, not looking at it.
When my flight was called I stood, collected my bag, walked toward the gate, then stopped.
Turned around.
Walked to the information desk instead.
She looked up, and close up she was even more disarming, something warm and direct in her eyes that the distance hadn't fully carried, a small scar near her left eyebrow that I noticed immediately and found myself thinking about for reasons I couldn't explain.
I said, I just wanted to say you handled that man very well earlier.
She considered me for a moment, then said, he was just tired. People who are tired often sound like people who are angry. They are usually not the same thing.
I stood there longer than that sentence required.
She smiled, the real one, not the professional one, and said, your gate is closing, sir.
I thanked her and walked away with the specific feeling of a man who had just said too little and meant considerably more.
I fly through Abuja every 2 weeks now.
I always look up. But I haven't gotten her number yet 😭
Let me tell you something, some people will make you put your phone down and look up at your own life. When that happens, walk over. Don't let the gate close. But get a contact unlike me.
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