Home

She's walking down the street outside the American-style joint, her burgundy boots climbing to her knees and matching bag 'round her shoulder. Hair that's the colour of sand in water sweeps down to the middle of her back, and sunglasses, the Jackie O kind of deal that never went out of style, obscure most of her face.

To be honest, she's not dressing to turn heads. She's been wearing boots with a matching bag since she was old enough to grasp the concept of taste. She doesn't dye her hair, and it's bright enough outside to wear sunglasses without being tacky. And you can tell from her really bad posture (bad enough for ME to note it, for Chrissake) that she doesn't like the attention she's getting despite her efforts to avert it.

Though really, when you've spent most of your life as a white middle-class woman in North America, I guess suddenly being part of a visible minority in a country where they don't even speak English is an uncomfortable and upsetting experience.

She walks itno this little greasy spoon and sits herself down at a booth, like the sign at the absent front-desk says she ought to. It's like she's seeking refuge, looking for a familiar place where she can get some of her footing back. She's already letting go of some sort of tension, taking off her sunglasses and throwing off her bag on the chair across from her. Her face is really blotched from the sun, and her nose is starting to peel and shine under the fluorescent light. As soon as she sits down, her vertebrae seem to individually straighten from her arthritic hunch. All seems to be going well for her, until the waitor asks her what she wants. She jumps in her chair, and then stammers something incomprehensible in English, practically on the verge of tears.

Enter Knight In Shining Armour.

I sit down in the chair across from her, giving back her bag, and I say, in fluent English, "Honey! There you are!" before I turn to the waitor, tell him we're still thinking about it, and ask for a couple of waters anyhow. He nods and leaves.

"Oh God, thank you so much," the woman says tearfully, before she realizes what's happened. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Cas Dominick. It's okay. I'm not weird," I grin. "The burgers here are all right, by the way, but I'd steer clear of the tuna surprise."

"I always steer clear of things with the word 'surprise' in them," she mutters, "especially if they're meant for human consumption."

There's an awkward silence before she quietly says thanks.

"No problem," I assure. "I'm just wondering why a tourist such as yourself seems to be lost in a city like this. Bad things've been known to happen to visitors here, you know. It's in the news sometimes."

"Yes, I know," she says, and frustration, almost as intense as the red of her hair, finally shows up in her eyes. "My brother's on a mission here, you see, and I decided to pay him a visit. That's why I'm stuck here for three days, in this godforsaken, hot country, completely lost. There are people everywhere, but I can't ask any of them for help. It's like dying of thirst in the middle of an ocean."

"I love that song," I say, and quail apologetically under her sharp gaze. She's pouring her heart and soul out to a complete stranger, after all- The very least I can do is cut back on today's sarcasm quotient. "But I know where you're coming from. I had the opportunity to travel to strange places, too. Most of them were strange, I mean. Some of them were just boring. But none of them were home."

She stares at me, and I'm afraid I might have lost her completely. I swallow back my sudden doubt. Maybe I haven't found her, then.

Homesickness doesn't seem such a commodity as it was. There was a time when travellers felt so isolated that nobody really travelled for pleasure, per se. Then cell phones came in and the world got smaller and you could be at home so long as you had a laptop. When I travel, though, I don't have a cell phone, just because I don't have a family to call. You could say that it's impossible for me to get homesickness, because I don't have a home to begin with. But I get homesick in a different way. It aches, like a phantom limb, or like an instinct that should have gone away thousands of years ago, when we started painting caves with more than one colour. I long for a home to long for. A person can be a home.

But she nods, and says, "Thanks, that helps."

The next awkward silence is broken when she gets a call on her cell phone. From the angry relief in her voice, it's evident she's talking to her brother. She's gone before the waitor comes back with our water.

"What will you be having, then, Miss?" the waitor asks, looking out the window disapprovingly. You can just tell what he's thinking- Stupid tourists, always in a rush. Can't even tip. Amen, brother.

"Burger, then," I say absentmindedly. Home, it seems, is still a long way away.