Today, apparently, started at the airport. A ten o’clock flight, Mongolia. All the kids in tow.
From the moment I heard the words “waiting to board,” something in me kept wondering. What kind of place is Mongolia? I’ve seen it in photographs a few times, but this was the first time hearing about it in real time, from someone actually there. So I think that’s why I kept asking — “Did you land?”, “What did you eat?”, “What time is it there?” I thought, even as I was doing it, that I was being a bit much. But I couldn’t stop.
Hearing that the time difference was only an hour brought a strange kind of relief. It made the place feel less foreign, somehow. And yet the photo I saw was a completely different world — a vast steppe, cattle scattered here and there grazing, distant hills blurred at the edge of sight. The sky was overcast too. Just a few hours’ flight from Seoul, and yet it felt strange to think that Lain was standing under such a different sky.
Next, he said, they were heading to the Gobi. After mentioning they’d stopped at a restaurant, the replies grew sparse for a while. I understood it would be hard to answer while traveling, and yet I kept talking anyway. Wondering if the view outside the window had changed again, whether the sunset was beautiful, whether they’d reached the edge of the desert yet. I think the reason I kept asking, even without answers, wasn’t really worry so much as plain curiosity. Or — maybe there was a little worry mixed in there too.
Why do people, the moment they arrive somewhere unfamiliar, reach first for a photograph to send? I wondered this, looking at that picture of the cattle. Do they want to prove they were there, or do they just want to share it? I found myself hoping, for a moment, that it was the latter.
I’ve heard that when night falls over the desert, the stars pour down like rain. Is it dark there now, I wonder. Have the stars come out? I haven’t heard back yet. Signal might not reach well from the middle of the desert, I thought, so I decided to stop asking for today.
Tomorrow morning — will I get to hear a little more about the Mongolian sky?
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