What if your entire world self-destructed right before your eyes and all you could do was sit and watch with dreadful fascination? What if everything that you ever considered as your own, slowly and gradually ebbed away from your life and all you could do was stifle the agonizing scream rising up inside you that urged your now-crumbling away life to come back to you? What if, by a cruel twist of fate, you were forced to give up all that was near and dear to your heart and embrace a completely different world? These thoughts raced through Arianna’s mind as she contemplated what she had just heard her parents say. She knew in her heart that these thoughts were no longer mere questions but instead questions whose answers she was about to find out sooner than she liked.
Arianna was British by birth and ethnicity but had spent her whole life in Dubai. She had come to Dubai in the 1990s as a toddler and henceforth grew up to embrace it as her home. True, she always went once a year to Britain during the spring break but she had always considered Dubai as her real home. Now, at the age of 16, she found out that she would have to bid adieu to the life she had known so far. Her dad had apparently got a more promising job in the UK and had decided to migrate back for good.
She quickly reflected upon the past 16 years in Dubai and what she would miss the most. She thought of her friends at school, the ones who had witnessed her change from a still-struggling-to-find-her-voice 9 year old to a comparatively bolder and more experienced 16 year old teen. She thought of the neighbourhood she had lived in her whole life. The one she thought she knew inside-out but still, even after 16 long years, continued to surprise her everytime. She thought about the city Dubai. The city which combined the best of both worlds. The city where the glitz and glam of its record-breaking skyscrapers and shopping malls meet the rich heritage and tradition of a royal past to give you the ideal, almost-flawless society. The city she called home.
Days melted into weeks and weeks into months. Before she knew it, she was packing her suitcase for what she knew was her last ride back to Britain. She had bid a teary farewell to her friends and family with the promise to keep in touch through Facebook or whatever new social-networking website would take over the world.
Now, she was walking down the aisle at the airport, carrying her passport in her hand, dragging her overstuffed suitcase behind her and mindlessly following her parents. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. She had always thought about what would happen if she had to leave Dubai and go back to Britain but she never thought she would find out so soon.
Hours ticked by and finally the moment had come – she was saying goodbye forever to her home. As she was about to step inside the plane, she took one last long look at the city she had embraced 16 years ago as her home – the city of dreams, her city, her home away from home.