Arrive verb

Arrive verb.

1. To reach a place, especially at the end of a journey: as in, Ulysses arrived at the airport, and walked up to the terminal as a gust struck his darkskinned face. He had prayed for sixteen hours, asking the gods to make his motor cortex understand that in this land push means push (pʊʃ) while in his land pull means push (puxe), but it came to nothing, as his hands forced the double doors that never gave in.

2. Of an event. To happen or start to exist: When the time arrived, after the moon had rotated more times than he could bother to count, Ulysses packed the luggage his father had paid for in ten instalments, because a truck driver can only spare so much of his salary.

3. To reach a place or decision: To arrive on that continent, Ulysses worked shifts of ten hours from Monday to Saturday. On Sundays, he would sell slices of carrot cake, whose lemon glaze made him relive his mother’s bedsheets flapping above the blue and violet geraniums.

4. To achieve success: To wire one hundred euros to his father on a day with a good conversion rate, would mean his father’s health insurance payment — would mean Ulysses had arrived.