Humans are very good at making something that should be special, mundane. He supposed that could be considered a gift. To master something once undreamt of, to the extent it becomes tedious.
He wasn't a frequent flier. Not out of fear of being in the air. That was the high (heh) point. The problem was everything else involved in the process. But here was, in an airport again. Standing in line, again. First the line to get a boarding pass. Then the security check. The line to board the plane. The line to get off the plane. Repeat.
Maybe it was natural for that to be the most common pastime. Airports were built for endless lines. Long hallways lined with gates filled with uncomfortable chairs, overpriced restaurants and gift shops (he walked past a store and wondered who would decide an airport was a good place to buy shoes). Moving walkways laid out in parallel lines. The runways, all straight lines that intersect at specific points. Go here, turn here and only here.
Of course, nature can only be constrained so long, and humans are part of nature, for all some might insist otherwise. Like paving a river channel to lock water into a set path. The water will still swirl and eddy, find its own current. Sooner or later, it will burst free, and at any moment, that was the people inside the airport. Rushing here, there. Cutting in front of or weaving around each other. Chasing children distracted by something shiny. Walking into each other because they're too busy talking on their phones to pay attention to the person who stopped dead in the middle of the hall.
Sound rebounds at him from a dozen different angles. People on their phones two feet away, giving him a complete rundown of the adoption laws in the state alongside their family dysfunction. Reminders on the PA everyone should still be wearing masks, as he walks past a dozen people who aren't to every one that is. An attendant at the gate, in her best Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny accent, reminding the passengers to put their bags in the overhead bins so everyone can board quickly. It's the third time in the last five minutes she's done that, so it must not be very effective.
No matter which gate it is, it sounds like it's right beside him, making him think it's an announcement about his flight. On the way out his flight was delayed, then bounced from one gate to another, then to a third in a different terminal. Then he was bounced from the flight (for reasons that were not fully explained, gods keeping fire from mortals for, what, because they can) to a later flight in the first terminal. He can't take anything for granted in this labyrinth.
But it's not about his flight, not this time. He tries to blur it, reduce it to a drone and focus on his book while he waits, waits, waits. Just like he reduces all the people to light-and-dark shapes to navigate around while he gets from The Line At Point A to The Line At Point B.
The plane is here, at least. The pilot is not. Caught in traffic, they say. A different maze, but the same design, ultimately. He arrives, they dutifully board the metal tube. The open sky is just above, but the line of planes waiting their turn stretches to the end of the runway. It's like a joke, the path up just to the right, but out of reach. They wait, wait, wait, and then roll past the runway. Storms on the path. Not enough fuel to detour. Back to the gate. To refuel, they say. Another trick, a dead end in the labyrinth. The flight is canceled.
Off to the appointed desk to be re-booked. More standing in line. He reflects Odysseus, Hercules, Theseus, all those guys had it easy. At least a Minotaur is something concrete to fight. Time, or bureaucracy, which is just weaponized time, drag out the proceedings and hope your enemy keels over before you do, is a more difficult foe. He can't stab the lady at the computer, who surely does not enjoy people yelling at her about things beyond her control. But the practiced politeness as she explains there are no connecting flights, so his earliest opportunity is to sit in this airport another 23 hours, still burns like salt. There will be no hotel or food vouchers, because the flight was canceled due to weather.
Caveat Emptor is a polite way of saying, "Fuck you, buddy."
He walks away from the desk, new ticket in hand, feeling unutterably weary. 23 hours of listening to regular reminders not to leave bags unattended or they'll be searched and destroyed. He's rather fond of his shirts, can't have that. Also, don't accept packages from other people. Who would even do that, as he trudges aimlessly down a concourse? Just accept a box from some random person who walks up and asks you to hold it? Sure, it works for Bugs Bunny and Cleavon Little, but are there really that many Elmer Fudds and Mongos around?
Assuming, of course, that flight arrives on time. All around, the attendants are announcing delayed flights, which then become canceled flights. Always very apologetic, but always boiling down to the same thing: You're stuck here. The heavens are denied you. He suspects that if he stayed long enough, he'd get to watch the disintegration of civilization in miniature. He ran out of water a long time ago. Drinks are a minimum 4 bucks anywhere around here. Immortan Joe would fit right in. Sooner or later people would start killing one another to have enough money for a sandwich. On cue, he walks past the "diner" listing a $15 bowl of chili for an
appetizer. There's no picture, but he'd bet the bowl is the size of a
tea cup.
He ponders how it'll happen, if the breakdown occurs. Knives and guns are supposedly not allowed, but humans are creative. Life finds a way, as some putz who wore all-black clothing to a tropical island once noted. Batter someone with oversized carry-on luggage. Garrote them with a phone charging cord in the darkened alcove next to the drinking fountains (which they aren't supposed to use. He does anyway. Dehydration will kill him faster than COVID.) Turn some overpriced perfume and a lighter into a flamethrower, maybe. Can you bring lighters inside airports? He doesn't smoke, and hadn't anticipated the need to make fire, so he hadn't considered that when he packed.
He doesn't like to step outside his plans, but he's going to have to if he wants to escape without going mad. Find another airline, get a ticket. Cancel the other one. If there is a hell and he ends up there, he doesn't need a 23-hour dress rehearsal for the experience. Success, a flight was delayed, but that means it leaves in 2 hours. If it leaves. Take the gamble. Why not?
Through another security line. Every airport seems to have different rules about what to do with
luggage. Put it in the same bin as everything else. Don't put it in a bin at all. This one says put the luggage in its own bin. They pat down one leg from the knee down. The right. He thought the left was the sinister leg.
To the gate. More waiting. The flight moves one gate down. Why? Who knows. He thinks of an ant, that sees a giant shadow that sometimes destroys its home and sometimes passes by. Does the ant grasp the reason why? The plane is there, the pilot is there, but still delays. Bureaucracy, or something with computers. Tickets not letting some people board. He'd like to slam the doors and tell the pilot to get them airborne, but he knows those people want to get where they're going, too. His internal civilization hasn't entirely disintegrated. He'd like a drink, but he'd settle for being in the air.
It's long past dark when they take off. Which means no view of the deep blue, almost violet, sky that's visible when the plane gets above the clouds in the daylight. He loves that. It's like sneaking into a special club, or getting a glimpse of something he's not meant to. This flight's not without its pleasures. The moon's a thin, waxing crescent to the south that he feels he hasn't seen in years. The stars don't look any brighter through the window, but they do seem closer. The cities are just clusters of lights below. He doesn't know which is which, nor does he care, and soon enough they're hidden beneath clouds.
The clouds turn to thunderheads. It's the first time he's seen lightning from above, bursting beneath them, briefly lighting up those dark shadows. Later still, less than forty minutes from the destination, they fly past a cloud shaped like a fat mushroom, the cap rising higher than them. Its interior is lit constantly by flicker strobes of lightning. There must be thunder, but he can't hear it over the roar of the engines. Does it sound different here, where it can't rebound off the ground and the buildings around him? Between the silence, the darkness, and the frequency of the lightning, he's watching a silent, black-and-white movie of Jupiter's upper atmosphere. Some intrepid astronomer in that giant bullet from the Jules Verne story. Missed hitting the Moon in the eye and ended up in the depths of the Solar System. Sending photos or reels of footage back through some ridiculous pneumatic tube system.
What would it be like if they were struck by the lightning? Could this plane make the descent through the storm? He enjoys the view, but wants to be home. Certainly it could. The fastest way to the ground is straight down. He might be a little sleep-deprived, he concludes as they land and taxi to a gate that seems miles away. Wait to disembark, impatience a woodpecker hammering away inside his skull with every person that can't manage to get their bag out of the overhead compartment. You got it up there, how hard is it to get down? It's not a Chinese finger trap, there's no trick.
Off the plane, out the doors, more waiting. Shuttle arrives. Why does the driver go past the doors for people arriving at the airport after the ones for people leaving? Another mystery. Back to the lot and the car. Still there, no flats. The water he left behind is lukewarm, but he drinks it down as he hits the road. It's the middle of the night and traffic is light. There's no more waiting on others, their rules or their screw-ups, he's in control. Let cars pass if they want, he'll pass when he needs to. Time is only a weapon now in that he needs to finish this drive before sleep wins out. As far as weapons go, that's a knife made of foam.
He's out of the maze, until the next time he needs into the air.
