When you step through the sliding doors from security into the main hub of the Detroit airport, you breathe a slide of relief. Your passport is stamped, your luggage rechecked for Boston, and you still have two hours before your connecting flight. Maybe you can grab a meal.
You've been holding your cellphone in your pocket since the escalator, and you turn it on without taking it out, you feel it vibrating to life. You navigate around businessmen, families, and backpackers until you find the monitors announcing departures and arrivals. By the time you find departures, the number you dialed is ringing. By the time you find your flight, someone answers hello.
You say, "I'm back."
+
There is only one place where you can smoke a cigarette in this airport, and in your quiet corner table, sipping your Rolling Rock, ignoring the dozens of sports games on the dozens of television screens around you, you text idle messages to him just because you can.
who d hel cares about college foot ball?
guy behind me smells like a dumpster
wats up
You have another beer, you have another cigarette. You meander to your next gate listening to the Dandy Warhols on earphones, and you wonder if it's sad that you have a favorite band to listen to for each airport you frequent. You stop here to window-shop duty-free perfumes, you stop there for a coffee. It sort of niggles at you that you haven't bought him a birthday present yet, and you idly think you might buy one here but no, you'd never buy anyone's birthday present from an airport.
You text, what do u want for yr birthday?
The reply: you.
You smile; you can't help yourself.
+
The girl beside you is about your age, with glasses and a shawl wrapped around her as she sleeps. Her copy of Life of Pi lies face down on her lap, and you wonder which school in Boston she goes to. One time, you had this really awesome conversation with a physics professor about beauty and meteors, but you're more reluctant about pursuing those conversations these days. When the girl wakes up for peanuts and water, you don't say anything.
The inflight magazine shows the architecture of the airport, the locations of internet access and toilets and the various gates. These large concatenations of concrete, glass, and metal; these solid structures housing transience. These large windows through which you can see the airplanes wink in and out of the clouds. You remember being a child and holding the hand of your grandmother mother father aunt, waiting at the airport and watching the sky with rapt attention. Something was going to fall out of it, and it was going to be for you.
You can't remember the first time you were on a plane, whether you were headed to Yogyakarta or Singapore. Ever since you were six, you have been told that your home lies somewhere else, like it was some mythical land over the sea. It's a little sad and it's a little funny, and you go through your life collecting homes the way others collect snowglobes and rare postmarks.
A disembodied voice tells everyone to buckle their seatbelts. Touch-down is in approximately forty minutes. Outside the window, the constellations of Boston streetlights stretch out in all directions. It is winter here now, and man do you hate New England weather, but the weather is not why you come back.
You turn on your cellphone as soon as you step off the plane and already there is a text: im by baggage claim
Re: ask away, you say...
You've been holding your cellphone in your pocket since the escalator, and you turn it on without taking it out, you feel it vibrating to life. You navigate around businessmen, families, and backpackers until you find the monitors announcing departures and arrivals. By the time you find departures, the number you dialed is ringing. By the time you find your flight, someone answers hello.
You say, "I'm back."
+
There is only one place where you can smoke a cigarette in this airport, and in your quiet corner table, sipping your Rolling Rock, ignoring the dozens of sports games on the dozens of television screens around you, you text idle messages to him just because you can.
who d hel cares about college foot ball?
guy behind me smells like a dumpster
wats up
You have another beer, you have another cigarette. You meander to your next gate listening to the Dandy Warhols on earphones, and you wonder if it's sad that you have a favorite band to listen to for each airport you frequent. You stop here to window-shop duty-free perfumes, you stop there for a coffee. It sort of niggles at you that you haven't bought him a birthday present yet, and you idly think you might buy one here but no, you'd never buy anyone's birthday present from an airport.
You text, what do u want for yr birthday?
The reply: you.
You smile; you can't help yourself.
+
The girl beside you is about your age, with glasses and a shawl wrapped around her as she sleeps. Her copy of Life of Pi lies face down on her lap, and you wonder which school in Boston she goes to. One time, you had this really awesome conversation with a physics professor about beauty and meteors, but you're more reluctant about pursuing those conversations these days. When the girl wakes up for peanuts and water, you don't say anything.
The inflight magazine shows the architecture of the airport, the locations of internet access and toilets and the various gates. These large concatenations of concrete, glass, and metal; these solid structures housing transience. These large windows through which you can see the airplanes wink in and out of the clouds. You remember being a child and holding the hand of your grandmother mother father aunt, waiting at the airport and watching the sky with rapt attention. Something was going to fall out of it, and it was going to be for you.
You can't remember the first time you were on a plane, whether you were headed to Yogyakarta or Singapore. Ever since you were six, you have been told that your home lies somewhere else, like it was some mythical land over the sea. It's a little sad and it's a little funny, and you go through your life collecting homes the way others collect snowglobes and rare postmarks.
A disembodied voice tells everyone to buckle their seatbelts. Touch-down is in approximately forty minutes. Outside the window, the constellations of Boston streetlights stretch out in all directions. It is winter here now, and man do you hate New England weather, but the weather is not why you come back.
You turn on your cellphone as soon as you step off the plane and already there is a text: im by baggage claim
You walk a little faster.