Transit-10N

I had to take the next flight out of the city. 

Everyone was going home for the holidays. 

Families, friends, lovers, genial strangers, 

all clamoring to their designated departure gates 

as the boarding signals go green. 

Or was it blue? I don’t recall. 

The airport has always been in motion 

but tonight, somehow, it oozed a kinetic flair. 

You could trace each movement with lines, 

crests and troughs, like information 

passed along the electromagnetic waves 

without the need of a medium. 

There were no announcements over the PA, 

given its recent status as a silent airport. 

Just a handful of delirious ground staff 

trying to call out names like lottery numbers, 

their necks stretched over the tight collars and ties, 

pleading with their eyes for their luck to change. 

Soon, everyone would eventually make their way 

into the underbelly of those metallic monstrosities 

that roar to life as they prepare to take off, 

right before their nonchalance and languid demeanor 

overtake the excitement and ingenuity of invention. 

Everything, almost always, taken for granted. 

I double check my ticket every quarter hour or so,  

Seat: 10N – Gate no: 11 – Departure: 3 o’ 5 AM. 

I look back at my watch and sense time ebb away 

one ripple per square feet, egging me into believing 

how everything around me would leave me behind 

alone in an empty airport, between rows of empty aisles. 

But I know that my fears are unwarranted 

for I’ve seen the same in countless others, 

looking at their boarding passes now and then, 

afraid that they might have been left behind. 

Yet each passing moment makes it more apparent 

that the gates will open at their designated time. 

So, I let myself indulge in this passing reverie 

while I wait for my boarding to begin. 

Quintessential human conditioning to circumvent, 

before a sea of unfamiliar faces and figures 

engulf me in their waves of indifference 

while I make my way into the open skies.