Near Life Experience

Scene 1: In which women ejaculate into their phones.

I am sitting in small provincial airport, waiting for my flight to larger transfer airport. The waiting room is very small, but even if it were as big as a cathedral I'm sure her voice would ricochet around and assault me wherever I sat. She is screeching a vast amount of nothing into her phone, but the other passengers seem unperturbed.

"HEE HEE HEE HEE, I am so sorry, we like both keep talking at the same time." Her laugh sounds like a blackboard being fed into a wood chipper.

Now her plane is leaving. It is going in the opposite direction to mine and I am grateful. Another woman becomes audible.

"And that's how you can tell. They really love you. Uhuh. Yeah." It slowly becomes clear, through her beneficence when it comes to sharing conversation, that she is talking about dogs.

Looking through the terminal window, I watch one of the pilots inspecting the nose cone of our worryingly small plane. Then he wanders idly over to one of the propellers and gives it a push to check it spins. It does, which is no doubt a relief.

When we eventually board our plane I am impressed by just how much it sounds like a lawn mower. My seat is singularly uncomfortable, perhaps because the cushion is supposed to be my buoyancy aid in case of the plane going for an unexpected swim.

Scene 2: At a bigger airport

This airport is a fairly major hub, so it is very busy and equally dirty. Classical music is piped throughout the terminal to keep everyone calm. Apparently this is not working, because one of the gate attendants is screaming instructions at the top of her lungs, even though the exterior door is shut so that we can't hear the planes outside. Her target passengers look nervously amused.

I visit the toilets. One of the urinals is blocked and floods the floor each time it automatically flushes. Complimentary wet shoes for all male passengers.

On the plane the camp attendant makes an announcement that is lost in a jumble of static and mincing. I hear only something about 'apologies for inconvenience' the word 'back' and the name of our departure airport. Obviously there is a problem and we are going to have to turn around. Less obviously, what has actually happened is that they forgot to take on drinks and so only diet coke and ginger beer are available. I hate diet coke.

Scene 3: Destination Unloved

It is dark by the time we land, so I have no idea what manner of place I am in; leaving the airport in a taxi all I can see are tail lights and neon signs for tattoo parlours and adult stores. When I arrive at the lab I have to show my identification to the police officer at the main gate. As soon as I have been handed my visitor's badge the taxi driver puts his foot down, nearly taking the officer's arm off as he tries to reach through the window to give me a map of the site.

The site is large and covered in signs telling me to stay to the paved areas if I want to remain free of ticks. I have been told that the only place to find food on site at this time is at the staff bar. When I finally find it, the 'waitress' ignores me for several minutes so that she can finish her conversation with the 'chef', who is leaning on the bar and feeding her gossip. Eventually I manage to order a burger. It tastes so terrible that it reminds me of pub food back home.

Daylight makes apparent the full horror of my surroundings. The cafeteria is housed in some sort of fallout shelter while the department I am visiting has tiny monastic rooms, situated off corridors that reek of man. Someone drives around the site in a car with license plates that read 'LADY DI'.

Scene 4: Beating a Retreat

My first flight is delayed and I am forced to endure more people shrieking into their phones. Unusually there is also a man yelling into a payphone at the far end of the waiting room. The person next to me detonates their bag of snacks while trying to open it and I am maimed by artificial cheese shrapnel.

Looking out the window as we are about to land at the big airport, I can't help but feel that we are very close to the water. And to those trees. Very close indeed. Just before we decapitate some squirrels the engines roar and the plane makes a desperate bid for redemption, leaping upwards before falling again, slamming into the tarmac and veering to the right. Then the left wheel hits the ground and we straighten up.

While waiting in the airport for my final flight, I wander into a newsagent. Inside there is a leash, on one end of which is a woman examining magazines. On the other end there is a dachshund, wearing a jacket of the type often seen on guide dogs. The jacket, in large letters, bears the words 'Therapy Dog'. I decide to go and find some lunch.

After battling with the sandwich wrapper for ten minutes I give up and begin to chew through the packaging. The girl opposite is watching me with a simultaneously amused and concerned expression.
Fuck you girl. Fuck you.

To my left a large woman is complaining to her phone.

"I told her, if they're so busy that they haven't got a free slot for weeks then they should be charging more. Seriously, if they're run off their feet like that, that's what I said."

If there is someone on the receiving end of the call then they aren't saying much.

"I mean at least charge more to the senior people and those who can afford it. I don't mind paying a bit extra, but if I'm going to have to wait weeks I'll start going to another hairdresser."

Behind me, a young lady from the subcontinent takes a seat, closely followed by a greying American. He starts conversation with her by, quite naturally, offering her "a drink of water" from his bottle. She politely declines. Undeterred he fights on, charity incarnate.

"How about a snack, would you like something to eat?"

"No thank you."

"How about a nut? A healthy nut?"

Epilogue

As I cross the arrivals/departures lounge at my home airport, I spy affixed to a column a small sign that had previously escaped my notice:
'Please ask an attendant if you need to use the pet rest area.'