Airport terminals seem to me places suspended in their own reality. The weary woman with her infant; the wonder-eyed kids with backpacks; the disgruntled, underslept consultant in formals; the family with no concept of personal space or volume control; the man, and it’s mostly a man, who thinks the airport is a hotel and the stewards his servants; the doe-eyed couple on their honeymoon, apparent from their body language; All alert at 3 AM, seemingly indifferent to being carried in space around a rotating and revolving planet in a big, metallic box held together by the laws of physics and the ingenuity of humans. The baristas and flight crew offering their smiles at the strangest hours; the immigration officers refusing to, looking beyond you as they speak to you; the security officers moody – at times helpful, other, short tempered; porters walking like they own the place, cutting through queues; the flight crew strutting in pairs or threes, never alone. 

Everytime I enter an airport terminal, two things happen. First, I am reminded of the movie The Terminal. Tom Hanks stranded on an airport terminal, temporarily a denizen of nowhere as his country undergoes a military coup, rendering his passport invalid. Catherine Zeta-Jones running around catching flights, always making time to pick up History books from the bookshop. “I have to go”, “I have to stay”, they remark to each other. In that space when we clear the immigration check but are yet to board the plane, we are all denizens of nowhere. One country says we have left and the other doesn’t know when we will arrive. We all belong to Krakhozia for a while. 

Second, I am reminded of the times I have traveled before. I will be standing in the queue for the check-in or in the boarding lounge or browsing the overpriced books in the bookstore, and my memory will retrieve something from millions of mental threads. Time curls and folds on itself. And like a body in jet lag, I become suspended in time.