Airport

 

From the plane: 

snow on the mountains above Christchurch.

Crossing into the Drop Off lane is half the battle. Swerving taxis have a mind of their own. Climbing the ramp, the airport comes into view. Missing are the old signs for International and Domestic. Muscling ubers behave as if you’re competition. Parking is miss and hit if you’re not careful. Finding a vacant opportunity, we signal into the gutter. Lifting the one piece of luggage permitted from the hatchback. Recalling the Vietnamese driver yelling from his tram at a pushy car: okay, you want hatchback, you get hatchback! Sliding doors invite you and your wheelie-case onto the concourse. Looming are squadrons of robots squat in squares on the bright marble. Swirling travellers negotiate the robots, attentive but anxious. Sliding your grotesque passport photograph into a cradle, the robot lights up. Greeting you by name with instant recognition, you wonder how the robot knows. Curling luggage tags snake from an aperture. Whirring of luminescent slot delivers your very own boarding pass. Stunning as it seems, you recognise what it is. Checking its seating arrangement, you learn you will sit near the cockpit. Half-wittingly you search for a human to approve the one piece of luggage. Smiling, someone in Premium asks if the case go on the conveyor belt. Winging it, you had already slid the curling tag through the handle in a quadruple Möbius strip. Lifting the case into place you hope to see it again at the other end. Disappearing through rubber veils it’s a weight off your shoulder. Ping go phones some areas, and more ping tones. Missing the old customs already, communication for example, the human voice (to coin a phrase), you head in the direction of customs. Resembling a production line, it is approached via a labyrinth of queue cordons on posts. Rotating with rolling cylinders, hand luggage and coats and other hard objects whisk off in containers towards the unflappable x-ray. Removing your belt (buckle thereof), you hold up your pants as you enter the metal detector. Glowing, according to the monitor, is something in the back pocket. Arresting is the officer’s objectionable request to pat your backside for what is glowing. Annoyingly, you temporarily lose your unflap, by the official public threat of being handled. Turning all your pockets inside out, they’re empty. Calling for the supervisor, the officer is disconcerted by this “difficult customer”. Feeling his way, the airport customs supervisor explains, as much as to say, they have  a job to do. Knowing you have nothing to hide you offer to stand beltless again in the scanner booth. Astounding, the second time the scan cannot detect any solid evidence of soft inner glow in your back pocket. Wondering, as you walk towards facial recognition, what that was about you are shaken by a close thing to a frisk. Sliding your passport mugshot into the recogniser, you long for Wilde times, when it was enough to declare your genius. Standing on your dignity, the feet outlined on the floor, you must face the truth, you cannot recognise yourself in this tactless robot hell.