Dusk of another (b)day.

This plane should have taken you to Paris, dimwit. Or Amsterdam, or Munich, or Vienna. No, make it Bruges. Instead, as usual, this took you to hell and back. Where's the beer, loser?

::: A day before my birthday, I was still in polluted Manila but on the way to the airport going back to Davao. As usual, I can’t wait to go home, though when I learned of this official trip a week and some days ago, I contemplated on staying there for the birthday and probably watch The Killers’ concert. The Killers, gosh! Even if I was able to save up, nobody would really accompany me. Besides it’s just plain weird, and stupid to go alone. Imagine a stampede; nobody would really give a shit about my sorry ass.

Finishing the inevitable airport niceties, which I absolutely loathe, I scoured a not-so-comfy seat, picked out Netherland, and read away, occasionally pausing, and looking around. It’s funny how we hate the airport; its clinical methodology and bland faces of strangers, but then the lulls provide enough impetus to drift us into reveries and introspection (I always have this funny story to tell though). It’s probably just me, I don’t know. Some people don’t really give a shit about these sissy things. They go about the perfunctory procedure; they sit, probably buy a food or reading material, and wait for the booming voice announcing the boarding. They enter the tube and sleep, lucid dreams filling up idle time, towards their destinations.

It doesn’t matter if I travel with my colleagues or traveling alone, being at airports give me the same feeling of inexplicable wretchedness, detachment and sometimes, foreboding—which is associated with this paranoia of being up in the air. (During my first flight ever, I clung to the seat like hell, heart pounding, as the plane took off, and silently freaked out whenever the plane shook.) I know my judgment is somewhat unqualified given that I’ve only gone to five or so airports, and perhaps a more comprehensive assessment is that coming from someone whose business requires a great amount of flying (which immediate calls to mind Ryan Bingham, the protagonist of Walter Kirn’s Up in the Air, now adapted by Jason Reitman). On second thought, I don’t really absolutely loathe airports, just the feeling in being one. The architecture can be a thing to marvel, but perhaps only until I see these pieces of architectural prowess.

Going through the first baggage check, I noticed someone familiar who was ahead of me. His balding head, which turned a little bit sideway, confirmed his identity. I knew he took notice of me first while I was towing my trolley on the side. I intend to call him out after the check but I realized he was with a bunch of people, one I recognized. They got their boarding passes in one lane, and mine one lane apart. I held back and try to justify what may appear my reluctant snootiness. I saw him again lugging out in Davao already. While finding my seat at the far back, I noticed a professor of accounting whom I knew when I was working as a student assistant in college. I immediately recalled the name; I realized the last time I met him was also at the airport. Throughout the flight, his named escaped me surprisingly, only to surface again after he politely asked if he can borrow the newspaper. I’m not sure if he remembered my name, but I’m sure I looked familiar to him. I managed a quick glance, but regained my reluctance again. I didn’t see him at the claim area.

This “detachment” perhaps is more related to the “procedures”, the obligatory feel to it renders us like products being manufactured and determined fit for “sending out”. It sucks the life out of us. It sends us into this mechanical state of indifference.