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Life, actually…

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DEEP SOUTH AIRPORT WAITING LOT

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I’m marking time in this Deep South village airport cellphone lot.

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This array of idling vehicles constitutes a sub-village of sorts. A place of temporary inhabitants.

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Those of us who are sitting and waiting do not rent space here. We just occupy space. We scratch our phone screens. We allow ear pods to overwhelm and expurgate our thoughts. We fidget. We await the call.

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The call will let us know whether there are delayed or on-time or early arrivals. The call will let us know that the arrivers have descended safely.

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The call will free us up to focus on the next challenge, then the next.

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There is little to do but stare forth through the windshield and note our surroundings. Green hills and one-way arrows and don’t-you-dare-park-here signs. A lone grey trash receptacle and several metallic light poles and some landscaped trees.

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And people. There are people. Nestled all snug in their bubbles. Linked but oblivious of their links.

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ACs and motors hum and grumble, closed windows and locked doors replace would-be side-by-side conversations between waiting-room strangers.

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We only guess at what lies racing through each others’ minds.

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Evidence of lives being lived abound. Car tags display coded and numbered and lettered mysteries. Stickers and slogans and keyed scratches and red mud and hitches hold clues.

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Other hard-to-read-in-the-dark signs and notices tell us we had better do something or not-do-something or face the unknown consequences. A chain link fence enslaves tall ungroomed weeds.

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Fifty shades of gray clouds loll about in the dark, layered skies. Aircraft materialize and descend and ascend. Remnants of once-present objects stand purposeless.

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The ring. The voice on the phone cheerfully announces a soft landing. Onward to luggage retrieval and loved-ones reception

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Soon the second act commences. Now, breathing resumes

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© 2022 A.D. Jim Reed

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