Untitled

airports and things and whatever. why is the genre experimental? who knows

I

On the way home from a trip to Walt Disney World ten years ago, I�"in a maneuver characteristic of my five-year-old self�"decided, while my parents weren’t looking, to climb onto the John F. Kennedy International Airport baggage conveyor system and see what was on the other side of the rubber flaps from which suitcases often magically appeared and disappeared. The trip took only a few seconds but was quite disappointing in the end; the “other side” (which I had previously imagined as some sort of magical playground in which all the lost baggage formed a sort of Chuck E. Cheese-esque ball pit of paraphernalia) consisting only of an angry-looking man in blue gloves sitting at an IBM computer and chewing gum. Before the man could reprimand me for my foolish actions, I scuttled back out onto the terminal. My parents hadn’t noticed, and we drove back to our house within a matter of hours.

II

The man wearing the blue gloves was named Anthony Wilkens and, three hours after I had performed my little feat, his shift was over. He drove home and had a dinner of lemon chicken and mashed potatoes with his wife, Marla. Both of them talked about their day, as was routine, after which Marla, suddenly and�"to Anthony, at least�"frighteningly claimed that she was ready for a child. Not that she wanted one, but that she was “ready,” as if they had been planning this whole time on having a child but that something in her state of mind or body had gotten in the way. Anthony was suddenly reminded of me and my baggage-conveyor escapade. He laughed (which both confused and upset Marla) and told her about the incident. “I remember when I was a child,” he said after he finished the story, “I had always wanted to do that. You know, climb in with the baggage and see what was on the other side.” He laughed, and then realized that, as a child, he had never even been in an airport. He stopped chewing his food and briefly wondered who had implanted that false memory within him.

III

The next morning, Marla took a flight, via the JFK International Airport, down to Baltimore to visit her parents, Jeffery and Danielle Simmons. Upon arriving at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, she saw her mother staring at her in a manner that was unusually somber. Marla rushed over to her mother and asked what was wrong. She did not say “hello,” nor “I missed you,” but, coldly, “What’s wrong?” On the excruciating drive to her parents’ house, Marla persistently repeated the question, each one like a small prod into her mother’s side that eventually led to an outpour of tears. Danielle, though her tears, told her daughter what was wrong: the day before, Danielle’s husband (and Marla’s father) had committed suicide by hanging himself in the bell tower of the local elementary school. After being told this, Marla suddenly realized that she had left her suitcase on the terminal conveyor belt. It would be a tragedy if it were stolen, as it was full of important and expensive things.