Once the restaurants end and the gates begin, the density thins and we pop out into an open area of benches and plastic trees. Further down the hall, another group hovers around a bagel stand, staring at the empty case and pretending to read the menu. Perhaps by accident, a woman stumbles behind the counter. The crowd instinctively forms a line. Before the man at the front can place his order, the newly hired cashier wanders off again, and the line disperses with a vague aura of disappointment.
I watch all this with great interest. Is it just the lingering echoes of old instincts, or a sign of recovery? A stiff body stretching its limbs, testing its reflexes? I remember my first real meal. I’d been trying for weeks. Every evening I’d shove bread in my mouth and force myself to swallow; sometimes I’d even manage to hold it down until Julie finished celebrating before I snuck off to the bathroom to vomit. I didn’t want her to share my worry that I wouldn’t survive my transformation. But then, after about a month, it happened. I felt a stirring of the old hunger. The kind that didn’t demand human sacrifice. I watched Julie frying potatoes from our garden, drowning them in hot sauce, and my stomach grumbled. I wanted food. I didn’t want to suck the lightning out of a human soul; I wanted to eat hash browns. And I ate them. It was another week before I could eat again, and even now my body remains distrustful of such simple, deathless nourishment, accepting it only when starvation is imminent. But that moment gave me hope that I didn’t know I lacked. It was a step.
Now I watch these bewildered corpses stumble through the motions of human gastronomy, and I pour my hope into them. I will them to take the next step.
“Where’d he go?” Julie says, standing on tiptoe to see through the crowd behind us. She hops up on a bench. “Abram? Sprout?”
I don’t need the bench to see that they’re no longer in the hall.
“Did they seriously ditch us?” She cups her hands to her mouth. “Abram!”
“Keep it down,” he says, emerging from a service door with his daughter in tow. “You’ll wake them up.”
Julie sighs. “I hope you feel stupid taking the long way around now that you see we’re all fine.”
“I don’t take risks with my family.” He fixes me with a stern glare. “Where’s your ‘safe space’?”
? ? ?
To Abram’s relief—and mine, if I’m being honest—our route doesn’t take us through the bagel crowd. The hall branches off to the right and I lead us into the elevated tunnel that connects Terminal A to Terminal B. Behind us, the overhead sign promises BAGGAGE CLAIM and RESTROOMS. The book store is called Young’s Bay Books. The intimidating tome in the bestseller kiosk is The Suggestible Universe: How Consciousness Shapes Reality. I smile, remembering the countless hours I spent staring at all the words in this airport, wondering what they were trying to tell me. My budding literacy has lifted a veil from the world, revealing the tips of a thousand icebergs. If I ever have another peaceful moment, I’ll dive deeper. I’ll sit in my favorite chair with my favorite mug of my favorite tea and I’ll read The Suggestible Universe cover to cover. Though I should probably start with the book next to it, Scary Jerry and the Skeleton King. Or maybe the one next to that: Goodnight Moon.
“What?” Julie says, noticing my faint smile.
“Nothing. Just thinking. What’s your favorite book?”
She considers. “I have about fifty.”
“I want to read with you.” My smile expands as I add her to my tea-and-tweed daydream: sitting next to me on the couch, leaning against my shoulder with a paperback spread between her fingers. “Let’s make our dining room a library.”
She drinks in this image with a wistful smile. “That’d be nice.”
The longing in her voice pops my bubble, a cold reminder of our circumstances. What was our actual life a week ago has become an improbable fantasy.
The lights flicker. The generators fire up, or the solar panels activate—whatever forgotten energy source powers this place wakes itself again, and the airport resumes a sad semblance of its former functions. The lights come on, the PA system stutters something about unattended baggage, the conveyors begin to move. I step aboard, Julie hops on behind me, and we take a break while the others walk past us, giving us mildly disapproving stares.
Once upon a time, Julie and I watched the sunset through these wall-to-wall windows. Now we face the other way and watch the sun crest the mountains, flooding the runways with pink light. An American Airlines plane with no engines. A United plane split in two. The blackened wreckage of a private jet. What a sad little island the airport must have been during the last days, when every person in every place thought someplace else was safer. A nexus for all doomed hopes.
I watch the pots of plastic plants glide past us, now overrun with real daisies, and another bit of nostalgia warms my thoughts. I lean over the railing to pluck one, but it passes just out of reach.
By the time we reach the end of the conveyor, the rest of the group is waiting for us, arms folded impatiently.
“What?” Julie says. “We came here to wait, didn’t we?”