Flotsam and Jetsam

August 14, 2010

You know an airport lounge is a strange place. I’m stuck in Toronto again for four hours between a flight from Washington and one to London. We’ve got the normal range of drinks and some dried out pasta with over sweet sauces plus the odd packet of crisps. There are some worn out children slumped in one corner and and overactive group on a sugar high in the Salle des enfants. Opposite s someone suffering from terminal depression (well that is how he looks to me). Behind I have a couple running through a well rehearsed routine of indifference responding to continuous nagging. I’ve managed to get rid of the woman who wanted to tell me her life story, she has just moved over the Mr Depression so that might work out. To my right three people have been asleep on the floor for the past hour and one can only hope they haven’t missed their flight, but the tattoos are sufficient intimidation for me not to risk waking them up to check. Given it is the weekend we have a mix of holiday makers in shorts and few business travelers who had to stay too late on Friday to make it back that night (I am in that category). Of the laptops visible Mac dominates (increasingly the case). Multiple screens display CNN without the sound, and one can only be depressed by the intolerance of the mosque controversy. Another hour and I will pack up and stagger down to the gate hoping against hope for an upgrade the chance to sleep, perchance not to dream.

The airport lounge is the new Limbo, a loose collection of people only united by a state of sin, not yet assigned to the hell. Infants as yet unbaptised, good people awaiting redemption is possible, and those being cleansed of sin in preparation for a better place.

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