Craig O'Hara | 31
alligator-skin suitcases, travelers grown accustomed to washing their faces, brushing their teeth, shaving in the public bathrooms in front of cracked mirrors, staring at themselves wondering who they might truly be and who they might become over plugged antique porcelain sinks filled with watery soap or shaving cream.
The only thing that pulls everyone together into knots, that fuses the focus of dozens of minds, is the big electronic departure and arrival board that fills the upper reaches of the north end of the terminal. It features the latest technology—a big, thin, flat screen with cold digital lines of vital information. Flight 16 to Toronto . . . delayed. Bus 334 from Phan Thiet . . . delayed. Overnight express train to Barcelona . . . cancelled. Every twenty minutes more updates appear. A distant-sounding electronic female voice announces the changed schedules, the dropped service, the cancelled arrivals. The travelers gather and wait and crane their necks up toward the screen, hoping the conveyance they have been waiting on will finally arrive, disgorge its passengers, be cleaned and prepped for boarding by faceless workers in identical jumpsuit uniforms.
The voice calls out more delays and cancellations: Train 390 to Peoria . . . delayed and will board three hours late. The 9:00 pm ferry to Khartoum . . . cancelled due to mechanical problems. A copse of young vagrants with dreadlocks and brightly woven bags from the highlands of far-off countries nod and take note on electronic tablet devices, an old woman with cold-weather clothes overflowing from a paper shopping bag makes meticulous written records of delays and cancellations. Flocks of old men mumble together in a cloud of cigarette smoke. And the gigantic screen continually changes and lights up and pulses with a life of its own.
A duty-free shop stands along the east end of the lounge. The prices are ridiculous, the products useless: electronic eyeball massagers that, if ever used, would detach a cornea in the most painful way imaginable. Scottish cigarettes, French whiskey. The latest gossip magazines from Romania. Books by authors whose main goal seems to be to construct impenetrable prose around impossible plots. Investigative journalism by incorrigible liars, murder mysteries by those who can’t keep a secret. The middle-aged