ATL

My eyelids deliberately squeezed shut and pried up, still only half open to the day.  The main-strip of the terminal was abuzz with activity.  People subtly jogging to catch their flights, families zigzagging around confused passengers orienting themselves to the new and familiar environment.  Women spilled out of bathroom entrances, and lines of dead-eyed people shuffled forward to board their planes.

The tile gleamed with white light.

Cheaply produced jazz covers played overhead.  The passenger experience manager must have purchased the CD from an infomercial during a particularly restless night.  It reminded me of Christmas, and I grew suspicious that some nefarious person wanted to induce holiday-travel panic.  Perhaps that was why everyone’s movements seemed so random and ungoverned by the rule to keep to your right.

Who are all of these people, and where are they going?  What are the stories that take them from here to there?