A mysterious stranding

“Every… single… flight?” 

“That’s right ma’am, unfortunately every single flight has been grounded.”

“That’s impossible,” I say with my wittiest retort. People think it’s easy to be on all the time, that when the moment comes, they will have a dramatic, memorable saying. Reality bites and unless you fall back into expletives, which I have used plenty today, then you typically use a mundane response. “But, it’s not possible. Look outside.”

Outside the dozens of locked double doors, the sun is shining brightly, birds are filling the skies with their melodious melodies, and idling cars are blowing out clouds of smog. It’s a normal day. My clerk doesn’t really respond. The smile plastered on her face is no more than a facade to humor me after having this same conversation at least a dozen times so far today. She knows it will happen again, and again, and is probably wishing an AI kiosk could replace her at this moment.

“I understand that it is clear out there, but unfortunately we can not fly in or out and are unable to allow egress as the airport is in lockdown at this time. Please accept this food voucher for a free ten dollar meal to compensate you for the inconvenience.”

The voucher is insulting. This is worse than just an apology. It is worse than nothing. This is an acknowledgment that we have been screwed, and the airline knows they need to compensate us, yet are unwilling to do the human thing and refund our flight, pay for our expenses, or get us a room. I take it with a gruff, “Thanks.” I’m proud, but ten bucks is ten bucks. 

“Sorry…” I say, picking up my phone and the gold voucher I dropped. I was making my way back to security, knowing that the best food and my departure point will be found in the terminals.

“No problem, Alex.”

“Bella,” I take the man whom I ran into’s hand with a smile and a fake name. Don’t get me wrong, he’s cute, but I have a rule, freshly incubated, about giving out my real name to people I meet in the airport. I mean, I am a celebrity. Kinda. I mean, I am a stand up who has performed twenty times in three states.

“Nice to meet you. I actually have that same voucher, believe it or not,” Alex says, flashing his own blood money.

“Funny… Sucks about the delay. Can you believe that they aren’t letting us leave?”

Opps. That was a mistake. Now I’m stuck. Alex has trapped me in the dreaded stranger chat. It is common at bars, in the grocery store line, or simply when someone feels brave enough to break the American social conventions of meeting people online. Normally, there is an easy way out. The line moves forward, you finish your drink in a single gulp, but as I just brought us back to our predicament, we don’t have a place to be. 

“I guess. I mean, it could be worse.”

“Don’t have anywhere to be?” I ask. This man is a freak. He is the first person who isn’t put out by our plight. Maybe he’s a plant. 

“No, my son and wife are waiting for me in Chicago. Just I don’t see any reason to get worked up about this whole thing. We are here and this will be part of the journey.”

“Sure… Well.. I’m gonna get going, you know, find a good place to wait this out.”

“Of course, catch you later,” Alex waves with a smile that reaches his eyes.

“Sounds great. If you find something out, let me know.”

Not the smoothest disengagement, but it worked and was polite. 

Alex leaves and I’m back in my phone, texting, searching, and scrolling like everyone else. There is no national emergency, no alien attack, no biological threat, no cyber attack. The national news hasn’t even picked up on the lockdown. We aren’t trending. Is this really the world thinks of us? If flights around the country had been grounded, that would be better. I would feel better if the world was on the verge of a dystopian collapse because of a misplaced zero or one, or if an anarchist had finally succeeded in taking down the man.

 Instead, all the lights are on. I have five full bars of signal, and there is not a single glitch getting through security. The moving walkways are not stopped and before long I’m sitting down to stretch ten dollars to cover more than a glass of water. 

Six food hack videos later, I’m no closer to solving either mystery and am resigned to the fact that this trip is going to cost me more than I made and I’ll be doing a few extra deliveries to make up for it. But you know, YOLO, I’m not sure anyone actually says that, instead I’ll say “screw it.” Accepting my fate. 

Around me I catch some snippets of my fellow travelers, gossip as useless and informative as national news. I try to strike up a conversation with my waiter, but they could care less about our plight. The wait staff actually seems happy, probably because they think their tips will be better today. Little do they know our frustration will come out against them. In the tradition of capitalism, the only people winning today will be the owners with too much.

“Jim, they have to get us back in the air soon,” I catch magical words behind me. 

“John, we’ll be taking off before you know it. Just be patient. These things happen and blow over. I promise you will get to pilot your first flight today.”

Pilots? Perfect. I turn and see that two tables away an entire flight crew sitting down for a meal. Jackpot!!! 

“Yeah John, it will be just fine,” One of the flight attendants says as she ruffles his hair. 

“You say that, but this is just my luck. Things always happen to me. My first day of school, I got sick. First day of high school, fell and broke my arm. On my first date, I set my car on fire.”

“Wait what?” The flight attendant snaps away from her drink and back to John.

“It’s not important, just… Things always happen and there isn’t a reason. I mean, do any of you know what’s going on?”

I stare, unabashedly like a toddler watching t.v. Waiting for the answer I’ve been searching for. A few seconds pass, then ten. Then no one answers. 

“Exactly,” John says. “No one knows what’s going on.”

“I did hear it was some fuel thing. A shortage at the airport, maybe a delivery is just late,” a male flight attendant speaks up.

“And that’s why none of us are allowed to leave? Give me a break.”

“And who cares? I want to hear more about this fire,” the perky blonde brings the conversation back to the most interesting point. 

After my meal I stalk the terminal for information. I loiter by TSA agents, security, and bodegas alike. I wait by the bathroom and come up with less than nothing. If only I could figure out what was going on I could use it in my show, I could write a story and figure out a punchline. Hey, I could break some news and maybe go viral.

But there is nothing of note or interest. Some people speculate a kid is lost. Others think a contagion has broken out. The outside world doesn’t care. We still aren’t trending. We aren’t important. 

“Is anyone sitting here?”

“Sure.” I say without thinking. Out of the corner of my eye I catch the five o’clock shadow and chiseled face. He’s cute, and after today some eye candy would be a nice distraction. “I’m Michele by the way.” 

“Alex, but I thought it was Bella?”

Alex takes and shakes my hand as I freeze. 

“It was….”

“I see. So is it Bella or Michele?”

“Does it matter?” I say to play it off. 

“I guess not,” Alex shrugs. “So, did you have a good meal? Did you solve the mystery?”

Alex is weird. Not his question, but how he is sitting, what he is doing. Everyone around us is fidgeting, flustered, and aggravated. Even the man sleeping across from me has his arms crossed. The gate agent is rolling her eyes. I’m glistening after the long day. It’s hot, uncomfortable, but not Alex. His shoulders are soft, his face relaxed, and looks like he is celebrating a beautiful day on the beach with a cold beer and some wings.  

“Not yet. How’s your family?”

“They are fine. My wife’s not excited about me being trapped here, but that’s probably because our son is teething and potty training.”

“That sound’s… um… I’ve got to be honest, I don’t have kids so I’m guessing bad?”

“Huh…. Well, it’s not ideal, but I appreciate the honesty. Most people just try to relate. It’s okay to not understand something. It’s just a part of the journey.”

There it is again. The journey. 

“There it is again. This journey. What are you, some sort of yogi? Pastor? Teacher? Motivational coach?”

“I’m a talent scout for a record label,” Alex answers me. “But the journey it’s just life.”

Honestly… Life… Honestly… Is this man a saint? Is he really this chill about being stuck in an airport indefinitely? How… How… Is he so calm, collected, and relaxed? 

“Do you care that we are stuck here indefinitely?” Even if my tone’s rude, this is a mystery I can crack. “I get it when we first met. The day was new. You could just roll with the punches. But after the whole day you are so chill, so calm, so cool. If you are that nice, how can you be okay with your wife dealing with a terror at home that is shitting all over the place? You… I’m sorry Alex, but you don’t make sense.”

It’s rude. Even though I didn’t raise my voice, I have a few stares. There aren’t seats to move to, so I’m stuck, but I had to ask. I had to do it. My day has been spent in mystery and I can’t have saint Alex become another. 

“Feel better?” 

“What?”

“Do you feel better getting that out?” Alex asks politely. 

“I guess,” I answer as people go back to their screens. 

“To answer your question, I care, but I got some work done, ate, and tried to look around at the beauty of this place. Did you know that there is an art exhibit in terminal C or there are over twenty-three different convenience stores?”

“You can’t tell me spending your day visiting convenience stores is better than being home?” I push.

“No, but I control what I can control. For whatever reason, we are all stuck, and it sucks some, but why should I focus on that? I can’t be there for my wife right now. I can’t go to the gym. I can’t fly or leave. I also can’t suit up and play in the NHL, I’m never going to write a book, and I can’t cook, so I’m not going to open a food truck. Believe it or not I don’t lament those opportunities either. I used to complain all the time. Then one day I came back from a trip, ran into a neighbor, and you know what they asked me?”

“How are you doing?” I offer. 

“Exactly!!” Alex jumps excitedly. “And I responded with not too bad. Not too bad, is really what I said. At some point negativity became my default setting. Was my day great? No. Was it bad? No. I had a good job that supported my lifestyle. I had a home, my health, and my family. In the grand scheme of things I was doing great, better than I had been a year, five, ten years before. I knew in that moment that I spent my time catching up with people by complaining about what I didn’t have, what had gone wrong, what I was worried about.”

“Everyone does that,” I say. 

“A lot of people do, but we don’t have to. Bad things happen. You should talk about them, try to fix them, make amends, or change your behavior. That’s all fine. But focusing on the bad, I didn’t want to do that anymore. I would rather give air to the positive things in my life. I’m hoping for the rest of my life whenever someone asks how I’m doing, I can honestly say ‘good, how are you?’”

Ten hours later I boarded the plane. All in all I spent twenty three hours in a locked down airport and never found out why. Twenty hours into our plight things just started moving again, and that was it. No one knew why or what changed. It just did.

I would like to say I spent that time talking to Alex, but I didn’t. I spent most of my time trying to find out what was going on. I’m annoyed that I spent a day trapped in an airport. And yet his words, that thing he said about honestly saying ‘good how are you’ is a gnat buzzing around me. It is an itch just out of reach or a song stuck in your head. Did he change me? I don’t think that much, but I just can’t get that idea out of my head. 

“Again, sorry about the delay.” The flight attendant says as we finally disembark in Chicago. 

“Don’t worry about it,” I say off handedly. “It’s all a part of the journey.”