White Matter

(a fiction piece)

I miss my flight. 

The connecting Las Vegas International to Cheyenne flight; 1 hour and 49 minutes. On the trip from North Carolina, a woman faints from dehydration. Some WordPress diet blog for forlorn new mothers; a nut job’s advice to shed the stubborn last bit of baby weight by only drinking water when the back of your throat starts to tickle. A stewardess fans an emergency landing pamphlet to circulate stale cabin air around her face. The plane returns to Charlotte/Douglas, reposing another hour on the tarmac. Once awake, the woman waves off paramedics, more humiliated than anything else. When we deplane, 4 hours late, I compliment her pants and idle, hoping something else encouraging or sympathetic comes across. But she looks up in relief and from the ease of her jaw, I hear the blazing stare of 126 passengers start to elapse. 

The gate’s welcome screen reads 1:16 A.M. A few bodies hover in the walkway’s slot machines: an illuminated stoic pale face, a yip and elated shoulder wiggle two spots across from him. The gate’s service rep says the next flight to Cheyenne departs at 9:23 A.M. Don’t worry, we can transfer your miles, he soothes, and out prints a new expiration date for my stay; white tongue, movie-ticket stub edges, my name in early ‘00s pixel font. Boarding time: 9:23 A.M. Eight hours. There are people who have managed this, movies about this even, that have been worse. At least there’s nowhere I’m needing to be.

I walk seven gates down, where a corner bar & grill is dark; long tiki chair legs stretch skyward on the marble bar top. An older gentleman rolls five quarters into a soda machine. This airport must lie beyond the zip code of never sleeps. I’ve read about these — the liminal spaces — those transitional thresholds. A place of suspended static. Empty highways in those purple hours of morning, the home lighting section at hardware stores; barren mall parking lots. Half frightening, half enchanting places of loneliness. A chance to haunt the Earth while still alive.

I choose a seemingly clean patch of airport carpet beside a vending machine as my home for the night. The essentials: an open outlet, available snacks, a water fountain a few steps away. The machine’s metal shoulder even lends some semblance of privacy. My sherbet-green hoodie folded into a pillow, two uncrumpled dollars for a bag of sour cream and cheddar chips; the flight information screen reads 1:37 A.M. before I curl my back against the cool machine and feign sleep. Every half hour or so, I hear the fans above me kick on, but the room stays temperate. The vending machine hums in its electric pulse. I fall into varying lulls of gray, but do not dream. In between the long spans of quiet, I consider reading, scrolling through the news, seeking out personality quizzes, catching up on writing, but my heavy eyelids keep giving way.

After long enough, I get bored of talking myself into sleep. It’s been hours since settling in, since I was last hungry. The terminal hasn’t stirred. I figure I might as well wander. Several gates down, the flight information screen beams, unblinking, 1:37 A.M. in the top left corner. A layer in my stomach twists. I thought it’d be so much later. That can’t be right, though, I’m sure it was almost 2 when I laid down. Desperate for any kind of interaction, I go looking for the service desk to ask for a blanket. They’re allowed to provide these things — always demand a dinner voucher, my father once repeated to my brother when a trip abroad got delayed for maybe an hour. I’m not hungry, I’m not thirsty, but for the moment, I enjoy all the room to dance circles in the walkway. It’s creepy, sure, but it’s temporary. I’ll find someone to bother or befriend in the lobby and talking will make me sleep better.

The service desk at the gate from Charlotte is unattended, as are the following three gates down. I’ve sworn at one point, I heard a door swing shut, a utility staircase or custodial closet; graveyard shift comings and goings, but now I can’t remember when. Every newspaper stand is shuttered, all coffee kiosks closed. The slot machines glitter in hopeful temptation. Digital billboard screens filter through upcoming attractions and music shows in the city. The empty terminal corridor stretches on, glinting in the light. A reaching, bleached white-wall arm, bearing only the echoed whirl of fans overhead. My cellphone reads: 1:37 A.M. I need cold water on my face. Suddenly nauseous, I scramble, hand clutched to stomach, into the nearby women’s restroom; feet tripping over themselves in a dead halt. 

Grocery shelves lead out past my shoes. Tall, aluminum racks, fully lined with the vivid colors and branded advertisements of packaged coffee, navy blue boxes of kids’ sugared cereal, curved glass bottles of expensive Vermont maple syrup. Breakfast aisle, international goods, soups and bulk dinners, toilet paper rolls and paper towels. A Cranberries song I used to love coughs quietly out through the speakers. My shoes screech against the linoleum with each step, eyes dart down one aisle at a time. Empty. School supplies, buttered popcorn and barbecue chips; an end display cooler with racks of Bud Light, each bottle perfectly placed. All the aisles, empty. My pace quickens. Not a single employee, shopper; not one cart. Someone’s shrunk my lungs in the dryer, every breath is coming out a ragged gasp. 

I turn on my heels, breaking into a dead sprint, hoping to God the terminal is still around the corner I came in through. The fluorescent lights overhead turn the sweat on my arms an eerie green. My legs burn in overtime, working against the floor as if it’s sticking to my sneakers. I peel around the corner and crash face-first into the airport’s musted carpet. The acrid scent of old detergent and the underside of strangers’ shoes climbs up my nose.

I jolt up so fast to look around, my neck cracks. Eyes scan every square inch of the gates in front of me, the coffee stand, the blinking lottery games, and still, no one. Before I can open my mouth, a hanging screen just overhead catches my eye. It shifts, without warning, without anyone else to witness. The empty panel of flight information pops up one row of text. I rise up from the floor to read it.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

I don’t breathe. My eyes are locked above me, searching for anything else on the screen, waiting for another message to scroll across. It doesn’t come. I check the top left-hand corner for the time.

2:10 A.M.

with love,

schuyler (sky-ler)
venmo: schuylerpeck