To the left of where I stand, Hartsfield-Jackson’s International Terminal Pre-Check line, is a ten row by fifty column snakeline, replete with travelers, humans, business folk, men, women, children, vacationers, the old, the strong, the sexy, the irritable, the feeble, the line cutters pressed for time. Everyone sliding, inch-by-inch, in step-and-stand traffic towards the security checkpoint: TSA. Most of them have their necks hunched over a phone, though that is a separate point. The point: how astounding it is. Before the snakeline is a separate line, another 25-yards of single-file herding so far extended, the beginning extends past the last bag-check stand. The terminal’s entrance forward starts twenty-paces backward, until, after panic-waiting, wondering, “Is this where I am supposed to be,” an untrained attendant asks to see your boarding pass, confirming either, “Yes, this is the line for you [you may now leave the preliminary line to enter the real line],” or they will say, “No, you have special clearance and must proceed to the expedited line. [What, you fool, were you thinking to be standing here?]” In the waiting line, you down your bottles: no liquids; you empty your pockets: nothing on your body except what most immediately hides your sexual bits; no shoes; no hats; no overcoats; not belts; no pocket items: no wearables, watches, fitness trackers, nor implants. “Oh, I am sorry. You cannot remove implants? You come here, a special pat-down.” It is an orchestra: machines, expensive machines, engineered by bright men and women, run by the logic of software, expensive software, engineered by bright men and women, operated by service men and women, government employed, or at the least, contracted, for minimal pay, hired with the help of a union and their union lawyers, expensive lawyers, educated by the brightest professors, all mandated by federal, international, avionic law. The waiting, eventually, ends. The time comes when we must pass through this checkpoint. You are motioned forward: a grunt, a wave, a raised sign, like an auction number card, the officer’s bid for you: “Next.” Your irises are scanned, your government-issued IDs verified, your boarding pass reviewed. Do the names match? Yes. No? Is there a typo? Why are you not who you say you are? Distrust. You must print a new boarding pass. Then you may proceed to the baggage x-rays, the computer tomography machines, government contract brand names, rendering clothing, underwear, disheveled dopp kits, miniaturized toiletries, all in digital, three-dimensional space to be reviewed from every angle on touch-screen monitors, confirmed that what you are traveling with is what you say you are traveling with in compliance with the airline’s terms and conditions, the agreement you made to leave behind your aerosols, firearms, swords, bombs, and other violence makers. Is your bag free of these? Yes. No? Is there an anomaly? Why does your bag contain what it must not? Distrust. Set it aside, detain it. Open it up, swab it, scent it. Test it for bomb dust. For bombs. All clear. Now it is your turn, the human, made of flesh and blood. You step inside, hands raised for the firing squad, this glass tube that shoots millions of millimeter-sized radio waves at you, into your body, to separate in digital three-dimensions, bodily organics from weaponry. Are you wearing only cloth and skin? Yes. No? Is there an anomaly? Why is your body not what you say it is? Distrust. Pat-down, further x-ray scans. An interview. All clear. If you are lucky, you have passed through these checkpoints in one-hour’s time. If you think yourself special, you pay premiums to skip the line (like me), selling your fingerprints and image to the government database, qualifying for pre-check, or paying membership dues to qualify for corporate fast-passes, “Clear” lines, international entry agreements, and anything else to shave even seconds off this ordeal. Why, then? Why? Why do we endure this hassle; how did this racket begin? There are now entire generations who know only indirectly that upon a time some decades ago, humans intentionally, fanatically, religiously, dedicated their lives, in the misguided name of their God, to kill, by the thousand, their fellow siblings. Sorrowful tears would follow, one-million gallons of wet weeping, one million tonnes of rubble, and this would be our response: memorials, yes, wars, yes, but also this, this peculiar new edition to air travel, a plural billion dollars in infrastructure, machinery, and labor to delay the millions, adding hours to every flight, sowing fear into every man so to stop the one, the two, the few who for no good reason have grandeurs of death and destruction upon their fellow brothers and sisters who they believe lead wrong lives. Isn’t it peculiar, waiting here to fly, all that’s transpired for you to merely miss your flight?
Miss Your Flight | Poem
To the left of where I stand, Hartsfield-Jackson’s International Terminal Pre-Check line, is a ten row by fifty column snakeline, replete with travelers, humans, business folk, men, women, children, vacationers, the old, the strong, the sexy, the irritable, the feeble, the line cutters pressed for time. Everyone sliding, inch-by-inch, in step-and-stand traffic towards the security checkpoint: TSA. Most of them have their necks hunched over a phone, though that is a separate point. The point: how astounding it is. Before the snakeline is a separate line, another 25-yards of single-file herding so far extended, the beginning extends past the last bag-check stand. The terminal’s entrance forward starts twenty-paces backward, until, after panic-waiting, wondering, “Is this where I am supposed to be,” an untrained attendant asks to see your boarding pass, confirming either, “Yes, this is the line for you [you may now leave the preliminary line to enter the real line],” or they will say, “No, you have special clearance and must proceed to the expedited line. [What, you fool, were you thinking to be standing here?]” In the waiting line, you down your bottles: no liquids; you empty your pockets: nothing on your body except what most immediately hides your sexual bits; no shoes; no hats; no overcoats; not belts; no pocket items: no wearables, watches, fitness trackers, nor implants. “Oh, I am sorry. You cannot remove implants? You come here, a special pat-down.” It is an orchestra: machines, expensive machines, engineered by bright men and women, run by the logic of software, expensive software, engineered by bright men and women, operated by service men and women, government employed, or at the least, contracted, for minimal pay, hired with the help of a union and their union lawyers, expensive lawyers, educated by the brightest professors, all mandated by federal, international, avionic law. The waiting, eventually, ends. The time comes when we must pass through this checkpoint. You are motioned forward: a grunt, a wave, a raised sign, like an auction number card, the officer’s bid for you: “Next.” Your irises are scanned, your government-issued IDs verified, your boarding pass reviewed. Do the names match? Yes. No? Is there a typo? Why are you not who you say you are? Distrust. You must print a new boarding pass. Then you may proceed to the baggage x-rays, the computer tomography machines, government contract brand names, rendering clothing, underwear, disheveled dopp kits, miniaturized toiletries, all in digital, three-dimensional space to be reviewed from every angle on touch-screen monitors, confirmed that what you are traveling with is what you say you are traveling with in compliance with the airline’s terms and conditions, the agreement you made to leave behind your aerosols, firearms, swords, bombs, and other violence makers. Is your bag free of these? Yes. No? Is there an anomaly? Why does your bag contain what it must not? Distrust. Set it aside, detain it. Open it up, swab it, scent it. Test it for bomb dust. For bombs. All clear. Now it is your turn, the human, made of flesh and blood. You step inside, hands raised for the firing squad, this glass tube that shoots millions of millimeter-sized radio waves at you, into your body, to separate in digital three-dimensions, bodily organics from weaponry. Are you wearing only cloth and skin? Yes. No? Is there an anomaly? Why is your body not what you say it is? Distrust. Pat-down, further x-ray scans. An interview. All clear. If you are lucky, you have passed through these checkpoints in one-hour’s time. If you think yourself special, you pay premiums to skip the line (like me), selling your fingerprints and image to the government database, qualifying for pre-check, or paying membership dues to qualify for corporate fast-passes, “Clear” lines, international entry agreements, and anything else to shave even seconds off this ordeal. Why, then? Why? Why do we endure this hassle; how did this racket begin? There are now entire generations who know only indirectly that upon a time some decades ago, humans intentionally, fanatically, religiously, dedicated their lives, in the misguided name of their God, to kill, by the thousand, their fellow siblings. Sorrowful tears would follow, one-million gallons of wet weeping, one million tonnes of rubble, and this would be our response: memorials, yes, wars, yes, but also this, this peculiar new edition to air travel, a plural billion dollars in infrastructure, machinery, and labor to delay the millions, adding hours to every flight, sowing fear into every man so to stop the one, the two, the few who for no good reason have grandeurs of death and destruction upon their fellow brothers and sisters who they believe lead wrong lives. Isn’t it peculiar, waiting here to fly, all that’s transpired for you to merely miss your flight?