Airport
Being in an airport is one of the most curios things one can experience. It’s a small microcosm of worlds squeezed into a relatively tiny space. It is like walking through the tensed up, feverish ball of society screaming at you to notice it, throwing every last thing way to make you stop, take your wallet out, and appreciate its culture one last time before your feet leave the legal, administrative and economic space from wherein it governs over you.
I looked at a Copenhagen magnet at a gift shop displaying the little mermaid statue. I could smell the fresh perspiration coming from the badly painted knickknack. I had agreed on going on a trip for a seminar, which was being held in Armenia. I didn’t belong to any organization, nor had I thought much about the subject; I have just never been able to turn down an offer to experience something new. Waiting for a stranger I grabbed a beer and ate some nuts. A certain kind of feeling was always present in places like this; a place of arrival and departures. It had become a part of the food stands and the toilets, and the lounges were you sat around and waited, where you drank a beer at 5.30 in the morning. I could sense the restlessness buried underneath the structure, it made my legs jitter.
It presented itself as a small hum going through the hallways, following the people wherever they went. It sat next to me as I wrote on my computer. Ever sounding, never stopping to take a breath. People grouped up in front of the screens telling them about departure and boarding. Resting their hands on the trolley handle they still lingered upon the idea of stability, of certainty, as if they weren’t going to be thousands of meters above ground in a matter of hours. They all came here to let go of the conventional physics, and still they guarded their luggage as if it was a failsafe, as if they could be saved somehow. I looked down between my knees from atop the bar stool at my trolley which was tucked safely between my legs. I ordered another beer.
EDITOR'S NOTE
Lasse is literally going places. Clever sod. Diamond geezer. This series is not in two parts, nor three, but even more. Bringing it back to the age of Dennis Stock, where photography and text were about the reportage. Not photo sharing.