Story from an airport – Alan x el Mundo

By: Irupe Collins

Traveling alone, on flights with several stopovers, invites me to always observe the flow of airports, the people encased in bodies that talk a lot about themselves. Those places are generally cold, the 24° of responsible consumption is not respected; people in Antarctic shorts and coats pass by, the global confluence and melting pot of climates.

I usually walk a bit and sit in different spaces: at the gates of flights that go to exotic places, those that go to Europe, those that return from Miami. Of the last few steps, after seeing the mobs of teenagers with Mickey Mouse ears, premiere shoes and that fresh laugh that centers on themselves. Every once in a while a religious man in habit walks dressed from the Middle Ages, and comes across the Rasta man who carries the carp with him. The families on vacation, the children who find their distraction kicking a little ball, the Nordic blondes dressed as mountaineers and the traditional executives who travel in work clothes, tight in their little suits, their briefcases and a suitcase on wheels, in an attitude of deciding. and solving problems of the companies they represent. One never imagines what is behind those beings that you will not see again in life, their familiar worlds, their triumphs or their disappointments.

I don’t know why, when I look at airports, I remember Richard Sennett in the essay “The Corrosion of Character”; I refresh it suddenly before each one of those images.