THE AERO BUBBLE*

pretzels in purgatory

Welcome back to AVM Travel Szn. A midweek musing, a dispatch from the nearly-there yet.

*did you know, Salman Rushdie is responsible for 1970’s Aero advert copy? Satanic Verses? How bout Devilishly Delicious

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#9

I CAN’T LOSE ONE MONTH OF MY LIFE, she says, just to puke and puke and puke! My neighbour is eating an airport Pastel de Nata, which she asked her companion to get for her, before pronouncing it the worst of the trip, mid-first bite.

Without context, the pronouncement could be on the interminable process of travel by plane. Of flight sickness specifically, food poisoning via unfamiliar bacteria, or —-the check-in, toiletry throttling, queues for pints and perfume, not to mention legroom lack into the sky and back.

Thanks to a proficiency in the perversion of eavesdropping, I gleaned that the puke was re: Ayahuasca and/or Ketamine retreats. Horses for courses, I guess.

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To look at one’s toiletry habits and learn that they are incompatible with 100ml living is to know that one lives a consistent and full life. Congratulations! You are somewhere long enough to warrant long-term use of liquids, lotions and flammables. So that’s good.

But the more stable a life is, the more millilitres to its name, the less prepared it may be to be thrown into the salad spinner of an airport. If your journey starts inside the speaker of a city-wide street party (or audio equivalent), and sleep accrual is below the five hour mark, you may find yourself knocking back a machine-made espresso in the security queue. It will burn your mouth, perhaps permanently, and certainly some way beyond reach of destination. You may be grateful for the spike to your cortisol thanks to both coffee properties and pain, as the Herculean task ahead comes into view (the security queue).

Who are these people? Where are they going now and where are they the rest of the time? Why am I checking the coin pocket of my purse for bombs? When did I start winking at customs officers in thanks? What am I hoping for here - to fall in love in front of the Oakleys stand? To happen upon a great story? To fabricate a moment fit for a reboot of Sliding Doors? After all these questions, is it nearly time to board?

A suitcase falls handle-first in front of you. What with the 10kg backpack on, it is beyond you to pick it up. Instead, you must wait to see how its owner reacts. In doing so, you are witness to the phantom grab they make for the bag, a moment which surprises you with its vulnerability. There is more to note about this person; they may in fact be the embodiment of the intrigue provoked by and mystery surrounding the other ingredients in the transport terrine.

Two coats. Off-white (colour, no Virgil) fleece trousers, pink sandals, several high-shine pendants with charms ranging from angel to anchor, a perilously low-slung black backpack, and the aforementioned suitcase made by a brand allegedly called Airport. Mid-examination, your attention is raised to their face, upon which a strange, smirk-adjacent look forms. Following it, you see that a couple are coming towards us, apologising for skipping ahead. Our plane is boarding right now. You find the couple’s manner pleasant, their sorry as question genuinely polite, offer an encouraging go ahead as they pass by.

The proto-smirk on the face of my queuemate screams world-weariness. I’m wearing two coats, it says. The airport made my bag. This is not my first rodeo and I’ve seen the ‘plane boarding now’ trick before. And with that, we’re separated. This is airport life! Each man for himself, liminality prevails, best not get attached.

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A German man and his German wife survey their surroundings with some disdain. We do not look our best, the rest of us in the airport, whereas they appear to have had linen steamer access in the early hours. I am wearing all white, with a long chain around my neck, and a cap stitched with only one word: peace. But it’s one table over putting the neigh in neighbours with their appraisal of the holistic health experience they recently spent hundreds on.

An airport’s singularity comes in combining entrapment with travel. One must remain in order to subsequently leave. For a freelance eavesdropper, there is no better place. A petri-dish of people who can afford to travel, which due to budget airlines and their cut prices, halved legroom, is more than ever before. A circumstantial stewing must take place; without hesitation, we take on the flavours of our fellow travellers. They’ll be soon forgot when the seatbelt sign goes off.

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Time, however, has no meaning in the service stations of the sky. A delay may come in over the bows, to which the only response is finding a corner to conquer. This is your home now, time to get wise to the entertainment all around. The pros and cons of narcotherapy, for example. Or the sight of a plane at a perfect sliding angle across the glass ceiling of the departures area, pulling focus back to the feat of gravity-bending engineering responsible for this whole rigmarole.

I would argue, in fact I’m about to, that the full liminality of the airport cannot be broached without a delay, or better still ——- a layover. Connecting one flight to another, siphoned down an oft-times rudimentary set of steps from the plane, bypassing security to emerge through a side door into the heart of duty free. A new time zone, a different language, an arrival into a climate and customs controlled version of _______ (insert country here).

Is neither quite being in one place nor another objectively horrible? Yes. Does it confuse the regulatory system suddenly faced with artificial light, unidentifiable packaged foods, spin-class style soundtracking, and synthetically recycled air? It surely must.

But Hades was a host too; however liminal the time spent in-between, it is still somewhere. So let’s be there. Most of us are being served up a holiday on a plate, siphoned through the touro turnstile upon touch down.

Airports, train station lounges, bus depots; cauldrons of humanity, from which magic will bubble, if into the mix correct ingredients go.

Cards on the table, I don’t like flying much. I cannot shake awareness of the metal cage, how little I know of its mechanics. About travel however, I’m evangelical.

Max the budget, douse the perfume, buy the drinks and occasionally visit the smoking area. By leaning into the purgatorial nature of the experience, toward the fiery flames of flight beyond, one finds all bets to be suddenly, deliciously, off.

Get your suitcase wrapped in clingfilm for the sensory pleasure of travelling with a wheelable block of tofu mid-marinade! What’s the worst that could happen? In the Aero Bubble, you are a citizen of the road, the only loadstone around your neck the guilt of carbon emissions in our bedraggled burn victim of a world. Small fry really, and Greta has much more important concerns. So whilst you’re there, and doing it anyway, I encourage full immersion; pleasure forward, unconstrained, liminal luxuriation.

May you meet your future partner, forge an arch rivalry, and discover a drink to spend more money than your flight on. Must dash, dear readers, I’ve a suitcase to wrap.

Next time: saltwater, sobriety, and a Punat hat.

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💼🫦🌪️💼🫦🌪️💼🫦🌪️💼🫦🌪️💼🫦🌪️💼🫦🌪️💼🫦🌪️💼🫦🌪️

Like James Frey (author, artist, and known truth launderer) says about writing, in order to engage most fully with the state one finds themself in, audio accoutrements should match up. Feeling Devd? Listen to Dev (Hynes, in Blood Orange form). Stuck in the nether-regions of an airport awhile? Whether it be an artist between career milestones, genres, or directly referenced in betwixted lyrics; lean into liminality baby!

7 LIMINAL LICKS