translated in Minneapolis, MN

ONE
I’m sitting in an airport in Denver, my tongue burning from the early sips of a chai latte and belly aching from the over-sweetened dinner choice of a brownie that alternated layers between chocolate chips, chocolate cake batter and cheese cake. The scenery is more like a public library. Silently folks shuffle by. Every once in a while a cart stops in front of me, checking literary titles of distant cities and comparing them with a piece of paper clenched in hand.

A bird flies by.

I pause for a moment in the bewilderment of seeing a member of the outdoor community choosing to be indoors. Ticket attendants pause briefly watching it fly overhead, as a child would watch a plane before returning to the on goings of a sandbox. Murmurs amongst the ill-fitting blue blazers breaches the silence in sector C38. This is not the first bird they have seen, nor is it to be the last. The obvious question looms over them, how does one tame an uncaged bird? In an area so vast, with no nest to be found, the grey bird pauses on window sills, glancing outside and turning back to the life cart vendors and shot glass souvenirs.

TWO
I’m sitting on the matte carpeted floor of an airport in Salt Lake City, leaning against a glass elevator attempting to put words to my last ten days. The exhaustion is setting in as the amber ale begins to settle in my belly. Any words, thoughts, episodes from the week deteriorate amongst the gorgonzola cheese and raisins from a California inspired salad I consumed in a mock 50’s airport diner, where feeling depressed at a table for one was the least of my concerns. My eye lids are growing weary.

I board. My bags properly shoved above and below me I stare out the window into the peaks of orange cones below me. I awake to a large thud. My head aches. People are staring. The business men in front of me have turned around to meet my gaze. I’m rubbing my forehead squinting, wave on the attendant who has begun a catwalk inspired lurk my way. The weight of my eyelids fractured the support of my neck causing a collapse when an unassuming sleep found me in seat 7D. My head slammed into the window at the moment of first collapse. I check for cracks. The woman next to me is avoiding eye contact, though I think she’s relieved that for the moment the attention isn’t on her oversized arm cast. The over plastered mass featuring individually wrapped fingers gives the impression of an elementary paper mache project poorly executed by a premature Dougie Howser. Health insurance costs are expensive these days.

THREE
The busty woman sitting across from me is playing with her cell phone while sipping pink contents through a clear straw from the smoothie booth around the corner. The second button of her blouse has come undone just below the ruffles dangling from the collar of the black and white blouse. While I have no problem telling casual encounters that their zipper is down I have no intention of telling her. Does this make me a bad person? Likely just adds to it.