the flying dead.

As I it in an uncomfortable plastic chair at Gate L6A, catching up on season 2 of The Walking Dead, I begin to notice a disturbing resemblance between the reanimated corpses on the screen and my current state. Same blank stare, same determined forward motion, same lack of normal human interaction. Hopefully I don't end up with a crossbow bolt through the eye though.


Is anybody else a travel zombie or is it just me?

As soon as I set foot in an airport, travelling alone, some part of my humanity is checked along with my bags, to be collected upon arrival. Here comes my social skills, rolling down the baggage carousel.

There's something about being in the purgatory of travel; neither here nor there. It's like your soul is un-tethered for a brief time, with no anchor of familiarity, no home. Now, I've done my share of travelling, but even though I can get through security in one pass and know that moving walkways are for rookies, I still seem to float above it all, never letting my guard down, never risking the vulnerability of genuine humanity.

I hear lots of people talk about how they get into deep, life-changing discussions with their seat-neighbor every time they fly or take a bus, but that just never happens for me. Granted, I don't actively try to engage them in conversation, but that's typically because they're reading or sleeping or tending to their annoying children.

Here's the thing. As annoying as the security checkpoints or the hard seats are, it's the people that are friction. Without engaging anyone, I can glide effortlessly from gate to gate, seat to seat, but at the end of the day, those are wasted hours. The only thing I have to show for it is a couple hundred miles, same as the inanimate object that carried me there.

Maybe humanity is friction; the things that slow you down, the things that take a little effort, a little intention.

braaaaains....