Phone CallsLate At Night
 by
Kim Bellard
Copyright © Kim Bellard 2001
 
 Phone Calls Late at Night 
All Rights Reserved
2
 
 Phone Calls Late at Night 
Chapter 1
The ringing of the payphone across the corridor startled me.It was early evening, and I was sitting by myself in the Charlotte airport. At least, I think it was Charlotte. It could have been Tampa or Nashville or Des Moines, or lots of other cities of that certain size. Nothing against any of those airports, but I knew I wasn't atO'Hare or Hartsfield or LAX. Most airports have become like malls; you lose track, andyou can't tell where you are. They all seem alike. Same shops, same carpet in thehallways, same fast food places. Travel has become so homogenized that, once in theairport, travel itself becomes an illusion and you might as well be using some sort of science fiction teleporter to arrive and depart everywhere from the same terminal.All that I knew was that I was tired, I was waiting for a long delayed plane in a mostlydeserted stretch of the terminal, and I didn't want to spend the night where I was.I had spent most of my time at this airport -- as in most airports -- in the airline's clubroom, working the phones and catching up on my emails. It's quieter there, and you canget a snack and something to drink without waiting in line. The furniture is plush andcomfortable, and the floor is not some sort of cheap vinyl worn to a dazed shine by therepeated cycle of thousands of feet alternating with buzzing floor polishers. The class of  people is more homogenous too, fellow travelers like myself who no longer saw flying asan adventure, but simply as a way of commuting. Perhaps that is why I usually ended upspending at least some of my waits in airports in the terminals after all: I liked to watchthe people who did still see flying as an event, whose destinations beckoned welcomevacations or the comforts of returning home. For us club room people, the frequent flierswith platinum or beyond status, the next flight was just a bus to work.I used to feel like each trip was an adventure, and that I was living the most exotic life possible -- literally part of the jet set. I felt glamorous and part of an elite. On a goodday I might feel traces of that even now, but those traces were now just pale imitations of 
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Phone Calls Late at Night

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Are you aware that readers have to pay to download this book (and probably your others as well) and you don't receive a penny? To make it free to download, go to Settings->Scribd Archive and select not to be part of Scribd Archive.
02 / 26 / 2011
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07 / 24 / 2010