The airport, 5:01 am. The waiting area is empty, save for one occupied seat. It faces one of the large window panes that overlooks the tarmac. A slender, white plane stands ready, wheels solidly on the ground and the passenger tunnel connected to the hull. But no one is boarding.

EE sits in the chair, or a better word would be ‘lounges’ in the chair. It’s not a regular seat, it’s tilted backward to make it easier to nap while waiting. The hard plastic seems to impede their comfort as they shift to push a travel pillow behind their neck.

EE: “Lately I’ve been thinking about some things. Like our cultural obsession with coming of age stories.”

There’s no one else in view.

EE: “I think it’s tiresome how it paints your teenage years, and often your early twenties as some magical time; like a before, then a becoming, and everything else after. As if adulthood is something that arrives after a single period of struggle as if it’s not a continuous, Sisyphean task to grow up, mature, and age.”

Despite the emptiness, the words are not carried far. The space is silent.

EE: “If you ask me, we keep on coming of age into various stages of our life. I’ve found myself shifting shape every so often, through sudden moments of clarity and longer periods of withdrawal. Some people claim they still feel like they’re 20 when they’re 50, but that’s not at all my experience. Sometimes it’s like my past selves don’t exist at all, as if they were subsumed by a newer me, absorbed into something different altogether.”

A crumpled bit of paper flutters along the ground as the air shifts. A chair to the right creaks, as if someone just sat down. But it remains empty.

EE: “Do you know what liminal means? It is an intermediary state between different beginning and end states, conditions, or areas. It’s a term that became a pop-culture thing – yeah I know about the backrooms – but it was originally used by sociologists to define the state someone is in during a ritual. While undergoing a ritual you are no longer who you were before, yet you still have to become who you will be when it ends. Often your status within your societal group is upended during a ritual, floating between child and adult; lovers and family; outcast and accepted.”

In the distance an escalator activates, but no voices are heard. EE looks up briefly, then immediately continues their train of thought.

EE: “Don’t you think our world lacks rituals? Well, the Western one anyway. I’ve been considering this lack for a while now and I believe it’s a space worth filling. There’s something about meaning that can only be found by allowing yourself to pass through a state of unease and uncertainty. A moment when your world closes off, and becomes unrecognizable, forcing you to travel through the strange and unknown, until this new world reveals itself to you and you rejoin reality, rejoin your community. I wonder how we could create space for that in a secular world.”

EE looks pensively at the airplane outside.
A low rumbling sound is heard, like a sigh bubbling up from deep within the earth.

EE: “I know, I should get going. I got unstuck but now I’m afraid I prefer to wander without any commitments. And I’m not even halfway there. Wherever there is.”

In the distance, a light pink dusting of clouds reveals the first rays of morning. It makes the top of the plane outside shine with hints of lavender and peach.

EE: “You’re right. There’s something else waiting for me on the other end of that flight. Now it’s just a matter of getting on it.”

EE sighs, just as the earth had. They seem reluctant to leave but eventually get up and walk towards the boarding area. There’s no one at the check-in. They look back, eyes focused somewhere out of view, they nod almost imperceptibly before they turn around and head down the corridor to disappear into the tunnel. Their silhouette stretches on the ground, then fractures into many overlapping shadows until they slip away into the morning sun.

Credit
Image – Little girl from Verses For Grannies, Suggested By The Children… illustrated by Dorothea A. H Drew (1899) Free public domain CC0 image.
Font – Bungee font family. Used under SIL Open Font License