The smell of disinfectant. Thin carpet laid on concrete. Minimalistic spaces. People sit in mass arrangements of imitation leather chairs that have no arm rests—they are mostly despondent and withdrawn from each other. Coffee. Magazines. Booze. Novelties. Solitary pleasures. Novels by Koontz, King, and Rowling are for sale. Advertisements line the moving walkway. Images of a British gecko, or maybe he’s supposed to be Australian, pop up. Tourists and business people wait at the gate symbiotically attached to their phones, laptops, and headphones all pretending they aren’t thinking about the plane crashing with them on it. Like they aren’t stifling self indulgent tears over their unlikely yet possible demise. Suddenly it smells like sex. No, that’s the pretty girl next to me exhaling Juicy Fruit gum. We make eye contact. I tell her a joke that involves castration. The joke is funnier than it sounds. As she laughs I think about making love to her in the claustrophobic bathroom on the plane as it crashes.