LAX

LAX. Giant. It is arranged with six local terminals, and at the end, towering over the others, is the international terminal. The beating heart of LAX. Every blood cell is pumped through the heart of LAX before returning back to the furthest regions of the body.

Lazily they sprawled out on the floor. Torn old hippie bags covered with dirty patches spoke of a happier time. Even their rope like dreads were sprawled across the terminal while they waited to catch a flight out of this mind washed, media controlled, consumer culture. Across from them a perfectly meticulous Asian family waited politely. Father had a white color and well-kept sweater with perfectly aligned spectacles. His four-year-old daughter keeps to herself just like her mother. Five Americans snack. Their many carry on bags piled one on another. When they are done eating, the dad plunges his hand into their mess of luggage and pulls out another baggie of food for his three. At the window they are shocked humongousness of the 747 before engaging in a three on one wrestling match to the death. Mom looks on cautiously. A vacationer looks on already smiling in his white luau shirt and sport sunglasses. The business professional looks out the window. Professionally. Adding dollars and cents, looking for profit margins while generating regression analysis. A young father sleeps flat on the floor. His wife is nervously rocking their baby to sleep.

You could say it is like being in a different country. It is not. It is heaven; people from every tribe and language, from all corners of the earth. It is not America, nor is it foreign. No country or continent could hold such diversity. It is filled with the hope. Hope that you’ll get on a flight. Hope that you can leave this secure life sucking terminal. Hope that maybe America really can fulfill your dreams.

I’m just passing through. Not like everyone else. Destination; Thailand. Well, tomorrow, maybe tomorrow I will be there. For the first time, I realize I could make it. I responded plainly to my fathers’ questions this morning. What are my expectations? What are you thinking? There isn’t an escape now. Although… my plane could loose an engine make a quick descent and be forced to spend a week in Hawaii. But it might just crash which would defeat the luau fantasy.

Foreign sounds flow harshly through the obnoxious hidden speakers. I do not know what they are announcing over the intercom. Languages are too numerous in the airport to translate every message. Some messages forget English, no one speaks it good anyway. Names amazingly diverse for any one man to pronounce. An African American runs through the list of English and English-ish names, while his counterpart runs through some Asian names.

LAX brews, It is the American mixing pot on high. If travelers were not recycled daily it might just explode flinging travelers and their baggage everywhere. Confused and pissed, they would end up with someone else’s bags, late, worse off than when they were before they left.