I have no idea what time it is. It was bright outside when we landed…and that’s all I can recall from that interminably long flight. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been able to sleep on the plane, but the guy sitting next to me would not shut up about his date in Paris with a girl he had met over the internet. He showed me a picture of her on his phone, and that’s when I started feeling sorry for him. Did he not recognize that famous actor from the television series with the angels and the haunted pig statue? He’s not exactly clean-shaven. Oh, well. Not my problem. The signs in the airport have English translations, but I’m too dead inside to do anything but follow the damp people from my flight. They seem to know where they’re going. I follow one guy into the men’s bathroom, and almost into a stall. Honest mistake. I stand in the passport control line for so long that my backpack starts to feel like my turtle shell. I feel like I’m a turtle, blinking my gritty red eyes slowly, and swiveling my head by minute degrees. I’m not the only one. The little girl in front of me has wide glassy eyes, and her mouth is gaping open, caught in a permanent yawn. Kid, I know just how you feel. We lock eyes and engage in a little staring competition. I win, and she cries. Her mother glares at me like I’m the brat.
