The Art of Wayfinding

Take Off

The Lyft was late arriving to get Jeanie to the airport, which was an unplanned convenience, as Jeanie had overslept her alarm. Perhaps she finally would be able to sleep without trouble or with the crutch of sleep aids. She decided that fluffy pants and a t-shirt was  perfect airline attire and washed her face with the brillo pad that marketed as a face towel after pulling her hair up into a messy bun. She pushed on a pair of slides and headed down the stairs to help her driver throw the two suitcases into the trunk. She ran back down her uneven walkway and checked the locks on the door for the last time. There wasn't much time for sentimentality. It was just time to go. She stuffed the keys in the mailbox for her parents who would be stopping by to check on the place from time to time, then dashed back to the car. Her mental checklist was completed. She urged the driver to depart.
The driver said his name was Charles, but that was his Dad's name, so everyone called him by his middle name, Aaron. Aaron turned the radio up and the two travelers fell into a comfortable silence while listening. The trip to the airport was about twenty minutes, her flight would be leaving in two hours, and she had to remember to purchase the Dramamine. Flying, rather the landing portion, when around bodies of water created a need for planes to make wide arching turns and resulted in Jeanie getting an awful case of motion sickness. Today was not going to be a good reflection of her. The air field loomed ahead to the right of the expressway. A surge of electricity popped from the sky.
"Looks bad from down here, but up there, you aren't likely to notice a thing," Richard Aaron voice filled the quiet car cabin. Rain pelted the windows and streaked like wet bullets in a diagonal line. Jeanie didn't reply. She suddenly wished she really was a genie and could snap herself to Korea. Aaron pulled the car close to the curb and Jeanie transferred the money and her 5 stars from her phone. Aaron got out of the car and popped the trunk. He quickly grabbed her baggage and set it on the curb with a smile and a quick nod of his head.
"Safe travels, " he hurried back around to the driver's side and pulled off to meet his next ride.
Jeanie pulled her luggage into the line forming in front of the red cap. The airport was in essence just moving from one line to the next until it was time to sit down with strangers to reach a destination to move from one line to the next all over again. A crash of thunder woke her from her thoughts and she saw that there were only two people before her. If she were to guess, as she sometimes enjoyed to do, they wouldn't be flying to Korea with her. What exactly was one supposed to look like if they were going? She didn't know if even she fit the description.
"Next in line!" She heard the call from behind the counter. Red cap Phil took her baggage and a ten dollar bill that he pocketed with quick precision. "Enjoy your flight," he waved her through the big glass doors to his right and shouted, "Next!"
Jeanie felt a world lighter with just her backpack. She stood in the labrinthe line created by airline security and waited as the line turtled forward. She prepared her passport and ticket and was so glad she had chosen slides. How had she made it through the anxiety the many times she had flown before? The ordeal of placing shoes in the pan, grabbing shoes out of the pan, stuffing them back onto her feet and dashing in a frenzy to a gate that always seemed to change at the last minute was almost too much for her without having to do it!
"Passport. Ticket." Jeanie handed over the items. The man looked over the material, circles her gate number and returned the two pieces of paperwork. "It looks like this is your lucky day," he said. She was confused. She looked around her for some telling signs of luck. He laughed. "Because you haven't flown in over two years, you don't have to wait in this line. We have a special security line for people like you." Well, that sounded ominous. The last time she had heard that line before flying, she had been searched from head to toe and then missed her flight to top it all off. 'Darryl' came after a brief call on the two way radio and she followed him forlorn and worried past numerous other travelers. There were a handful of others that were pulled aside and added to the group as she followed Darryl blindly through the backend maze of the airport. She learned when they came to an abrupt stop that this special security path was actually located at the rear of the hotel adjoining the airport. Jeanie wasn't searched at all, but upon looking at her watch, she was going to be late for her flight. Darryl told her not to worry. Her plane was at the gate that just happened to be on the opposite side of the clearance station.
She was negligently checked by security, and routed through to her gate, which was boarding. Jeanie had forgotten the Dramamine.. Handing her boarding pass over to the stewardess, she was congratulated for her arrival before the doors closed. Ushered to her seat, she, and everyone else aboard was welcomed onto the flight by the pilot, and told to prepare for take-off. They were just waiting for clearance from the tower, apparently,there was one or two  planes ahead of them. Was that enough time to ask about the Dramamine???