In the back of the Tesla riding to the airport the touchscreen is split between an aerial view with us as a red triangle on the right and more of an in situ view on the left. As cars pass by they’re rendered on screen as white regardless of color, like pills. The driver got to our house in under a minute. The corporate office space off the freeway looks mostly empty; they leave the overhead lamps on overnight. We bounce along with the contours of the road passing other Teslas that graphite color and drivers you can make out from the glow of their touchscreens probably picking up other airline passengers like me. At the airport I pity the poor TSA workers checking IDs and looking at screens, scanning for knives and explosives. On the train a young mom with her toddler: the toddler’s face eclipsed from the stroller hood but there’s a tablet angled just perfectly under the hood so the kid can lazily scroll for content and raises a hapless little hand to do so. Their pants are covered in Disney characters and pink.

And then inside the terminal at the gate the other passengers sprawled out with their bags and phones, corded to the walls. It’s like a scene from a Burroughs novel, something with aliens and people wired to hookahs. There is a massive mural saying Welcome to Seattle with Seattle in caps and a picture of a macchiato with foam art beneath, beside a full-color bleed of the city, I-5 snaking in and out like concrete tentacles. Some pines poking up in the foreground, gray-streaked clouds in the back. All the office lights are on, the windows little rectangles like you’d see in a miniature light-up village underneath the Christmas tree.

Flying back east, to Newark. Catching the airtrain to the car rental, hurrying onto the freeway. Connecting to the aux, texting my dad. Settling back into the Lehigh Valley, where I’m from.

At the airport literally everyone is looking at screens, standing by vending machines trying to decide, queuing at the self-pay kiosks or bag-drop stations. Humans clumped together like bugs. Some are lying on the ground using their carry-ons as pillows, beside their phones. It could be like the end of the strange film Bugonia where the whole human race is shown as suddenly dead. They never explain the name of the film but if you look it up it has to do with bees and dead cows and ancient beliefs.

Positioning myself strategically at the gate. They call people who queue before their zone is called gate lice. The dull, sluggish way the sun rises in Seattle this time of year. The color is the same as the branded airline blue on the LED screen, a flat blue-gray blue. I signed up for some ID-less feature where you just show your face (no ID) but then they didn’t have it at security. It said “just bring your face!”

I wondered if Harrison Ford regretted some of the scenes from Blade Runner, especially the one where he basically rapes the replicant Rachael, played by Sean Young. It’s done in that film noir style that feels reflective of the times, that women said no in a way that really meant yes and that was part of the romance, apparently on both sides, as presented on screen.

To buy a scone in the airport I use the touchscreen that starts with a tap and then activates the camera so you see yourself as you’re paying in the corner like you’re on a Zoom call. And then of course they want your phone number, even for a scone. There are a number of prompts to get to payment that’s like a bad video game and I wonder how old people manage at all. Driving by the retirement homes this morning it said 55+ and made me feel weird for qualifying. The popsocket on my phone broke and I couldn’t install the new one and had to ask the young male clerk at the Best Buy who didn’t need aftershave but used it anyway and he said low key, this is messed up. He couldn’t figure it out either. Neither of us would look at the instructions.

They still have the same restaurant in the terminal where I had beer with breakfast before we flew to Disneyland. People in my recovery group often remark how flying can be triggering, all the signs and cues in the airport prompting you to drink. But I just put my headphones on and seal myself off and glide through unnoticed, but for the cameras and the tracks left by my digital payments.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Technology

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, pacific northwest, prose, travel