Morning Airports

Airports in the early morning have a delightful eeriness about them. Huge empty corridors lined with windows that look out over empty pavement that's painted in the busiest of fashions. Beyond that, fields and rolling hills full of houses belonging to people who haven't yet considered entering the waking world.
The hallways concuss with every footstep, and in this case, every keystroke. My line of sight gobbles up thirty one gates, all of which are empty save one single man sleeping in a chair two hundred meters away. If there were carpets here, there would be a lone old woman vacuuming. The sound of the vacuum would carry through the terminal as if it was purpose built to ferry vacuum noises.
For every person here, there is more air than that person could go through in a week. Conversely, in two hours, everyone here will feel suffocated by the masses of people swarming around them. At least I'll be in a jam-packed steel tube in that disobeys gravity by then.

It was late in the day, and I'd forgotten to eat. I was reading a book. Part of the book's basis is in a war that took place between Japan, Mongolia, The U.S.S.R, and China. It's a war that I as an American don't really know about, because it had no major impact on the U.S. and therefore our schools don't teach it. That's just the way it goes with all of this rampant nationalism, I suppose.

The scene in the book that I was reading was written from a Japanese soldier's point of view. Over eight long pages, it graphically described one of his fellow soldiers getting skinned alive by the Mongols, and his own reactions while being forced to watch. Graphic is too light a word. It was high-end intense.

Before reading this book, I've never been forced into nausea by media. I've actually hunted down the grizzliest of retellings and adaptations, only to be slightly amused by the gore of it all. I honestly thought I was fully desensitized.

As I read on, a sinister feeling crept up my spine and planted itself in the back of my head. The pages started to shift, ever so slightly, left and right, as if I was viewing them on a dock from a boat in a light breeze. Warmth crept around my face like someone's hands slowly covering my eyes from behind. Amazed at the reaction, I read on.

Soon, there was a violent urge in the back of my throat. The world around the pages closed down into nothing, and soon the nothing advanced on the line and word that I was focused on. That checkerboard static pattern that you see in your eyes when you close them and press on them with your fingers was everywhere, like a snowstorm. I felt myself lose the book from my hands, and I felt my head detatch from my body and float into a ceiling fan.

With all of my focus, I realized that I had to get to a restroom. Standing up was a feat, and walking was nearly impossible. My only option was to roll my mass against the wall until I found the restroom door. It felt like controlling myself from a great distance through a cocktail straw.

I got to a restroom, sat on (fell to) the cool tile floor, and waited. After a few moments, the world came back and I could process thoughts again. I was entirely covered in a thick sheen of sweat.

I sat on that floor for a few more moments and wondered what had just happened. I still really don't know if it was the book or some other influence, but I like to think it's the book. I like to think that I'm not fully desensitized quite yet.

Creation!

All facts are fiction! Woah.