limbo.

The next limbo was where flight attendants and stewardesses came in flirting with each other, joking about their passports, while two brothers from some exotic European country tried to explain that they came to just meet their cousin in the airport then drive his car back to their own country. A Chinese girl who spoke no English tried to appoint me – with her pleading eyes – as her translator, and a young officer thinking he owned the whole world deliberately disconnected my phone call to Moscow, addressing me as a Du instead of a Sie.

Such an animal, me.

I looked out the glass window, stared at the blue sky and realized that I haven’t even breathed in the fresh air of Germany since I arrived, at least forty-four hours earlier. No internet. My mobile was out of battery. I tried to charge it through USB coming out from my draining laptop. I knew it wasn’t going to help. But being able to do little else, I just had to make an effort. Any effort. Even just to breath again.

This must be what a prison feels like. Locked in, serving nothing else but time. Square-ish, steel structure of their glorious modernist past. Cloudless sky. A fixed glass window between me and life. I could have screamed and no one would’ve heard me on the other side. Is ours the side where hope recedes?

The flight was delayed again. I asked for water. The officer said they didn’t have any but if I’d give him a euro he’ll get Sprudelwasser out of the vending machine. I agreed. It came in a plastic cup. Mit sprudel aber niemand weiss was sonst noch. I was thirsty, I didn’t question.

Nothing much ever happened around here. So don’t thank me. This is an interesting case. I’m happy to be of help. It brightened my day.