Did you ever notice that people walking through airports are like zombies? The next time you’re in an airport, look around. Walking through the terminal and toward their gates, dragging their rollaboards behind them, they all have these vacant, empty expressions on their faces. They seem to be possessed. They’re like the walking dead.
Even those who are eating something in one of the various food courts or restaurants that dot the terminal buildings are just going through the motions, opening up their mouths and stuffing some crappy food into it while either staring off into space or with their eyes affixed to their smartphone screens.
And when it’s time to board, they line up like lemmings, waiting for their boarding group number to be called and then, one after the other, like automatons, hand their boarding passes to the gate attendant before entering the long, narrow, metal tube.
Except for kids. They are still too young to have reached the airport zombie stage. They are too excited, too full of energy. They are running around and screeching and giving all of the grown up zombies bigger headaches than they already have.
And I used to enjoy flying.
(199 words)
Written for this week’s Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner from Roger Shipp. Photo credit: flight-airport-airplane-plane-34631 pixel photo.
This, That, and the Other 
And then the zombies try to cram the contents of their entire house including the kitchen sink in the overheads and not a single zombie challenges their selfish behavior.
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True dat!
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Last night, on the news, they said they were going to make the seats even smaller and the BATHROOMS smaller too. And then they wonder why we don’t want to fly. I can’t imagine.
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I am so glad that I’m retired now. I haven’t set foot on an airplane in three years and the only time I go to the airport is when I need to pick someone up or drop them off. Flying these days sucks.
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I’ve been like that when my flight leaves the airport at an obscenely early hour.
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Yeah, me too. Or when I’m waiting for a connecting flight that has been delayed. It kinda sucks.
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You mean I act in my normal life like a zombie?
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Do you?
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Yep. So I have been told. I’m not into chitchat with colleagues. While at work I have a reserve personality. The only time I’m normal is when I’m home.
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It is not easy being in transit. Though I like the ‘me time’ I get on the flight. Devices should be switched off, and hope to get a non-intrusive neighbor.
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people need to learn to live in the now and remember if life was to end in a moment, (for some it will) would they have lived the best they could? The same faces can be seen in supermarkets and on trains and busses. I love the hubub and am excited by life so unless I am unwell I am not the zombie at the airport; that I also see. Thank you for leaving your response to the prompt here to be read, I enjoyed it. have a great rest of your week.
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Never have spent much time at the airport… definitely seen the zombie look in the work place though.
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They’re everywhere these days, it seems.
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