The traveller's haze, the dead expectation of lost hours sunk in beer, a sandwich, a walk to one end of the terminal; a long walk back.
The sages don't walk here, those accident encounters on a beach, in the coffee shop where he leans over and asks where your bag is from to launch into tirade/monologue/sonnet about life as a rancher/driver/carpet salesman.
Those messengers that dropped especially for you, usher you on a new course, hold back or steer your mood as the next instant requires.
The airport sage is sandwiches and beer to turn your mood, while others sunk in their own travelling black holes barely manage a grimace of recognition that life is passing around them.
The plane is OK. As long as you manage not to dive too deep until the flight's last ten minutes, leaving just enough time to bare the soul and stun each other before you hand back the headphones, gather your bag and walk head down through smelly carpet corridors in a hurrying sea of grey faces.
These are rarely sages but serve to confirm our opinions/low feelings - occasionally an interesting story such as Ajnay from Liverpool - Flight EK0945 - sent out to Bangladesh to find his brother a wife, but returned two weeks later betrothed and wed himself (to his cousin, he'd never met before). Stories saved only for whoever gives you a lift home , or otherwise buried on the train as you look at stubbled fields and wonder whether the Scottish accent has changed since you were gone (and if not, what's happened to your ears?)
