Boarding Call.

Airports are such strange places. At the surface, there's hundreds and hundreds of people coming and going, lengthy security procedures, miraculously patient staff on hand, and the usual assortment of food and retail outlets. But looking a little closer, other things appear.
A nervous bite of a lip at the arrivals gate, quiet tears left to sneak down a face stuck looking at the departure gate, exhausted huffs that escape hardworking lips. Little noises and gestures that give it all away; an airport is a place of transition, yes, but also of intersection.
Thousands of lives crash together here almost seamlessly and without any due reason to stop. It's not just about the passengers embarking or disembarking, and it's not just about the invisible staff that keep everything running smoothly. It's the midpoint, the crossroads, that place that's neither here nor there. It's full of different cultures, languages, customs, mannerisms, volumes. Everything and everyone collides in a cacophony of baggage and questions and tickets and announcements, impatience and tax-free shopping and overpriced coffee. The crisscross of lives is fascinating.
Each person is another story coming or going into a world that is entirely their own, perhaps in spite of the real world that surrounds them. Each is on a mission to get to where they need to be as quickly and painlessly as possible. This then presents a problem when hundreds of other persons are doing exactly the same thing, yet somehow there's rarely any serious impact upon collision. It all carries on with a few minor hiccups along the way but rarely anything happens to upset the organised chaos.

The part of an airport I most enjoy milling around is the arrivals gate. There is nothing but compassion there; whether it's a family welcoming a loved one, couples remembering the feel of each other as they embrace, chauffeurs waiting to pick up their very important clients, or just a lone backpacker wide eyed and apprehensively hopeful for whatever will unfold in another new city. There's hope, laughter, impatience and then a mad scramble for the most genuine greeting possible. It's incomparable.