The Departed Arrivals

WP asks which airports did I like the most and least.

If I wanted to write a review about an airport, I’d do it a social media platform intended for posts like that. This isn’t a travel blog, so I am going l share this particular airport experience  because no matter how big or small, busy or nearly dead an airport is, this story of mine will play out the same in each one.

When I first became a Mortician’s Apprentice, I was sent out to the airport to claim a  crated coffin.I  was directed by security to the hanger where freight from the planes were taken.

On this first trip I dressed in my black dress with  dotted with purple and pink cabbage roses and wearing my sensible black flats. I  fiddled with my belt, my hair, I was impatient because I wasn’t sure how long this process took for the baggage carriers to bring my ‘freight ‘ to my hearse on a fork lift.

I’m sure this isn’t the first time a wooden crate with coffin packed inside of it had moved through this hanger and it wasn’t the last but it and all the other crates like it had a chilling effect on the staff.

None of them looked directly at the crate as it passed by them, the man who handed me a clipboard with paperwork for me to sign only checked it long enough to make sure I signed on the right lines.

I signed for the paperwork, the man on the forklift  helped me put the crate on to a the casket buddy and then I loaded the casket into the back of my hearse on my own.

As I picked up more trips to the airport I learned to bring a snack  for

when I was waiting. I’d sit against the hearse or I’d lean against a wall and wait for my cargo.

When I fly and land in airports now, I wonder if in the hanger there is  another woman waiting for her shipment to arrive and if she is wearing a short black dress and eating a snack with her face turned towards the sun.