Russia Creative

Jeffrey Hong

Period 2

Tompkins WLH

4/23/15

Airport Security

The fleeting grasp on the back of my dad’s jacket slipped away all too quickly. As the rough material grazed the tips of my fingers, I looked up, expecting to see the receding backpack and dark hair. While the latter part was true, the towering adult who was walking away was just another of the thousands of people looking to pick up their luggage in the airport arrival terminal. Looking around, the familiar faces of my mom and dad were completely lost in the amorphous blob of similarly-dressed travellers in the Tokyo airport.

The forest of legs firmly denied any chance of bending down to look for my parents’ shoes. Scrambling across the shiny acrylic tiles, no matter which luggage roundabout I followed around, I could not find any recognizable features: the huge black luggage cases with colored ties around the handles, the bright green and purple winter jacket that my dad always wore while traveling, or the white scarf that my mom was wearing to ward off the Japanese winter cold.

“Mom? Dad?” The small voice crept softly through the air, but to no avail.

I recognized nothing and nobody familiar. Most of the signs were in indecipherable foreign languages, failing to direct me in any way out of the maze of black chairs and black luggage. In the middle of the sea of information and people and unable to find help, I felt the same kind of disconnection as if I was completely alone.

In order to look for someone like a flight attendant who might be able to translate or put out a notice, I doubled back toward the original gate.

Like most normal elementary schoolers, even while lost, I couldn’t resist taking a detour on the way. Running off of the main causeway, my hand slid onto the smooth black belt on the side of the walking runway. Like all the other faceless adult businessmen, I imitated the specific grip that they used on the railing, trying to fit in. For all the world, an outsider would have seen a little boy playing at being an adult.

Busy travelers, anxious to get home or to their destinations, streamed around in the thoroughfare. None looked at the burdens of others, or were compelled by moral forces to aid the lost child.

The end of the moving mat disappeared abruptly, depositing me once again at the exit of the gate.

I ran to the Air Japan kiosk and tiptoed up in front of the kind-looking attendant standing at the desk.

“Um… excuse me?” I whispered timidly.

The attendant did not react at all. I realized that she could not see my head below the countertop.

Backing up, I waved my hands above my head. “Excuse me?”

Finally noticing me, the attendant came around the desk. She bent down and, smiling, queried something in Japanese that I could not make neither head nor tails of. I shook my head, confused, and asked in English “Can you help me?”

Surprised by my outburst, the attendant seemed to be startled as well by the turn of events. Motioning for me to sit down in one of the rows of ubiquitous black chairs, she turned and disappeared through one of the doors in the back of the airline booth. Going from waiting to parents to waiting for other adults was only a small moving carpet ride across the airport.

The attendant reappeared behind the counter, along with an elderly lady in an airline uniform. Her name tag, although printed with a Japanese name, proudly displayed the English word “Management” underneath in bold font.

Nervously, I asked again “Can you help me?” However, the language barrier continued its impedance.

Briskly and without speaking, she took my arm and led me into a back lounge with the sign “Lost and Found” posted on the wall. The room, empty save for a stack of luggage and a row of folding chairs, compared to the stark modern arrangements of the waiting areas. It was as if I had never left the luggage return. Motioning for me to sit down, the managing lady turned to the phone on the wall and keyed in a number. Lifting the receiver, her voice was magnified through the speakers around the edges of the room. Outside, I could hear the echo of the same message being broadcast down the same hallways I had walked to reach the office.

As the brief message faded away, the remaining tenuous strand of hope in my mind frayed further. How would my parents be able to understand the intercom announcement when they didn’t speak a single word of Japanese? Would travellers help them find the lost and found?

An eternity fell away through the spinning clock and the tiled floor. Every so often, the first attendant would look in on me with a worried face and seemed to share the same unease as I did.

When my parents finally did find the lost and found, we had shared the same confusion through our lack of knowledge of the environment and isolation from other people around us.

Twenty minutes of panic.