RECOVERED

I’m being Recovered.  Processed like a piece of lost luggage, or a suspicious package, by an elite group of highly trained individuals with walkie-talkies, bright yellow waistcoats and passes round their necks that give them access to absolutely anywhere.

The family huddled next to me seem to have been in Recovery for much longer than I. Days possibly.  They look malnourished and worn out.  The children are tearful and listless. The mother comforts them as best she can.  The father is clearly exhausted, asking repeatedly for information.  When will they get help?  When can they leave?  Or at least I assume that’s the kind of thing he’s asking because it’s not in English.  And the Recovery Team only talks in English.  And only into walkie-talkies.

The man in charge turns to me and, without detaching the handset from his face, asks what gate I need.  I tell him, and he immediately relays the information.  86 is an embarrassingly high number considering the Transit I’ve been Recovered from only goes as far as 39.  But this isn’t a time for pride, for saving face.  It’s a time for survival.

It had only taken a momentary lapse in concentration. But if you’re going to wonder absent-mindedly onto a public transport vehicle, make sure it’s not the Stansted Transit to Gates 1-39. You see, it doesn’t behave like any other train you’ve been on. There’s no standing politely to one side to let everyone off before you get on. It always returns empty.  Because the Stansted Transit to Gates 1-39 isn't a train at all.  It has no driver.  It has no soul. It doesn’t give you a second chance.

Over the years scores of people must have tried to take a return journey on the Stansted Transit like I did.  My guess is that many of them weren’t as lucky as me, and are still wondering the concrete catacombs somewhere below Gates 20-39.  Me, I got picked up almost immediately at Gates 1-19. They treated me well - perhaps it was my smart clothes and iPhone 6S that did it. Perhaps they thought I might be worth something on the international Surplus Business Traveller market.  Anyway, I was herded into the Recovery Enclosure with everybody else, but soon given my own corner next to the disconsolate family.

My interrogator is seemingly unmoved by the depth of my incompetence and probes further:

“What time’s your flight?” he asks, checking his ruggedized timepiece.

“Ten to six.  Can you get me there?”

“Should be fine.”

Should be fine?  He's playing with me surely.  The old trick, give me hope then dash it to pieces with an iron fist.  How can I believe this man?  What about the circuitous bus ride around the apron under armed guard?  The full body search and endless debrief in the dimly lit room with the slo-mo ceiling fan and double-sided mirror?   The protracted negotiations with my people back in Scotland?  Surely I’ve already seen too much?  They won't let me go this easily will they? 

“Thank you - I’ll do anything.  Really.  Just please give me a chance….”  But he’s already walked away to interrogate a couple of hapless new arrivals.  

A chance, that’s all I want.  A chance to redeem myself.  To prove to the world I can follow simple directional signage. That Gate 86 is within my capability.   A chance to get back to Departures and depart again.

I slump back against the wall and close my eyes, imagining the queue of speedy boarders on Flight EZY237 joyously filing past the security desk on its way out into the barren stairwell where it will no doubt be held happily for another 20 minutes in arctic conditions before being led out into the rain to stand contentedly on the plane’s steps for another ten minutes while the people in the front seats have a chat and fold their coats ever so neatly into the overhead lockers…

“Sir.”

I look up with a start as a large moustached operative approaches.

"Sir.  It’s time to go.”

“Yes, yes of course.”

I gather up my possessions and follow him, wondering vaguely why I’ve been chosen and where he's taking me.  But I have neither the spirit nor the courage to question him.  I’m in Recovery now, and people in Recovery can’t make their own decisions.  That’s why they’re there.  So I traipse obediently behind him towards a locked door.  A single swipe of his security card and we’re through.  

I turn and catch a final glimpse of the family with whom I’ve shared a corner for so many minutes.  I knew one day I’d have to leave them to their own fate.  Now it’s time to face my own.  The mother is watching me.  She nudges her husband and points. I know, it’s not fair.  I’ve only just arrived and they’ve been there forever.  But it’s every idiot air traveller for his or her self now.  Mercifully, the door swings closed...

“Sir, we have to keep moving.”

I follow him up a staircase towards another door, steeling myself for what will undoubtedly be a long and gruelling journey. By my own reckoning we’re nearly 70 gates away from my destination, and I doubt we’ll make it before sun down.  Another swipe and we’re in.  He holds the door with his foot and beckons me through.

“There you go. Gate 86.”

And there, indeed, I go.  As though spat through a wormhole, ejaculated through a tear in time and space.  I turn to thank my Recoverer, but he’s already disappeared back into infinity. Giddy with relief I join the back of the cue and file onto the crowded aeroplane. I can hardly believe it.  Recovery has recovered me and here I am.  Recovered.  

Seems like I’ve done the place a disservice thinking of it as a purely three-dimensional terrestrial-type affair. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity – along with all its little labour saving quirks and foibles – is bound to apply to Stansted Airport.  As it does to all unimaginably complicated places which insist on expanding continuously despite being way too big in the first place.

I decide I’ve earned a little in-flight pampering and order a cup of tea and a light snack. But my mind returns once again to Recovery. While I’m being served luxury bistro items in a pressurised cylinder forty thousand feet over Manchester, what is happening to the family I left behind? Will a hi-viz Time Lord deposit them safely back into their own dimension, or will they join the legion of the dispossessed, reading free copies of the Daily Mail and eating McCoy’s out of vending machines for all eternity? Again I ask myself, why do I deserve to be the one that got away…?

I'm jolted out of my reverie by a searing pain in my groin as sudden turbulence sends the entire cup of scalding tea over my lap.  For a second the agony is overwhelming and I make a noise that I doubt has ever been heard before on EZY237.  The crew quickly issue me with a sachet of burn relief ointment, but the seatbelt signs are on and I can’t get to the toilet to administer it.  So I sit in sodden misery, in a mood that even a pack of Grate Britain All-British Cheddar Crackers Made With Freshly Grated Wookey Hole Cave-Aged Cheddar cannot lighten.

Retribution enough I think.

More airport overthinking:  Airport Philosophy Part 1: The Identity of Indiscernibles


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