With another passport or security check I'm back in no man's land. I'm almost at home here these days. In some airports this can be a sizeable territory with shops and eateries. In others, like this one, it's a narrow strip of ground between here and there, arrival and departure, home and abroad. A nameless place where all that people do is wait, wait for its gates to open to a better place. It's a surrealistic place to be sure. Like a country within a country and the border is a pane of glass and an imaginary line between desks. Heavily policed, too. No visa relaxation to be expected here. Entry only by invitation, i.e. valid passport and a valid ticket. A oneway street, like the ticking clock; you come in by one door, you leave by another. It's a continuous transit: nothing stays except maybe the vague feeling of excitement for leaving or going somewhere or coming back somewhere else. After doing my time here I am discharged with a hiss of compressed air and a roar of engines.
After being hurled through the free stratosphere I touch down in no man's land a second time. Its gate keepers eye new arrivals suspiciously. Their watchful eyes scrutinise me and my credentials. Data rushes down optical fibre cables in search for answers. Do we want this man here? Then no man's land spits me out at the other end. I have completed the circle but I am bound to return here. These days no man's land is never far.
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