All this scrambling at the end of the scanner for shoes, computers,
keys, phones—simply folly, a recent report says—we’re still not safe. Refusing to pay extra to check our bags, we struggle to assemble ourselves on the tarmac before boarding. Like a pack of crows with our tiny black suitcases bursting at the zippers, we await luggage tags for storage in the plane’s hold. At least we’ll have them when we land. Should we land. The charm of flying has simply passed like everything else. My old Catholic school for instance, on Kilbourn Street, where I got detention for not genuflecting before St. Philomena. Soon after, she was removed for not being a virgin, or something. They never tell. Later on, the school was yellow-taped, demolished. I’m feeling a little like that, as if I’m the enemy. With the future so uncertain, why not have some fun, tear open our suitcases, toss all our unmentionables skyward—compressed desires and sorrows, our unsearchables— let them, like Pandora’s horrors, have their say.