The Queue

It has been my experience that people don’t talk while queuing for an airport check-in. People have larger things to worry about; whether their passport has been copied by Israelis, whether they’ll get away with smuggling that koala, whether they’ll sit next to some idiot in a window seat who needs to pee or the time, whether the drug smuggling dogs bite, or whether their luggage is just slightly overweight, leaving them with the Sophie’s Choice between paying an exorbitant fine or the indignity of shoving clothing from one bag to the other in front of the entire terminal. All of these worries prevent conversation.

This preconception (formed from a minimal amount of overseas travel) was disproved today as I waited in the queue for a flight from Cairns to Guam. Two people stood in front of me, knowing each other clearly. One was an American, whose accent and demeanour was exemplary of the reasons people hate American tourists. The other was a middle aged Australian who clearly had more money than reason and a desperate need to convey this to the people around him. They were having an overly loud conversation ahead of me. I learnt information about their business dealings, about their trip in Australia. I was making careful note of these details just in case they were tax frauds and the police needed an affidavit from me. My preconception of Guam was a place where you were either in the witness protection program or a tax fraud. However, the conversation turned surreal when a third party was involved.
A third person. An Australian woman who lived in England. She didn’t know either of them. I stood in shock of this new development. Further still, the woman was behind me. Geographically, I was the centre of a conversation of a type that I previously considered was impossible. Realising this, I was slowly drawn in.

“And you, why are you going to Guam?” It was the American, he gave me a kind smile.
“It’s just a stopover for me.”
“Where are you going to?”
“Chuuk, Micronesia.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Teaching in a school.”

Normally, I would be compelled to give a much more interesting answer than the truth with strangers I’ve met in a queue. The people who processed my details in Sydney had all assumed I was in the military from the haircut administered from my uncle seven hours previously, I could run with that and say I was special ops, and that I could give no more details. But I was still in shock that people were talking to me, and I didn’t really have the figure to justify such a claim.

Furthermore, my imagination was in ‘switched off for safety reasons’ mode. The airport is the place where having a sense of humour is brutally prohibited. I had a dressing down from my mother before I went on this. “Don’t do it, Joe,” she had pleaded with me, “no good will come of it.” So during the entire process of going to Micronesia, I had strictly forbidden myself from having any fun whatsoever.

The hardest point in this process was filling in the visa to stop in Guam. On the form, the American Government asked me earnestly whether “between 1933 and 1945 were you involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?” I had to physically restrain myself from clicking yes. If they had asked me if I was ever a member of the Weather Underground I don’t think I would have had the same willpower.

Although my reply was not imaginative, it still warranted a response from a man ahead of the American. He was clearly a local.
“What school?”
“Xavier College”
“Ah, these two men are graduates.” The two men next to him nodded at me simultaneously. “So you go to Chuuk?”
“Yeah.”
“Dangerous place. You bring gun. That shuts kids up.”

And I think it is in this piece of advice that the terror and the sheer unknowing of this entire experience reveals itself. I decided not to try and sneak a gun past customs, I consider this a good idea. However I vowed that the next time I ran into wireless internet, I would at least read the Wikipedia article on kung-fu. Which I did.

Because you never know what might happen.