Trolley Ghosts

A few years ago, whilst I was travelling I ended having to sleep in Madrid airport for two nights whilst I waited for my ride to turn up. This is actually the end of a far more entertaining story, involving dwarves, ant infestations, and an epic tale of the wait for Brioche day. However, this is not the moment for these things to be discussed, despite the passage of time my demons in Madrid have yet to be exorcised.

It had all seemed simple to begin with. I was confident, even if the guy I was travelling with wasn't. "It'll be easy," I said. "Its an international airport and there'll be good seats." Never in all my life have I known time to pass so slowly. Perhaps some background is necessary here, we were only waiting in Madrid because the other guy we were travelling with was driving our camper van up from Cadiz to pick us up from Madrid. For some bizarre reason it was cheaper for two of us to fly to Madrid, and for one of us to travel with the van on the ferry back from the Canaries. Twisted economics if you ask me, but who were we to argue, money was short after spending ten months travelling around Europe. So it was these circumstance that led me to spend over 50 hours in an airport with just my best friend and four cheese and chorizo sandwiches to keep me going.

The obvious metaphor for airports is like being in limbo, its the dragging of time whilst you await your holiday heaven or hell. It certainly has the effect of thinning time out, and after a while you begin to feel as if this 'thinning' is having an effect on you as well; like butter spread over too much toast (as Bilbo would say). Surreal moments just stroll along all the time to say hello, eccentric characters and situation just seem to happen naturally at airports. At least they do to me.

We originally arrived late at night, and our first plan was to have a quick tour of the three terminals. Now Madrid airport has opened another terminal, it was being built whilst we were there, and this has opened up a whole new luxury area for travelling English hobos. The most comfortable area for night seemed to be at the end of Terminal 1, and this proved popular as we shared it with a few other stranded passengers for the night. I didn't actually find the airport floor too uncomfortable, in fact I slept pretty well. Actually, this is a lie. I would have slept well if it wasn't for the tannoy announcement every fifteen minutes reminding us to keep hold of our luggage at all times. I eventually gave up trying to sleep sometime in the early morning, and upon visiting the toilets I noticed that the facilities had needle dispensers in the cubicles. For insulin injections or heroin I guess, though I didn't inspect any closer.

Sleep deprivation and too much cheese was beginning to have an hallucinatory effect on my thought process. No longer was illiterate in Spanish, I could understand all the announcements, read all the posters, and then to top it off someone spoke to me and I understood her. It wasn't until my mate replied to the question that I realised she was speaking English after all. So for a few minutes we sat and diligently watched her luggage whilst she went to the toilet, presumably not to jack up on heroin. The only hope that kept me going was the knowledge that in two days we'd be back in England, and on our way home for a big welcome return and a weekend of fun at a music festival. Our ferry at Calais was booked, and now all we needed to do was wait for the van turn up.

At about ten in the morning I found myself observing a group of excited young Frenchmen. Dressed smartly, they were all gathered around in the arrivals lounge drinking white wine in copious amounts. Before long they started singing, it actually sounded like football chants, but before I could and join in with a shout of "Allez le bleu!" I found myself staring at another poor selection of cards in another game of shithead. By now the game had worn thin, in fact it had worn thin four months ago, but when it rains and you live in a van there's not much else to do; except painting by numbers of course.

For some reason I began thinking about the use of capital punishment during Roman times. I had been staring at the man with Serial Killer Eyes at the time. He was in his late forties, shabbily dressed in an old suit, dishevelled would be the cliched description. He would stand up for a few minutes and then perform a circular inspection of his surroundings. Not seeing whatever it was he was searching, he would sit down again, his head hanging and eyes locked on the floor. This carried on for about an hour or so, until, finally he left and was never seen again. Strangely enough, some time later, a woman entered arrivals dressed in knee length boots, short skirt and blood red lipstick. These scenes played out before me in a cinematic way, I was feeling so detached from reality that I wasn't sure what was going on. Smoking a Lucky Strike, she stood right by where Serial Killer Eyes had been, and remained there for a good fifteen minutes. Checking her phone, taking a drag, checking her phone, looking in the mirror, taking a drag, tapping her foot, muttering under her breath, taking a drag, and, checking her phone. Finally she seemed to give up and left as swiftly as she had arrived. My friend and I looked at each other, and we both knew we didn't need to discuss the possible scenarios that were playing out in our heads. Apparently the punishment for parricide in ancient Rome was to whip the guilty party, then place them in a sack with a dog, a cock, a viper, an ape, and then thrown into the sea. If no sea was available, then they would be burnt alive.

Our second night started with concern that there was a blatant disregard for the tannoy announcements going on in Terminal 1. We had gone to where we had slept the previous night, but after a few minutes the small number of people who had been there promptly disappeared. All that remained was my mate, myself, and a lone bag placed on top of one of the check-in desks. The security cameras were all focused on the bag, and we began to discuss whether or not we might get to see one of those bomb disposal robots come round the corner. But we were to be disappointed, instead it was stern looking security guard who came to the rescue, and after inspecting the bag for some time he began to stare intently in our direction. We swiftly moved downstairs.

Long after my friend had gone to sleep I sat and watched the silent night workers of the airport. The constant business of cleaning was always occurring, sweeping rubbish from every part of the floor, needles dispensaries needed emptying, and trolleys needed relocating. At around 2am I could see a snaking movement in the distance weaving towards me. The glare of the lights gave the airport a hazy atmosphere, but as he approached I could see that it was a man pushing a long collection of trolleys. He passed me by, his face had a resigned sad look to it, and his eyes gave the impression of inevitability; there will always be trolleys to collect and move around. He quietly shuffled away, looking as if he had been left behind, forever cursed to haunt the airport terminal.

It was finally our last day at Barajas Aeropuerto, with some luck our driver would turn up after lunchtime and we could be getting on with the serious business of covering the distance to Calais. My first chuckle of day came when I was watching a young boy being carried by his mother. She was attempting to rush to the toilets with her son, but it ended up being to little too late, and the boy was sick all down her. The best part was that he had tried classic 'hold it in with my hands' trick, resulting in the vomit spreading down his arms instead. This incident kept me smiling for a while, though I was starting to realise that lunchtime had been and gone, and our van still hadn't arrived. A quick phone call and all was revealed that he might be late, more like nine he said. G-R-E-A-T.

Appearing suddenly, deus ex machine, was a young Spanish girl who proceeded to swear with such brilliance I couldn't help be impressed. Her use of the word 'fucking' was exceptional, and after her splenetic outburst at the lack of email facilities in the airport she calmed down enough to invite us to a party in Lisbon. It was a moment when that fork in the road appears and which way are you going to go. Tempting as it was, our sensibilities rose to the surface and we turned down the offer for the prospect of spending another few hours waiting for our elusive chariot.

The clock struck nine, and we knew the van would be finally arriving, our hopes were high, but the ever present tannoy announcements seemed destined to play with our fragile minds. The alerting beeps kept making us think that an announcement was being made directly to us to inform us that the van had arrived. Vacating the building to escape the madness, we sat outside on trolley and soon received the phone call we had waiting days for. Sure enough, our van, Sandy, rolled around the corner sounding like a Royal Enfield Bullet. Apparently the exhaust had just fallen off, so now we had to cover one thousand miles in thirty six hours, unable to go over fifty five miles an hour. It would certainly be more interesting than sitting in an airport for any moment longer and we spluttered away from the terminal, focused on the new challenge ahead. Behind us, a shadow from the dark emerged, silently took control of our trolley and steered it off into the distance.