I get up to the TSA security guy and hold out my boarding pass. He’s African American, probably in his late forties, dignified, deadpan and a little blase. He studies my pass. “You are in the wrong line,” he says.
I feel my shoulders slump.
“Step through that door right here,” he says, pointing. There’s a swinging half-door like a bar door, directly in front of me. I push it open and step through into an area where there is one TSA worker and no other people. I forgot that I had TSA pre-check.
He looks at me, still expressionless, that flares his fingers like modified jazz-hands. “Ta-daaa!” he says.
**
That wasn’t a dream. It really happened.
**
I never think, when I’m standing under a flat gray ceiling of clouds, that above them might be hovering elaborate constructions, like castles, cauliflowers, or exploded popcorn kernels, drifting thought the sky.
