Nagusami / 25

At Narita Airport I volunteered to be moved to a later flight in exchange for a free ticket. And it was as if I had become a ghost, wafting backward through immigration, past the guards, and out to an immense featureless airport hotel.

The hotel’s lobby, I was pleased to see, was actually quite impressive: a marble counter, a huge bouquet of lilies, smiling ladies in immaculate suits. I was waiting in line when a man called my name and waved me over to the far right side of the lobby which, I discovered, was dim and grubby, set up with rickety wooden tables, stubby pencils and forms, exactly like an unemployment office. Even the counter at this edge was smudged and coated with plastic.

From this edge, looking back at the flowers and the smiling ladies was like looking back into another world. I was not offended; it seemed to me they must have gone to great trouble to make the difference so stark. I kept my composure. I suspect the afterlife will be just like this. Ah, you’ve just arrived? Please step aside.