JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Guga in airports, originally uploaded by Koosama.

19 May 2006. It’s midnight, and seven hours before boarding. I am hanging out in an empty airport in Trieste, which used to be the port of the Austro-Hungarian empire, then part of Yugoslavia, and is now the tip of Italy. It is not Hong Kong airport, that’s for sure. The snack bar is a vending machine, and there is no Louis Vuitton store.

There’s one other passenger camping out at the airport. Indian, I think—he walked up to me and asked if I was Indian, I said no, and we never spoke again. By silent agreement we’ve divided the place in two—he stays in the arrivals area and I in the departures. I’ve stretched out on a metal bench in front of the police station, surely the safest spot in the airport—unless the cops themselves have a showdown. I can hear them having a loud, possibly violent argument inside their office. The bench isn’t too bad and my stuffed toy leopard Guga makes a good pillow, but the metal is cold even if I have on three layers of clothes. I sleep a total of 30 minutes in four hours. The rest of the time I read The Stones of Florence and check my watch. I’m not scared or lonely, though I feel like a homeless person living in a terminal. At 5 am all the lights come on and the staff begin to arrive. I check my suitcase, then have a coffee at the bar. The hardest part is not losing consciousness while waiting for the 7.10 flight to Rome. The moment I strap myself onto the seat I’m asleep.