So I recently did some traveling. And along these travels, I was sent through the Detroit airport. Now, normally, this is met with some loud groans, because that place is a bitch to travel through, considering the fact that it is just one looooong terminal. Sure, there are moving sidewalks and a monorail system, but it still sucks to have to go from Gate A2 to Gate A68 during a half-hour layover.
But this recent trip was different. I had to go to the very small offshoot building, Concourse B and C. The Monorail does not go to this place. No, the only way to reach it is by underground tunnel. Now, I was already annoyed, due to the aforementioned half-hour layover, so I was not pleased at the very possible prospect of missing this plane. So I fuckin' BOLTED to my next Gate, which took me to this tunnel.
The entrance to this tunnel is a large set of escalators, maybe 3 or 4 for each direction one would want to be going. The area at the top of the escalator bank is very airport-esque: sterile white walls punctured with many large windows. The escalators slowly take you down into the tunnel itself, because they are, of course, lined with people that do not know how to use escalators and think that they are a free ride they can just lazily stand around on. After a long trip down, you are dumped out into a very large, round plaza of sorts, where all the escalators and elevators empty out into. And this is where it gets fun.
Mounted onto the ceiling of this "plaza" is a large fixture, concealing behind it many spinning lights of various colors. They are mounted in a way so that they serve no actual lighting purpose, and are just there for the hell of it. You are also greeted by some music that could be described as calming, but also as quite surreal. Connected to this plaza is, of course, the actual tunnel. This tunnel has one long moving sidewalk on each side, providing fast transport for the lengthy walk to be had, as well as ample walking space down the center of it for those opposed to the usage of quick bipedal transportation. But the real noteworthy thing here is the walls. They are made up of many many shifting colors, casting light of every color of the rainbow upon everyone and everything inside the tunnel. Reds and greens and purples pulsate throughout the structure in beat with the strange music playing ever so silently in the background, barely even noticeable if not being paid attention to. Surprising chords in the music are couple with a sudden bath of red light, which fades back to blue as the music calms down along with it, all while a wave of green flows away from you toward the white light at the end.
You eventually reach the end, which is a mirror image of the plaza at the start, and you ride up a matching bank of escalators into the next terminal, leaving you slightly dazed as you struggle to process what just happened.
I went through a fucking WARP ZONE.
Its all very strange, to go from a mundane, sterile place that runs on strict schedules and seriousness, to a place of pure surrealist fantasy and back again like nothing ever happened. But it was also very cool, in a whimsical kind of way. And it makes me wish that more of the world was like this. Why can't we see this kind of thing more often? How fun would it be to go to the bank if you had to navigate a small hedge maze to do so? How enjoyable would the doctor's office's waiting room be if the floor was actually a glass-bottom boat-esque view into a large aquarium? Am I the only one that wishes that life could just stop being so serious for a little bit and give us some slim injections of whimsy and wonder? I ran through that airport because I had a good 15 minutes to get to my plane, but do you know what I did in the tunnel? I slowed down and enjoyed the ride. I forgot all about the stress of travel and just soaked in the environment, not even thinking about the plane I needed to get to. Now would it really be a bad thing if that same effect could take hold while you're running late to work, or angrily driving to the store halfway through cooking dinner because you ran out of milk?
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