AIRPORT (PRE-TISHOMINGO)
TK: TIRED AIRLINE CLERK, MIDWESTERN, PAUNCHY, SORE FEET, PERMED HAIR.
TR: OLDER MAN, MIDWESTERN, BLUE PANTS SUIT, SLIGHT SPEECH IMPEDIMENT)
TK: Have these bags been in your possession the entire time since you packed them?
TR: I couldn't swear to it.
TK: They've been under your control?
TR: Hard to say. Maybe not.
TK: Were they in your house?
TR: Yes.
TK: Good.
TR: But somebody coulda come in and stuck something in there and I wouldn't be any the wiser, would I?
TK: But the bags were in your home, so someone would've had to break in to stick something in them. Right?
TR: You don't watch "The X-Files," do you - aliens --- aliens can enter our dimension - whoosh us up to the Mother Ship -- reprogram our whole darn DNA, just like that---- bam.
TK: Sir, we're talking about your suitcase.
TR: These little buggers pass through physical matter, they can adopt any form ---- my sister detected vibrations coming from a lime Jell-O mold --- and they can take over any person with the use of a brain scanning virus, no matter who ---- and you know something? If they wanted to, they could put anything they wanted in my suitcase. There could be fifty of them in there right now, in amongst my shorts. Who'd know?
TK: Okay......---- I hesitate to ask this, but: Did any persons unknown to you ask you to carry anything aboard this flight?
TR: How did you know?
TK: Someone unknown asked you to carry something aboard this flight?
TR: They might've. They can get right in your frontal lobe --- make you do stuff and erase it soon as it's done.
TK: I'm not following you here.
TR: You ever read Don DeLillo? Have you?
TK: No, sir.
TR: He says that there is a deeper meaning in the world that exists solely to keep us from finding out what it is.
TK: I see. Sir, this flight is supposed to go in ten minutes and there's a line of fifty people behind you----
TR: Do any of them have what you'd call extremely pale pasty skin? Huh? Are any of them eating carrots? You see any nosebleeds? Any unusual facial hair?
TK: Sir, let me put it to you like this: do you want to get on this plane or not?
TR: I had a very strange sensation when I came through your metal detector. I felt as if every molecule of my body was affected. I felt as if my hair were picking up radio signals. It was picking up "A Prairie Home Companion".
TK: What?
TR: Is it mere coincidence that the host of that show has the initials G.K., which also stand for Grassy Knoll? Is it mere happenstance that the band is the Guys All Star Shoe Band ---- G.A.S. Band? get it? the band of gas around the planet Saturn? ---- and is it also coincidence that---- (WHOOSH OF COSMIC VACUUM, FAINT BEEPS, SLIGHT GLISS OF BELLS)----
TK: Next---
GK: Hi.
TK: Have your bags----
GK: Yes, they have, and no, nobody has.
TK: Very well. Mr. Kyler---- this is the flight to Austin---- but wait, your ticket says Roswell, New Mexico....
GK: No, I'm going to Austin. Roswell is tomorrow.
TK: You sure?
GK: Absolutely. (TISHOMINGO)
(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor