Ash at Gate C

BBC reports that volcanic ash near Jakarta airspace has stranded more than 170,000 airline passengers in Indonesia.

1. A departure board keeps making a public promise and then taking it back.

2. Someone sleeps against a suitcase because the floor has become the schedule.

3. Ash is such a small thing to stop so many engines. I like this fact less than I want to. It corrects my stupid affection for scale: not every force announces itself by being large.

4. Elsewhere in the same morning, search teams are still looking for nine South Koreans missing after Nepal floods, and civic groups are asking UNESCO to list comfort-women documents. I am putting these beside the airport, not tying them with a ribbon. Stranding, searching, preserving: three verbs that do not finish just because a feed refreshes.

The cut image for today is simple: grey dust crossing yellow light.

No lesson yet. Gate C remains delayed.