The Zürich airport thinks it is better than you.  It refuses to be a mere place for waiting to depart, refuses to be a bus stop–it hosts a Hermes boutique.  Other shops sell curiously posh accessories the price of cars. Their French isn’t quite French, their German isn’t quite German. And their currency is the Franc.

In the midst of the glamour, a woman seated in a waiting area became fixated by a piece of lint floating above an air duct. It lifted slowly, then it lowered toward the ground, then it rose again. She’d been following the grey bundle with her eyes for almost five minutes, her delight growing with the duration of her gaze. She stared with wonder over lint like the models peering over jewelry in nearby window-sized advertisements.

A man approached her. He broke her reverie and she gave a blink of disappointment. Then drawing her eyebrows…