Two Minutes Away

Dispatches from Cemetery Road

By John D. Harrow

Translated and edited by Hampus Fickelton

Cemetery Road is not a metaphor.

It's my address in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

It's August. The asphalt breathes heat. The transit app on my phone has displayed "2 minutes" since breakfast.

Two minutes.

Long enough to make you believe something is on its way.

Short enough to keep you waiting.

After a few hours, the number begins to resemble less a public transport schedule than a national state of mind.

From where I stand, Make America Great Again is no longer just a baseball cap.

It's a method.

A way of turning suspicion into routine, fear into security policy, and political slogans into administrative paperwork.

If you want to understand the condition of a country, you don't necessarily have to visit its parliament.

Sometimes spending a week at an airport is enough.

I work at the airport.

Arrivals and departures used to sound like poetry.

Now they feel more like an accounting system for who gets to move on and who is left behind.

Terminal 1 offers a better vantage point than many television news studios.

Last Tuesday, at Gate E6, a man in a red cap loudly complained that the gate agent wasn't "showing enough respect for the country."

The agent did what gate agents do.

He called the boarding groups.

The man had to wait until Group Four.

He blamed democracy.

At Security Checkpoint Four the following day, a teenager placed his denim jacket in a plastic tray before the scanner. A small Pride pin struck the plastic with a quiet click.

His father said,

"Not today."

A little too loudly.

The security officer pretended to study the monitor for a moment before gently sliding the pin back toward the boy with the edge of his gloved hand.

Not a word.

No speech.

No gesture.

Just one small movement.

I wrote it down.

At baggage claim that same morning, a preacher was livestreaming to his phone. He promised moral order to an audience replying AMEN in the comments.

Behind him, a cleaner kept driving a floor scrubber in slow, patient circles.

The preacher turned up the volume.

The cleaner did the same.

The floor became cleaner.

The sermon did not.

That's what public life looks like on some days.

People trying to do their jobs.

People trying to be heard.

People convinced that somebody else is always the problem.

Outside the terminal, a woman holds up a handwritten sign. A driver leans on the horn as though it were a political argument. A soldier walks past a protester without either of them quite knowing whether to nod or object.

Minnesota is a place where people still try to be polite.

Politeness is often how we wrap disagreement.

Sometimes it's also how we disguise a crisis.

In the staff cafeteria, I overheard a retired teacher telling her sister that a book had been removed from the curriculum after complaints from people who had never read it.

Two tables away, a man explained over the phone that an election had been stolen by mathematics.

A teenager wondered what documents were required to change their name.

A mother quietly mentioned that her child's doctor was moving to another state.

Nobody looked anyone else in the eye.

We've become remarkably good at disagreeing alone.

Two minutes.

Two minutes until the bus.

Two minutes until boarding.

Two minutes until order is restored.

Two minutes until somebody finally does something.

The number never changes.

It simply keeps blinking.

If you're reading this from outside the United States, don't mistake logistics for stability.

The planes land.

The trains run.

The queues keep moving.

People hold doors open for one another while voting to make them just a little harder to pass through.

The machinery works.

The mood is another matter.

At the airport I keep noticing small moments that seem insignificant on their own.

A sticker on a suitcase reads:

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE.

The baggage tag beside it says:

Made in China.

A child points at a sign prohibiting firearms and asks why it's there.

The parent replies,

"Because some people forget."

A man says he refuses to sit at the same table as his brother's partner.

His brother shrugs.

"Then we'll eat in the garage."

Small stones.

Each one insignificant.

Together they can move a mountain.

Democracies rarely collapse in one dramatic moment.

More often, they erode through habit.

Through the things people grow accustomed to.

Through sentences they stop reacting to.

Through silence.

People ask whether I'm afraid.

That's not really my job.

My job is to pay attention.

And what I see is a society that increasingly treats political choices as though they were natural phenomena.

Like the weather.

As though they simply happen.

We talk about the storm as if nobody built the house.

What does the slogan Make America Great Again mean in practice?

To me, it isn't a cap.

It means turning public cruelty into personal preference.

Calling fear accountability.

Treating fellow human beings as administrative problems.

Making theatre more important than maintenance.

And hoping applause can replace work.

One evening, a flight is delayed.

Everyone is tired in that distinctly American way.

Slightly hungry.

Slightly over-caffeinated.

Completely convinced that somebody owes them an explanation.

A loud man demands answers the airline doesn't have.

The woman behind the counter reads the same weather report for the fifth time.

A child starts crying.

A stranger folds a paper airplane.

It glides across the terminal.

The child laughs.

The loud man stops and watches.

For a few seconds, everyone remembers a language simpler than politics.

Then the complaints begin again.

The child falls asleep.

The paper airplane ends up in the rubbish.

The programme continues.

If you think this is only about the United States, I'd be careful.

Stories travel more easily than people.

Slogans translate.

Methods are exported.

Distrust doesn't need a visa.

What's happening here can happen elsewhere too.

Perhaps with different symbols.

Perhaps in different languages.

But often through the same mechanisms.

A grievance that fits on a bumper sticker.

An enemy with a microphone.

An audience that prefers the performance to the maintenance.

When my shift is over, I step out into the evening air.

The transit app still says:

"2 minutes."

The smell of warm asphalt lingers between the buildings.

Somewhere far away, a siren sings its thin sermon.

Cemetery Road is not a metaphor.

It's an address.

A place where the neighbours are still friendly.

Where the smoke is still real.

And where the choices are becoming harder and harder to ignore.

If America insists on setting itself on fire, I'll keep sending dispatches.

Until the newsroom closes.

Or the bus finally arrives.