Lost in a good book

I'm in the Seattle airport trying to relax and finish Tess of the D'Urbervilles before my flight, but I'm distracted by voices from above. I can ignore the flight announcements and security announcements pretty easily, but from above my left shoulder a television brings news bites that keep creeping insistently into my consciousness. The voices want me to think about imprisoned journalists, nuclear tests, and sexual paraphilia, but Tess is trudging across the heath toward Stonehenge and I'd rather stick with her.

I haven't read a newspaper all week, although I've glanced occasionally at the New York Times online. Apparently, things have happened while I've been gone. I've read about that plane that crashed in the Atlantic but I don't know how the Cleveland Indians are doing this week and I don't know anything about those journalists in North Korea, nor am I likely to learn much more from the annoying voices yammering on the tube. Airplane terminals are bearable only if one can become as absent from them as possible--preferably by being lost in a good book. The yammering talking heads keep jerking me back into the present and trying to keep me there with constant promises of hot news after the break. The news for Tess may be bleak, but the book will eventually come to an end, unlike the teasing promises of the 24-hour news cycle. I refuse to get sucked into that black hole.

There will be time to get caught up on the real world after I get home. For now, I'd rather stick with the fictional world that awaits between the covers of a good book.