Tour Diary - 14
Official documents: the record of gloom.
“Stop smiling sir”
“I’m not”
“You are. It’s not allowed”
“It’s my resting face”
“Think of something sad”
“I miss the guinea pigs and the cat”
“There we go. Five minutes to print, sir”
One is not allowed to look happy in passport or visa photos; indeed, in any travel document. This is because airport owners got fed up with demoralised staff but wouldn’t pay them enough so they could afford to go somewhere too. If passengers look happy to be going somewhere as airport officials check their documents while they pass through (your hell-hole here, possibly Gatwick, or – whisper it – Luton) it causes unrest and itchy feet.
A traveller is required to look thoroughly miserable, as if he or she is being dragged out against their will, either for a family reunion with the fascist uncle in Costa del Driedupfishnchips or for a gumboot-buying trip to a factory in Siberia with a miserable colleague who has bad breath and reads the Daily Mail pointing at the words.
In order to be allowed anywhere near a departure point, one must resemble a compulsorily superannuated Dementor who still has chops and will set about sucking the joy out of everyone around them as soon as the ‘plane doors are closed and it’s cleared for take-off.
One little half-smile, and baby, you’re going nowhere.
It occurs to me that also they probably need to be able to recognise you if you die en route and weren’t smiling at the time. Something like a death mask, but perhaps modern image software can correct a scalp to neck vertical skin droop to match a nose to ears facial stretch caused by laying horizontally on a coroner’s slab.