Exodus
International travel is strange—at least to me. When I’m on a plane, I sometimes think about how the only way to get to the places I’m flying to used to be to take a ship piloted by sailors who used the stars and charts to steer. Sometimes, they didn’t even know where their destinations were; they just set sail. Nowadays, I can fly anywhere in the world in a number of (admittedly very long) hours, using a contraption that was invented by two guys who made bicycles and which is powered by dead dinosaurs. Last week, I was in Africa, minding my own business, when suddenly I was whisked away to the airport, where I endured long security lines, terminals bereft of enough seating, and too many overpriced French patisseries. Then, I rode the shuttle out to my chariot in the middle of the tarmac and crammed myself into my inhumanely small seat like one of Upton Sinclair’s cows. During the flight, I entertained myself by dropping my possessions on the floor and being unable to find them, ...