DENVER — A young couple sharing what one witness described as “an extraordinarily prolonged and increasingly involved goodbye” at Denver International Airport’s TSA checkpoint Wednesday afternoon has been reported to airport security, three separate customer service desks, and a woman who works at the Cinnabon by an estimated forty-seven fellow travelers who have, over the course of the past forty minutes, been forced to walk past them.
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The couple, identified by an eyewitness only as “the boy with the guitar case and the girl who was, and I want to be clear, not stopping,” arrived at the checkpoint at approximately 1:47 p.m. and, as of press time at 2:31 p.m., had not yet completed the goodbye.
“It’s a whole thing,” said 51-year-old traveler Randall Cusimano, who has now walked past the couple twice on his way to two separate gates. “I got through security. I went to my gate. I realized I was at the wrong gate. I walked back. They were still there. They were, if anything, more there than they had been.”
The goodbye, per witnesses, has cycled through what one bystander described as “at least four distinct phases,” including a hand-cupped-around-face phase, a hair-tucking phase, a whispered-forehead-touch phase, and what has been informally referred to among adjacent travelers as “the escalation.”
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“The escalation was the worst,” said 44-year-old business traveler Marla Deshong, who was seated on a bench directly across from the checkpoint. “I was eating a pretzel. I was minding my business. And then they went in. And they stayed in. And I looked away. And I looked back. And they were still going. And I was still eating my pretzel. And I did not know where to put my eyes. And my pretzel got cold.”
She paused.
“They ruined my pretzel,” she added.
The couple, per witnesses, appears to be in their early twenties. He is wearing what one bystander described as “a hoodie that suggests he is in a band that has never played a paid gig.” She is wearing what another bystander described as “the exact outfit you wear when you know you are going to be kissed goodbye and want to be remembered for it.” He is holding a soft-sided guitar case. She is holding, per multiple witnesses, “his whole face.”
They are, per witnesses, deeply in love.
They are, per the same witnesses, in the middle of a security queue.
The TSA officer working the checkpoint, a fifteen-year veteran named Officer Ramirez, said the goodbye had begun to affect throughput.
“We are down twelve percent on line movement,” Ramirez said. “People are stopping to look. People are getting emotional. People are texting their spouses. One guy walked into the metal detector holding his phone up. He said he wanted to capture it for the wife. I had to send him back.”
Ramirez was asked whether he had considered asking the couple to move.
He thought about this.
“No,” he said. “You can’t ask them to move. Look at them. Look at what they are. You can’t be the guy who breaks that up. That’s, like, a lifetime karma thing. You break up an airport goodbye, and something happens to you later. I don’t know what. But something happens. I’m not going to be the guy.”
He paused.
“Also,” he added, “I don’t want to.”
The couple’s continued escalation has drawn a small but steadily growing crowd of onlookers, some sympathetic, some hostile, some deeply confused. A woman in her sixties was observed standing approximately eight feet from the couple with her hand pressed to her chest, murmuring softly. A man in a business suit was observed a few feet farther out, checking his watch every thirty seconds and sighing audibly, sighs that neither member of the couple gave any indication of hearing.
A group of teenagers were, at one point, filming the couple with their phones.
The couple, sources confirmed, did not notice.
The couple, sources further confirmed, has not, at any point in the past forty minutes, noticed anything.
“They’re in a bubble,” said Deshong, still on the bench. “That is a bubble. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. That bubble is going to leave here today, and one of them is going to get on a plane, and the other one is going to drive home, and they are both going to spend the next six hours texting each other about how hard the goodbye was, and neither of them is going to have any idea that forty-seven strangers were personally affected by it.”
She was asked what would happen if the goodbye ended.
She thought about this.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t remember what the airport used to sound like.”
Airport officials, when contacted for comment, said they had “no formal policy” on prolonged public goodbyes.
“We handle it case by case,” said one spokesperson. “Most of the time, it resolves itself. This one has been unusual. This one has been sustained. We are, at this point, essentially waiting them out.”
She was asked whether the goodbye would eventually end.
She paused.
“Everything ends,” she said quietly.
The couple, at press time, was in what witnesses were describing as “phase five.” Phase five, per witnesses, involved his hand cupped around the back of her head and her forehead pressed against his in a way that suggested the goodbye had, at some point in the past several minutes, transitioned from a goodbye into something closer to a ritual.
He was, per witnesses, whispering something.
She was, per witnesses, nodding.
They had, per witnesses, missed his boarding call.
The boarding call, sources confirmed, had been at 2:15 p.m.
It was now 2:33 p.m.
His flight, sources also confirmed, was about to close.
He did not, sources further confirmed, seem to know this.
He did not, sources also further confirmed, seem to care.
At press time, Randall Cusimano was walking past the couple for the third time. He was, sources confirmed, at the correct gate now. He was, sources also confirmed, going to make his flight. He glanced at the couple as he passed. He shook his head slowly. He kept walking.
The couple, sources further confirmed, was still going.
They would, sources additionally confirmed, be going for a while.