The Peñón-Texcoco Highway stretches out like a straight line that turns the cars into rockets, propelling them down the pavement in a swift path from the metropolis into the ejidos of the state of Mexico, and from there back to the city on the opposite lane. In a car going at 100 km/h, things happening at either side of the road whizz past the eyes like a wake of abstract shapes, while the sound of traffic comes shooting the opposite way and wanes along, like a weep that resonates in the back of the head.
On January 2017, I drove past the lands of the colossal new airport—stretching north of the road—in the swift traffic returning from the state of Mexico into the capital. From the beginning of the highway, the perimeter fence now separating this new territory from the “outside” resembled a succession of gray and white slats to the right of the automobile. As the car moved ahead, the abstract image became a solid object: the slats went on for miles. When looking up north from the passenger’s seat, you could see the gray and white barrier encircling the entire perimeter of the airport area, rising on its edge like a new borderline. [...]