Well, here we are again. My audience craves yet another insight into my unfathomable mind.
Life is like an airport. Always changing; People leaving and entering my life. One airport that will be etched in my mind is the Leonardo Da Vinci airport in Rome, where I caused a minor security scare. (Why is it always me that ends up in these situations? For an example of this, please refer to my previous entry, Manhunt in Mitcham)
Many years ago, I embarked on a nine-week journey, studying on the island of Crete and then backpacking around the beautiful countryside of Italy. On the final week of this trip, i needed to fly from Rome back to Athens and then to Melbourne. At the Leonardo Da Vinci airport, my weary body made its way through the airport to the terminal. Along the way, my luggage passed through the metal detector and beeped, catching the attention of the guard. Bear in mind that this was three days after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Security was VERY tight at the time, especially for international flights. I found myself surrounded by three security guards who rummaged through my suitcase with complete disdain. Clothing (mostly dirty), souvenirs, and gifts were thrown aside.
Finally the culprit was found. The guilty item was my trusty stainless steel pocketknife, faithful in every situation. Immediately things changed. The tension in the room increased. Maybe it was my dark, Mediterranean features or my aggressive nature (as if!), but security demanded I return the knife or place it in a box, which would be placed in the cargo of the plane. I agreed to have the knife in a box, but they informed that they had no more boxes and I had to hand in the knife. Being the stubborn Italian-Australian I am, I refused. The tension increased. Nobody moved. Time stopped. You could hear the whistle from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in the background. There was a tense standoff between myself (the Good), three security guards (The Bad) and the cute Italian flight attendant (the Ugly).
All of a sudden, the cute Italian flight attendant, let’s call her Giovanna, looked at my ticket in her hand and said, “Senor, your flight leaves in five minutes.” In a state of panic, I hurled the knife at one of the security guards and ran to my checkout counter. Of course, being faithful to Murphy’s law, my checkout counter was a whole kilometer away. So, by the time I arrived at the counter, an asthma attack had seized me. Now normally at a flight counter, several hundred people are congregated waiting to leave or farewell others. But in my case, there was no one. It was just me and Monica, the flight attendant. She greeted me with “Are you Mr. Grace?” (All my life, I have wanted to have a pretty Italian to ask me this!) She then proceeded to contact the pilot to see if he had already left the tarmac. Now, let us pause and consider this. I guess the pilot was busy checking the pressure of the tires or something like that.
So, I then sprinted down the ramp to a bus that was waiting to carry me to my plane. These buses (with no seats) are full of people packed like sardines. Not this one. The one was empty. It was just the driver and I. All you could hear was my beating heart and my asthmatic cough.
Well, finally I stepped onto the plane that was waiting for me. Everybody was seated. The plane was already fuelled up and ready to go. Needless to say, I was not the most popular passenger that day.
I would like to issue an apology to the Italian government for causing a minor security scare and to the security guards for throwing a trusty, stainless steel knife at them and the Giovanna and Monica for being abrupt and breathless and to the passengers in the Alitalia flight for delaying their flight.
Yet, as we looked on I was impacted by the contrast I saw in a fern nearby. The stark contrast of the lush fern against the darkened, burnt trees around it. The vivid colour of the fern was even brighter against the darkness of the destruction. This for me is what easter is about. Easter is about new life.
