| Artikkelin indeksi |
|---|
| Flying brats |
| Don't disturb... |
| Brats at the back, please |
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"Thump, thump, thump...."
I was on the last leg of an exhausting August flight from Paris to Austin, Texas, when I felt repeated blows in my lower back.
First I believed I was hallucinating and decided to ignore the strange punches. After the usual initial tension getting to the Paris airport on time and then the habitual queuing and waiting before boarding the fully loaded Air France flight, the long haul across the Atlantic was civilized if not particularly restful.
The Houston transfer was a different experience with hysterical bomb-searching Americans everywhere, officials as well as self-appointed fear-mongers among the travelers. In my state of emotional fatigue, all of them seemed to have been scrutinizing me as if I - a respectable, properly attired, middle-aged lady - were body-wired.
Now I was looking forward to an hour's shut-eye in my window seat before arriving at my final destination. At the end of my journey waited a particularly emotional encounter with a very dear and very ill friend and I needed to concentrate on arriving serene and strong for her.
No sleep for weary traveler
"Thump, thump, thump...." My kidneys were beginning to search for a less exposed part of my body and I knew I wouldn't be able to stand the mysterious aggression for another hour.
Peeking over the back of my seat, the strangely unblinking, pale-blue eyes of a pale little girl met mine. Impossible to guess her age. A poorly fed or sickly 8-9 year-old? Or could she be as young as 5?
With a kind smile I signaled to her to please stop kicking the back of my seat. Still unblinking and without any flicker of recognition in those strange eyes that she had understood my message, she nevertheless stopped kicking. I threw a glance at the adult on her side before sitting down again. It was unmistakably the little girl's genitor; his pallor spoke for him.
Since the kicking had stopped and he was deep in conversation with a woman standing in the aisle with a baby in her arms, I didn't feel it necessary to get him involved - nor the woman, whom I took for the girl's mother.
The second I sat down the kicking resumed. I waited five minutes then stood up, turned around and asked the little girl politely but firmly to stop kicking. Same stare, same bland expression. And though my voice had been calm but loud enough for the father to notice, he was still absorbed in the woman in the aisle, ignoring his little girl and the passenger in the seat in front of her - me.
I sat down again – and the thumps started again..
