Article - General
East of Omaha
By Colin F, added on 25/05/2008
Ten to midnight on Wednesday when I pull into the M27 services, as five
minutes previously the “Italian for coffee” from Terminal 2 had worn off
and I prefer to be wide awake and get home rather than the alternative.
The car park is eerie, deserted, but I get my fix and stand in the
middle of the park with the soft south west wind blowing in my face and
drink half the coffee, relax and put the yellow lamps at the far end out
of focus. I’m almost at the end of a welter of six hundred miles of
driving, five short-haul flights and half a dozen discussions on
workings and fine details of networks, OFDM and communications, all of
which started at 3am Monday. Boarding my last flight tonight, I looked
down the plane aisle to see a row of dark suits on one side only, like
black pawns on a board. All trying to be the most important, all the
same as a result. Not for the first time I’m glad not to wear the
pin-stripes.
I draw in a long breath, shut my eyes and fill in the space in front of
me with black water, ruffled by the warm wind. The eyelid-filtered flash
of headlights, still on their way home, becomes the gentle flicker of a
candle lamp, my night fishing guide, placed behind the bag, keeping even
that feeble star from the curious fish. I lean back on the chair, rod
across my knees and check the bale-arm and line by feel and listen to
the foil rustle in time with the wind, waiting for an off-beat scratch
or a pull on my fingers.
I drink more coffee, the only thing real in both worlds; listen to the
water on the reeds, the wind in the trees and the occasional sucking of
the carp. A few shadows ripple across the cane from the flame’s light
and I sink into the deep calm night.
Eventually my heart speeds up again, a signal flare for the working
caffeine and I resurface to the grey asphalt and painful pale sodium
lights, put the cup in the bin and get back in the car. Thursday.
On the road again. Turn the page.