by Mik Bulk – staring you in the face
With the fruition of Harold’s international airport at the development stage being completed, what should happen but the biggest plane yet strolls by.
What? I know. Me too. So I went aboard with my journalist’s pencil, pad, hat and journalist’s mind and nose for a story.
And what a take off! Captain Derg welcomed me up his steps, which were steep even for me (!): who is used to taking all sorts of heights on my adventures.
In the cockpit, I was dazzled. “What does that do?” I goggled, at a button, pointing. “That makes it take off,” the captain approximated.
I was busy writing when the captain came back, I think from the toilet. I inquired if and when we should, in the words of the Last of the Few: “take to the skies?”
Alas – and this is the crux of this journalism – red tape and the bureaucratic way of life has forestalled any chance of this fine air beast bestriding the clouds.
I explained why in the next paragraph.
The Captain is grim. With no runway, what’s to be done? Harold’s shadow board has snipped funds designated for tarmac and asphalt and goodness knows what else, meaning – and here it comes – the airport won’t get its finish.
Once again, hard done by, put upon and sullied by the way of the world. The poor working man and his children never get what’s coming to them – as is the curse of History.
When I left the plane, I turned back to look up at the captain. He was crying but had hidden his tears.
Why is it always this way? I ask?
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