Back from a best
time of your life family vacation in Rome. We’re talking walking, eating pasta
and drinking wine and amaro. Below is a taste of what we found:
Imperial Past I
This place Roma is one in which
People resist the other
While kissing her on both cheeks
And then a third time
To seal the illusion.
Imperial Past II
When you are so long gone
From being the Imperial
What to do but cling to
Your exception, no maps will
Mark the spot, find the center,
Your desire on terms of the ancient
conquerors,
A mind game that isn’t tied to rules
You can possibly understand
And that, best of all, are so
Pre-digital as to make even the squarest
Disciple bow in disbelief.
Imperial Past III
We’re on board
Alitalia, the nine-hour flight home. The plane so tight there is no extra room,
a knee-crusher, and me with my deep vein thrombosis concerns. It’s been more
than fourteen years since I’ve popped a blood clot, but the fear of spitting
off a new one never leaves.
K is sitting
across the aisle, trying to read “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed, but when she presses
her “light” button on the handrest nothing is illuminated. In her row at least. A light in Row 34, directly in front of hers, does go on. She then
turns to the fellow passenger behind her in Row 36 and kindly asks him to touch
the lightbulb graphic on his handrest. He does so and Kate blinks out of
darkness and into her “Wild” reading.
M and I notice
later that in each of the four-seat middle rows to the bulkhead, the light
switches work – but for the row directly in front, not overhead.
M presses her
flight attendant button and when our assigned person comes by in due time, M
tells her about the malfunction. People have also complained about hardly
working entertainment systems. Mine is out for four of the nine hours, except
for the channel that offers the slow narrative of the tiny white plane and
Western world graphic whose 1980s Atari-style technology offers nostalgic
comfort.
The flight
attendant tests a few of the lights to see if what M says is true, and sure
enough, it is.
“I’ve never seen
that before,” she says with a Mona Lisa smile. Then she shakes her head and goes
back to wherever it was she came from.
Next: Running for Your Life: Hubris
Handicap
