Will McEwan Aldrich
The Time The Place
As soon as I stepped into the airy staff canteen I was struck with the mixed smell of fried food and curry. I walked past the first few tables to the counter, I was attacked with the sweet and nauseous scent of a young woman’s perfume. I took a chicken curry and walked to an empty table situated next to the huge glass window that gave a view of the whole airfield.
As I looked out onto the airfield, I noticed a young woman in her mid thirties, descending the steps of a 757. She was holding a young child and seemed to be looking for something, around the aircraft. She was quite pretty, with short dark hair and a slim body. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she was looking again. She approached a dispatcher, who was wearing a high visibility jacket and had ear defenders up on his head. From the way they were using hand signals, I guessed that she did not speak English. She seemed to be signalling for a trolley. The dispatchers face was completely blank and expressionless. I could feel his confusion, like a child who had lost sight of his mother. Then suddenly we both clicked, he must of thought of the same thing as me. He hurried round the smooth round fuselage of the white Virgin Atlantic 757. About thirty seconds later reappeared with a blue and green buggy. The woman gratefully accepted it and hurried onto the last of the busses waiting to take passengers back to the terminal. I watched the bus as it made its way across the tarmac, following the white guidance lines as it went. It was like a snake following its well used path. As it passed one of the cargo planes, I noticed the loaders unloading a cargo of dogs. Suddenly all hell broke loose. A shiny black Labrador flew out of the loading door and landed on the tarmac with a slight bounce on its hocks. The dog handler, who was on the ground, waiting to take the animals into quarantine, saw the dog and immediately took up chase. I couldn’t help but imagine to myself what the effect would be if the dog got stuck into an aircraft engine. The poor animal would be shredded up into mince meat. Loaders jumped out of the plane and tried to assist the dog handler in catching the by new, petrified animal. I chuckled to myself, at the site of five over weight middle-aged men running around flapping their arms in a desperate attempt to catch the animal. Then, as quickly as it had started, the whole saga was over. The dog handler had caught the Labrador with his extended leash. The animal was put back into his crate and then put in the dog handler’s lorry, to be taken to quarantine.
