In a dark and misty park in the east of LA a man stood up.
His eyes were wide open and his facial expression showed
no signs of brain activity whatsoever. With his hands held
out in front of him he slowly started to move forward.
The sound of cracking branches under his feet was accompanied
by two words repeated over and over again:
"Install amplifiers. Install amplifiers."
The status of this man could not be any clearer, well unless he
actually had been wearing a sign saying 'Sleep Walker' around
his neck. 178 meters in front of the sleep walker, that by the
way was bald headed, LA's most exclusive 24 hours open doughnut
shop was situated. In front of 'The Doughnut Paradise' the
compulsory police car, with extra wide front seats, was parked.
Strangely, the sirens on the roof of the police car seemed to be
sleep walker magnets, since the previously empty staring eyes
on the bald mans head now were focusing the sirens. One interesting
fact about the sleep walker is that he was an extremely experienced
amplifier installer.
The sleep walker,
that the awake reader by now should have enough clues to identify
as Jesper, walked to the police car and
bended over it as he took up a powerful, and expensive,
Japanese gadget from his pocket.
Three minutes later two policemen, with jelly and granulated sugar
around their mouths, came out from The Doughnut Paradise. The first
thing that met them outside was the sight of a bald man pottering
with their sirens. Their reaction to the crime committed in front of
them caused a burn of a small
fraction of the calories they recently gained as they displayed
a splendid piece of police work, that eventually put Jesper to the
back seat
of their car.
The policemen in the passanger seat then proudly reported to the
station that they were bringing home a violent hooligan.
Just when they were about to drive away the driver
pushed the bottom that was marked 'Sirens ON/OFF'.
This started an enormous sound that transformed two vivid policemen,
as well as the owner of The Doughnut Paradise, to unconscious human
beings with blasted ear-drums. A short time later the sound
also woke Jesper up. With a heroic effort Jesper squeezed himself
between the front seats and turned off the annoying sound. Jesper
then climbed over the thinner of the policemen to get out of the
car. He then walked back to the oak three, God knows how he knew
the direction, to get his dear diary. Jesper
then decided to catch a
taxi. While waiting for the taxi, he was very surprised to notice
the large number of bedroom lights that were on or just turned on,
since it was 5.30 AM on a Sunday morning.
"I wonder why they are up this early?", Jesper murmured as a taxi
stopped beside him.
The taxi trip went to the airport since Jesper just had realized that
it was a working day tomorrow, and even Jesper knew that to work one
necessary condition is normaly to be in the very same country as the
working site is situated. Furthermore, since he had missed work the
whole previous week he felt somewhat obligated to work this week.
However, 3 kilometers before the taxi reached the airport it suddenly
stopped and Jesper was thrown out. The reason why Jesper was throw out
is closely related to that Jesper had realized that he had no US$
left, and that he had asked the taxi driver if he could pay for the
trip with an amplifier. If the taxi driver accepted Jesper's more that
generous offer I will not tell you, but Jesper's imminent 3 kilomers
walk to the airport can be used as an important clue to figure out the
inward sence of the reply yourself.
During the following long and boring walk to the airport Jesper tried
to convince himself that the airport surely would accept a couple of
amplifiers as pay for a plane ticket. When he finally entered the the
airport building he had chafed feet, but was sure that he could pay
the trip with 2 or perhaps 3 amplifiers. Jesper walked to a woman
standing under a sign saying: 'Book your tickets here!', and said:
"I would like a ticket to Wagga Wagga, please."
The women under the sign looked carefully at Jesper like she
recognized him, she then worriedly ogled at the photography of
notorious travelers and twitched. She stammered out:
"We normally don't have any flights to that location, but we will of
course make an exception for you and arrange a plane for you. I will
personally make sure that you will get a first class ticket, for free
of course. So, if you don't mind to sit down and wait a while, and not
hijack any planes, I will fix everything immediately."
"Thank you.", Jesper responded and walked to a sofa and sat down,
felling rather impressed by the great service he was given. Five
minutes later Jesper was shown to a small two seated airplane. As he
climbed onboard the pilot said:
"I'm honored to be your pilot Mr. Baldman. I'll arrange so the 14
Jumbo Jets in front of us will let us pass the queue, so we can take
off immediately."
Two minutes later the small airplane with destination Wagga Wagga took
off. What neither the pilot or Jesper knew was that this was the last
time this air plain would ever take off, and that the final completed
flight of this plane had already occurred.