A thrilling adventure

An excerpt of a short story or a novelette? time will tell

A thrilling adventure

An excerpt

The time was three fifteen pm when the flight company car picked him up at the Nairobi international airport, and Elad Daphnie was driven straight to the flight company's office in town. He was exhausted after the sleepless thirty six hours flight from Tel Aviv through southern Turkey, a thirty minutes refueling stop at Teheran international airport, and round the Saudi Arabia peninsula; as Egypt was still an enemy state; and EL AL the national flight company had to fly to Johannesburg not in the shortest possible direction over the Red Sea; but in a roundabout way up to Nairobi the capital of Kenya in East African, which was at that time its second and last stop before reaching Johannesburg the South African capital.

The ride from the airport through Nairobi's streets amazed and fascinated Elad, despite his exhaustion and his terrible urge to get some sleep; he was very impressed by the beauty of this pearl of a city. The driver and the flight company staff member were very polite, and tried to strike some kind of a light conversation with him. He answered their questions with a few words, and kept yawning ceaselessly. He could not grasp at the beginning why he was whisked from the airport, instead of waiting for his next flight to his destination, and that was the first thing he asked his two compatriots. They explained to him that there is no available flight to his destination, and he will have to wait in Nairobi, but for how long? The answer was given to him at the flight company's office.

'You'll have to be on stand-by some four days,' the flight company office manager told him. 'We'll accommodate you in the best hotel in town, and you'll be able to visit the near game park, the local museum and the Mukambo night club; so I don't believe you'll have any complaints.'

Elad was rather satisfied and if he hardly understood what it was all about at the airport, what he was told by the flight company office two members, while right now he was all ears despite his exhaustion. The night club title of Mukambo thrilled his imagination but he had to sleep a few hours first of all, and that's what his polite host at the air company thought.

He was driven to the Ambassador hotel by the same team that welcomed him at the airport, and was checked in by one of them and was even led by them up to his room. They realized of course how exhausted he was, and they did all they could to help him.

'When your flight to your next destination would be available we'll call you, but do contact us once a day and this is our phone number.' One of them told him and handed the piece of paper with the phone number scribbled on it.

© Haim Kadman 2014 �" all rights reserved.