“Welcome to London”
“Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Hail Mary …”
Story by David A. Laws
The soft Irish brogue and insistent click, click, click of rosary beads from the seat behind me steadily increased in volume and intensity as our British European Airways (BEA) commuter flight from Belfast, Northern Ireland circled over London. For distraction, I searched for familiar landmarks along the River Thames. Through low, scudding clouds, I glimpsed the pagoda and glistening glasshouses of Kew Gardens tucked into a great curve of the river directly under the flight path to Heathrow.
I’m typically calm and collected about situations where I know there is nothing I can change. But a view of the pub where I planned to meet friends for dinner that evening, stirred a twinge of anxiety. There was a real possibility that I might not join them.
My routine business trip seemed fated from the moment I awoke. The hotel forgot my morning call. My taxi broke down on the way to the airport. After missing my flight, I waited hours for another. And now this!
“Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee …….”
“I wish she’d stop. It’s just making me more nervous,” hissed the passenger shoe-horned…
