The Frequent-Flyer

A Story by Abishai100

A gov't-worker becomes a frequent-flyer (KLM) journeyman seeking a new vision of world-drawings.

A nice diorama-vignette about the metaphysical experience of travel, which I think you'll enjoy!

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Amlan is a frequent-flyer and likes to travel around the world using his princely inherited fortunes.

AMLAN: I always fly KLM, everywhere/anywhere I go now.

Born in Algeria, Amlan moved to America with his mother and grew up in New Jersey and studied at the Ivy League before working with blood-diamond analysis for Interpol-relations through Dartmouth/CalTech. He then took serious time off to do this current world-traveling. He's a real nerd.

Amlan has frequent-flyer miles/packages with KLM, because he considers it one of the finest travel/airline companies in the world. He thinks KLM is the optimum way to see the world for a recreational traveler/journeyman, because of its outstanding business-class amenities and superior flight-staff which make flying feel...healthy!

His first stop during the last leg of his world-adventure is Hong Kong in Asia. He sees the bright lights of the big commercial Eastern city, but he's looking for something specific.

You see folks, our jovial infiltration-agent Amlan is seeking collections of children's art in this last leg of his world-travels. Every city he sees, 3 in all, during this final leg of his recreational journey, must include the discovery of some terrific children's art. In Hong Kong, the resourcefully frequent-flyer Amlan finds this affable painting of unusual birds/animals walking on a hill under voluminous sunshine.

Amlan then travels to Paris to see the lights of the city of romance and fashion. He's in love with its flair for tourism aesthetics and of course the night-lit Eiffel Tower. What will he find in Paris?

Amlan finds this extraordinary painting made by a 10 year-old who wanted to capture the imagination of adults and kids visiting an art museum hand-in-hand. Amlan is in love with this awesome painting and takes snapshots with his smartphone-camera to study during his next KLM flight.

At the Paris airport, Amlan runs into an old Interpol-relations associate named Guy who's been using traveling to perform more 'field-research' on blood-diamonds and terrorism-financing. Amlan shows Guy his smartphone photos of the children's art he's been admiring thus far in Hong Kong and Paris. Guy's too pensive about infiltration-work to smile, and Amlan starts thinking, "I don't want to end up like this workaholic now."

Amlan parts with his old buddy Guy and takes the Paris antique metro to see more of the city before his next/final KLM flight to the last city on this last leg of his world-trip. During the metro-ride, Amlan thinks just about the children's art he's been surveying and not at all about blood-diamond politics.

The last city on this world-adventure is Sydney. Amlan admires once more the night-lights of the great tourism-friendly place in Australia and takes note of why it'd become a symbol of world traffic, the site of the 2000 Summer Olympics in fact when the USA defeated Cuba in the gold-medal match in what was to become an iconic toast to world sports.

Once more and for the last time, Amlan finds yet another wondrous piece of children's art and takes smartphone photos of it. This one's of a young man and his goat on a flowery field of grass. The boy's carrying a measuring/command stick which he's using the shepherd the goat to some pasture. Amlan realizes children around the world equally fantasize about the nature of resplendent human nature.

Amlan takes in a retro-movie rescreen in Sydney of a very iconic Woody Allen American film about the uncanny nature of modern civilization celebrity and the vanity of photojournalism. He decides he wants to retire from blood-diamond work to finally become a photographer!

He buys for a small boy in Sydney, at the airport duty-free shop, a very nice Airport/plane (KLM/Air France) model play-set, which he tells the boy will hone his imagination/wonder about the joys of modern human travel. The boy's mother thanks Amlan for the thoughtful airport gift, and Amlan tells her, "No problem; I'm a traveling photographer always keen on bringing smiles to kids curious about modern democracy."

When Amlan returns to the United States, he sees a very cool shadow-puppet theater show featuring a wonderful storyline about an Eastern set of monarchs being challenged by a Devil's Advocate who insists he knows more about civility than they, since they've always been 'sheltered' from the illuminating experience of world-travel, since they'd always lived in their gilded/isolated palace. Amlan thinks about how this 'theme' reflects his recent discovery about the odd and magical nature of the human experience of motion.