LAZZO ran into a wave of good luck. He had landed a job in the low density area and was a general worker at some low density home in Woodlands.
His boss was a stocky stout man with a rotund face, a trademark of consistent balanced diet and long-term affluence.
Barely a month of starting work, his master had encountered a problem. Lazzo’s boss needed him (Lazzo) in Livingstone where business was becoming brisk due to a series of meetings in the tourist capital. He had to help out with some errands.
The boss had figured out that it was better to carry Lazzo than go scouting for some people to hire on arrival.
For some reason, the boss did not mind flying with Lazzo to the tourist capital and Lazzo received this as a stroke of good luck!
After an unfamiliar wait in the passenger lounge, there was a sudden announcement about a plane which had arrived and passengers destined for the southern route were reminded to be ready.
Lazzo became part of a stream of would-be passengers streaming past the checkpoint to the plane with their hand luggage.
Soon, passengers bound for the southern sojourn went up the ladder into the plane, including Lazzo who still had the horse and rider mentality haunting him.
Noticing his naivety, the boss pretended he did not notice this and so he went on to be pleasant as they took their seats. “Yes, my friend, we are about to take off, heh? Please fasten your seat belt,” Lazzo’s boss said as he helped his worker fasten the seat belt.”
He had met a boss who did not want to take delight in the exposition of someone’s ignorance but was hell-bent on teaching.
Soon the twin-engine aircraft started moving on the runway to take up its taxing position before take-off.  It moved slowly westward and then as it faced east, Lazzo noticed that it was racing on the runway at breakneck speed.
After a few seconds racing on the tarmac, the plane was airborne and Lazzo felt sitting in a tilted position for one or two minutes before the plane finally found its horizontal position was drifting through the clouds with ease.
Lazzo heard a voice on the public address system and he was astounded to hear a female voice declaring that they were flying across Kafue River at a lofty level above the ground! Looking below, Lazzo could only fathom a grew zig-zag line stretching across the hinterland.
Still, the height had miniaturised everything below that even if one set the camera at infinity, they would not project any physical feature below.
He looked outside the plane wanting to really catch a closer glimpse of a cloud but each time they drew near one, it was a mirage!
Lazzo could see the two propellers on his side giving an impression of being ‘still’ but were in effect revolving countless times clockwise.
He marveled at this natural phenomenon but was restless because it was his first time to fly.
On the extreme side, there was a woman reading a newspaper and seemed to be content and at this point, his boss suggested they take some food. The air hostess came over to ask what Lazzo’s boss wanted.
The employer turned to Lazzo and asked him what he wanted to eat, but Lazzo had completely lost appetite the moment the plane took off!
Instead, he opted for canned lager which was quickly brought to him.
At least, he would drink on the plane and forget the phobia for the time being as his boss seemed quite at peace.
Whenever the plane appeared to be negotiating a curve in the air, Lazzo would feel as though he were seated in a bathtub and was about to be thrown out with the bathwater!
Lazzo was accustomed to the minibus because even at full-throttle, the vehicle was on the ground and he could see the driver and sometimes protest that he was driving too fast. Not here, because the driver who was called by a different title of ‘pilot’ was secluded and had a co-driver called the co-pilot.
It was a revealing experience for Lazzo so much that on arrival at the airport, which had taken one hour, he felt his spine get stiff that it slightly ached inside.
As they disembarked from the plane at the other end, Lazzo’s boss led the way to the hotel restaurant and bought some drinks as he phoned a colleague who arrived within minutes.
For the first time, he had been booked into a hotel where he found drinks in abundance in the room.
He did not share a room with his boss and now Lazzo began to have ideas but was still shocked to manoeuvre.
He avidly recalled Maria in the Bronx back home. She would be impressed with this atmosphere almost resembling a page out of a millionaire’s lifestyle magazine.
But Maria’s timidity with sophistication showed once when Lazzo was invited by a friend to a workplace party and he extended this invitation to her. She was reluctant to attend the party because she did not know how to handle the fork and the knife.
Besides, she claimed, she did not have the sort of clothes that women who attend parties tended to wear and Lazzo had to improvise with a new catch on the sidelines!
In the evening, Lazzo’s boss organised an evening out and he was given little room to be innovative in his position as a worker.
On arrival back home,  Lazzo was given time off and on a Saturday, he sauntered across the railway line to the watering hole where he narrated his newfound lifestyle in Woodlands.
It was a contrast to what his contemporaries were still going through and now sometimes, he could on his own go to a restaurant and buy ‘some chicken sharwama’ for a treat.
But such stories Lazzo found out did not go down well with some members of the watering hole who felt it was boastful talk.