Flashed before my eyes...

It all happened in slow motion, just like they always say that it does. All at once I thought of my life in freeze frames, preceeded by the blinding flash of an old school camera. The expert cinematography of the Clint Eastwood directed (boxing movie) comes to mind. You remember the scene where Hillary Swank comes to in the hospital bed hooked up to all of that equipment, feeding tube taped to her mouth, battered and bruised head strapped to a board and propped up on a lonely hospital bed after just a moment before being shown in the ring against that crazy lookin’ German sista that did her dirty? Another flash and we’re looking at the long faces of Clint and Morgan Freeman in the hallway. Don’t remember that? How about Meg Ryan on that bicycle in City of Angels, arms stretched out wide, eyes closed, and big, contented smile on her face as she sped down that Sierra Nevada highway when she suddenly realizes that she is about to meet her demise in the form of an 18-wheeled logging truck that has just pulled on to the road. That scene was 5 minutes long if it was 5 seconds. The look on her troubled countenance conveyed the simultaneous feelings of fear and the thoughts of “if I had only done___ in my life…”, and “…I wonder how they’ll remember me….” It was kind of like that.

I thought of the hospital room I’d be in, trying to hold on. I wondered if they’d have the presence of mind to find my cell phone and see how they might notify my next of kin so far away in the United States. Luckily, amidst all of this doom and gloom, destruction and demise, another part of my brain was on auto-pilot, making sure that none of these outcomes would become reality.

Just off my Air Canada flight and through a relatively painless customs/immigration process, my co-worker and I were walking through the Lester Pearson Toronto International Airport without a clue about how to find the rental car counters. Signage not being one of the strong suits of this place, we had strayed well off course before being set straight by an airport employee on the ground floor. “Go back up the escalator…twice…and then turn left across the bridge and follow that hallway until you reach the parking structure. The rental cars are in there.” We followed the directions, laptop bags on our shoulders and “rollies” in tow when we found ourselves on a moving walkway and no doubt engaged in some random topic of conversation which I can no longer recall. Adhering to the “walk on the left, stand on the right” convention of this apparatus, I was about a step and a half ahead, turned slightly sideways, almost completely wrapped up in the randomness.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the middle eastern family of 4 that were about 20-30 feet ahead of us kept getting closer and closer. When I finally looked up to fully to see what was going on, things slowed down to that Meg-on-a-bike tempo. I doubt that my facial expression changed at all, but on “this” side of the lenses of my eyes TO BE CONTINUED in big, bold, block black letters appeared. Somehow, the wheel on the luggage cart, piled high with several pieces of luggage that the boy of about 12 was pushing, had caught the metal lip at the end of the moving walkway and had virtually locked up and was about to roll back on him as he struggled to keep it from doing so. Making matters worse, the also fully loaded cart that his mother (fully covered in a blue and white birka from head to toe steering the cart with one hand while holding the hand of her 3 year old daughter with the other) was pushing quickly ran up against the boy’s cart and also began to topple over. Somehow instinctively backpedaling on the moving walkway to buy some time, I grabbed the other arm of the little girl and lifted her in tandem with the mom (as she frantically muttered something in her native tongue) in an effort to keep her from being crushed by the mass of luggage and steel carts hurtling toward us. It seemed like this went on for 5 minutes in super slow motion. The block lettered TO BE CONTINUED was soon to be replaced by THE END as the credits were surely about to roll on us…on ME! Peculiarly, the husband had made it off the moving walkway (perhaps in the “walking 5 steps ahead” tradition) and was looking quite annoyed as he finally made it back to lend a hand in the struggle.

At long last, the walkway stopped. It was like a scene out of a Tom and Jerry or Tweety Bird cartoon where Jerry or Tweety is strapped to a piece of lumber that will subsequently have a date with a saw or tied to some tracks as the train’s whistle announces its impending arrival (and their demise) when out of nowhere some hero saves the day. That hero was some random, blue jump-suited airport employee that knew right where the emergency kill switch was. The mother and I lowered the little girl so that her feet could finally touch the ground again. The little boy and Daddy-Late-Freight started to collect the mess of luggage and cleared the way for us to walk through. The mother thanked me profusely for helping her with the girl. My co-worker and I thanked the blue jumpsuit guy and went on our way. Oddly, the husband neither thanked nor spoke to anyone. He just continued to look annoyed as he gathered the family up to continue their trek toward the parking lot. He didn’t check to see if his wife or children were alright.