The guide “Where to Sleep in Airports,” which unfortunately no longer exists (hence why I removed the link), listed Rome Fiumicino among the worst airports — in fact, it ranked it number one. The important thing is that it doesn’t end up shutting down like Pisa’s Galileo. Moments like these are when I truly miss America. At the departures terminal of Las Vegas McCarran Airport, not only can you comfortably sleep, you can get a manicure, pedicure, customized diets, job interviews, eat and drink to your heart’s content, play slot machines and poker… all available 24/7.
But let’s cross back over the Ocean to welcome the third companion of my journey: the god Pan. I am, without a shred of doubt, one of his favored devotees — one of those to whom he never hesitates to pay a little visit in the most delicate moments of life. I confess I would gladly do without it.

The god of Panic is so named because he often grew angry when disturbed, unleashing terrifying screams that provoked uncontrollable fear. It is said that he himself was once seen fleeing in terror from the very fear he had created. But the most famous myth tied to this trait is the Titanomachy, during which Pan saved the Olympians by emitting a great cry and causing Delphyne to flee. Despite her gentle name, she was a creature half woman and half serpent, appointed by Typhon to guard Zeus’s severed tendons after the Titans’ rebellion against the gods. She lived in Cilicia, in a cave, until Hermes—with the help of Pan—managed to deceive her in order to steal back the divine tendons.
“But you’re going alone?” my mother asked again this time.
Yes, but you’ll see some god will keep an eye on me, I answered. (Again, I would gladly do without certain kinds of company.)

“Crises would come, rising from the lowly nature of things, from the filth of things, from dirt and shame, from guilt, from meager illusions betrayed — they came and shattered me as if from a cosmic height. I would fall, and — eyes wide open on the void — I prepared myself to die. And I died. A death of an hour, an hour and a half. Then I would come back to life, uselessly.
That long, passing death that was panic lasted about as long as a movie. Once or twice a day. Without warning — otherwise what kind of fear would it be?
Day, night, first lights of dawn, last glimmers — it was all the same. I couldn’t predict the moment. But I knew it would come.
[…] What did I do, how did I fight them?
I sweated through them in bed. I clutched them in my hands with the blankets. I swallowed them blazing hot down my esophagus and into my stomach and belly. I trembled them. I cried them.
They exploded like summer thunderstorms, then drifted away — around me, the smell of dust.
I laughed at myself. I cried for myself.”