Crossroads

I’m writing in the Crossroads pub, Eaux-Vives, Geneva. It’s March, still colder than I had anticipated while packing. Inside, darts fly, dogs yap, and a slurring woman drags her words across the table. The password, in a burst of anglophone bon coeur,  is "Welcome1233." 

As I enter, I comment, "Bienvenue.” The barman replies with the nonchalance only the French can summon, "C'est ca."

I landed in Geneva three hours ago after a rerouted route through China deposited me in an abandoned airport terminal for 16 hours. I survived on Chinese wifi, tepid water, and brief conversations with a woman who was either a benevolent spirit cursed to wander the walls of the terminal, the cleaning lady, or both. Before I went for my flight, she pressed a crumbled moon cake into my hands and whispered something I have never told another soul into my ear before vanishing entirely.

Thirteen hours later, we landed in London, and the overeager gentleman on the window seat rammed his bony elbow into my back. I made it home late and collapsed into bed, only to wake up at seven to see my grandma, recovering from surgery. We spent the day in the fields of Shropshire, tending to the sheep that my other family members own and love. The little lambs bleated innocently until we reached the main enclosure, where we found a crowd of stupefied sheep surrounding a sheep that looked much more horizontal than usual, even to my city eye, looked much more horizontal than usual.

My mother's rural side came out, and she poked it with a large stick, muttering words that may have been comforting or a Northumbrian incantation of ovine necromancy. We left the sheep for dead, returned home, discussed death, and went to bed.

The next day, I graduated from Oxford with a Merit in Creative Writing. I donned gowns rented from the distinctly Hogwarts-like Eve and Ravenscroft, bowed my way through an 800-year-old ceremony, and incanted in Latin. Libations followed, then hors d'oeuvres, and then I packed for two hours until I passed out.

After all, Sunday was the day of my birthday celebrations, where in-laws and siblings gathered. I returned to packing, thoroughly sick of myself and my accomplishments. After all, the next day, I started a new job, moved to a new city, and began a new chapter in my life, wherein my soul, if not sold, was at least to be leased.

When I was 18, I dated a 30-year-old woman who taught me several things - my sexual inadequacies, the ease with which older people can trick younger ones, and a few pieces of wisdom that have stayed with me to this day. "Living in many cities is like dating many people," she said. She was a dancer in a bar in Berlin, married for visa reasons, which made the whole thing even more exciting. She warned me about the trap of comparison. This city's street food, that one's prices, this one's architecture, its clubs, its people, its nature. She was talking about cities, but she was also talking about men.

The sounds of the Crossroads pub are getting louder, and darts are whistling over my head. It's a tribute to Switzerland's few true celebrities - the homicidal archer William Tell. I have more stories to tell of temples and tuk-tuks,, the seedy underbelly of Phnom Penh, and the quest for the Black Pearl. But all of Asia is fading into memory, drowned in a tide of raclette cheese. 

My fingers are growing weary, and I have tested your attention span enough. Rest well, dear reader – I leave you with the promise of more weird words.