Pilgrim's Pragueress

'There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.'

There was a mouse on the stairs at the home in Graz. It ran across my path, and I gave a human scream. Sara asked me what was wrong, and I said, "A mouse," and she said, "This is the kind of place where I would expect to see a mouse," and I thought my scream, if slowed down by a computer, would be understood to have said: "Sara, your having imagined a mouse here has, perhaps, manifested one. It has startled me on the stairs."

Most of this day was spent on a bus from Graz and toward Prague, a lengthy-but-by-now-familiar trek. This second half of the journey was all about deciding what we wanted to read and where we wanted to sleep and aiming ourselves in that direction. If we were going to make Gorlitz in time, we would need a Big Push, and this was it.

Prague was the best choice, since we knew our way around already and wouldn't feel pressure to run around lest we "waste it." There was some sense we could have squeezed a little more out of Graz, but we had bigger chops to hang from even brighter-burning gallows.

A peaceful drift. Autumn colors streaked by outside. MacArthur Park melting in the dark, all the sweet green icing flowing down. I cracked open What is the What, a 500-page novel about the Lost Boys of Sudan. It was to be the last thing I started and finished on the trip. The books were all politics, travelogues, and fictionalized politics. I reckon these are the things I don't have the patience for at home, but with the Patience of the Road, one can achieve great things. 

Or be driven to them. On a bus. 

The German word for "rest stop" or "break" is "pause," and is pronounced "powza." It became a great favorite of ours, and every time a driver mumbled that he was pulling over to smoke, ("pause, funf minuten") we mouthed the word "powza" to one another. 

We adopted it ourselves, and on the long walk from the Prague train station (past the Benches of Experience), whenever Sara wanted to rest, she would say, "I need a powza," and I would know what she meant. 

The overnight place in Prague 2.0 was in the ass-end of town, because we didn't need anything special. Got to the building, and the host's name wasn't on the buzzers. So, I played the ignorant traveler card and mashed all the buttons. A dude answered:

"Ha lo"

Hey there. Is this Adam?

"No." 

....

"..."

Do you... know which apartm....

"No."

...

"I think he lives on two. I will open the door and you will go to two." 

Thank you. 

"..."

(Door opens)

I loved the strange stillness of that. The finality of his "no" followed by the expectation we would ask a followup, but... waiting for the followup to be asked before acting. A strange formality.

Adam was on Two, just as the Formal Faceless Man had prophesied! Adam was baking a sweet-smelling bread. "Well done," he said, "Many do not even find the building, but here you are." Here we were. Dumped our bags, threw a load of laundry in the hopper, and without further powza hopped on down to a fancy burger joint. 

Fries with mayonnaise! Burgers with harissa! Twenty years ago, I got a steak with a baked potato and broccoli with two beers for under five bucks. That Prague don't exist no more. But this one is nice. 

Burger joint was packed with moon-eyed couples making moon eyes at one another. A very fine meal and an easy exit. Clothes were mostly dry. We draped them on plastic furniture on the balcony and let the night air do its worst. In the distance, the spires of an unnameable church loomed and sent, we hoped, drying energy. 

Slept in the Sleep Republic.

In the morning, I wrote at a little desk while Sara made the coffee-hop. I reflected on the makeshift desks and the discipline to write on them. I sure eat less and write more when I'm on the road. It reminds me of that awesome ending to that Flannery O' Connor short story:

"She could have been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life."

At home, I need, like, a fancy desk and the "right" music on and the "right" balance of drinks and temperature to get a few lines down. On the road, I produce volumes while waiting for coffee and balancing the laptop on an ironing board. If only it had been someone there to shoot me every minute of my life.

We made the walk back to the Train Station with almost no powzas. Health had returned to her powerful frame! How powerfully she now strode the ragged streets of stone! This place had been the site of our Escape Room-style puzzle hunt to find the bus to Munich, but finding the platform to Gorlitz was no problem now. Not this time!

Just try to keep us off. (You can't). As the train pulled away, it felt like a victory. After the failure to navigate passage to Gorlitz a week ago from Berlin, we had made it happen. It meant there was only one Pula in my life. Gorlitz wouldn't be a Pula!

And for that, I was very grateful. Great chunks of What is the What broke away as the Czech Republic released its hold. Farewell, Old Girl. Farewell, City of Towers, City of Faceless Prophets. Farewell.

You were the launching pad a pair of nesting eagles needed. Be the powza you want to see in this world.