Prague Stories

It is almost time to leave.  Two more days.  I am ready for home.

I am flying from Prague to London and London to New York and New York to Washington on American Airlines.

Took the green line to its last stop east.  Nothing but empty factories—brown smokestacks and broken windows.  A highway leads somewhere, and I walk down it.  I see a field to the left with the concrete remnants of something and there is a path of broken green glass. This is or was or might have been or was going to be something great.  I follow it into the darkness of the trees.  People live here in this darkness—I know it!  My heart booms loudly and fast.  Should I keep walking? “Of course not!”  Body tenses, but I keep on.  I cross a railroad track and a man with no teeth, smiling.  “Dobry,” he creaks.  The sky is getting darker.  Raindrops.  Still darker, and I look down. I am at a ravine.  50 feet down.  No one but me.  Silence and a birds creaks.

Some of the people on this trip aren’t like everyone else, and I love them for it.

“Our means secure us yet our mere defects prove our commodities.”  Shakespeare.

A Pub at 9pm

A couple kisses, accordion, harmonica, some kind of wind-up keyboard/viola sends out scratchy sweet sound, “clop, clop, clop” of hard shoes to cobblestone, baby cries, door creaks, puddle splash and quiet—I am in an alley way. “Don’t take my picture!” a man yells in muddled Czech-English.

I have been numb. It’s not a bad thing necessarily, but I haven’t been happy or sad just here. I look at The Castle and no rush of joy. No loneliness either. Just a castle. How can this be? A most beautiful building—and I know it’s beautiful!—minimized by a still mind. I can’t respond to it no matter how hard I try.

My sleep pattern has finally returned to normal—kinda.

People here love to shop. In a shopping mall a group of teenage girls carry plastic bags of pink, yellow and red. 3 girls. 15 bags.

An Angel Sings

Miguel, Alicia and I went to the central train station to get some additional footage for our documentary and saw an old man bleeding from the head. He fell down 20 or so steps, hitting his skull hard to the concrete. I was looking right at him when it happened. I yelled for someone to call the police and no one understood. Japanese. Russian maybe. But no English. The word “emergency” is not universal. Afterwards, hands shaking and mind numb, we stumbled across our documentary’s lead, Valentin. Had it not been for the falling man we might not have crossed his path, and we needed more of his story. His story: looking for better opportunities in a foreign and unwelcoming place.

Lots of sweet golden beer on a hill overlooking the city.

I have, on average, 2.5 beers per day.

I caught myself moaning, “Tourists!”

I was convinced that people couldn’t tell I was foreign (until I talked). But they can. I guess my face looks different. My clothes. My posture. But I can’t tell you what makes me different.

When packing for Prague, I chose all black, grey and brown.