like dew to the pasture

Friends: 0

Prospective Crumpet: Zilch

Cash-Flow: Nil

Sense of Direction: Kaput

Foot bunion:  3

Western Union: 1 (where the hell is it?!)

It is near evening and I walk this foreign streetpath with nary a friend, without a cent to my name. The cold bites. I am not used to this nippy air, not used to walking along deserted streets with immaculately manicured lawns lined by beguiling begonias. All I hear is the steady click-clocking of boots (mine, Guangdong-made).   I exhale and watch my breath as the 7degrees C forms it into little streams of foggy white. I pretend I’m a chugging Hogwarts train toot-tooting along in a leisurely pace headed to, uhm, no place in particular. One has to entertain oneself to survive a day like this.

I know no one here and no one here knows me. It could be that I don’t exist! It’s a curious sensation, the feeling of no-oneness. So this is how it’s like to be a ghost. No wonder those creepies get a kick out of haunting the living — to be a ghost is remarkably unsettling.  To float like gossamer through Windy Willy is unsettling.

It would be dark soon. If this Casper don’t find her bearings quick she could end up pretty literally dead. The word bereft tails me, trying to insinuate itself. I refuse to have it tagging along, I stomp it down with all the violence my synthetic sole could muster. I think of all the familiar faces back home. 4,672 miles north-west from here are people who knew me and know I am alive. This moment they are thinking of me, missing me, praying for me, wishing me to be safe and happy. 4,672 miles notwithstanding, I feel the wave of their collective karmic energies lift and sustain me.

I draw strength from this love.

I am bone and flesh and indomitable spirit and I exist.

I will  master this strange land.

(but first, gotta find bloody Pilmuir Street)

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