There is now

(A/N: Taking a break from the neverending travel blogs, and posting a fictional oneshot because of course I write stuff like this, ostentatiously pretentious literature MA that I am. The two characters depicted here are  Aeneas and Dido, and this is meant to be set the evening before Aeneas is visited by Hermes in a dream, leaving the next day to fulfill his destiny, to found the dynasty that would be known to later generations as the Roman Empire. Originally published in the 2013 fall issue of DFLL Pioneer.)

There is now

    She stood at the door of her chamber, a bottle of old wine in her hands, and smiled at her lover, who was curled up in her favourite armchair with a book, at a vantage point overlooking the city. He looked up, gazed at her, and laughed softly. "Are you not going to come in, my Lady?"

    "I was just admiring the view from here," she answered teasingly, coming across to him, laying the wine on the table and putting her hand upon his shoulder. "What are you reading?"

    "Something interesting, for a change," he answered. "I bartered it from a trader who claimed to have come from Asia Minor, across even the Propontis; there is no reason I should believe him, but the yarn he sold me certainly makes for a good read, even though it has obviously been translated, and somewhat shoddily at that."

    "Will you tell me the story?" she asked.

"Of course," he said, rising from the chair and helping her into it. "It is about a powerful king, a tyrant, who was arrogant and self-appeasing, and to punish him the gods made for him a nemesis, a semi-divine being in the shape of a wild beast, who was the only one under the sun capable of buttressing the immense power he wielded and the awe and fear he inspired. So the gods sent him to do battle with the tyrant, and such a fight there was never seen, upon the earth or above it, and at the end both were grievously wounded, neither emerging the victor. Yet other powers were at work that fateful day, and they put aside their destinies and differences, and became the most bosom of friends. Together they traversed the world, one very different to that which we know now - a world in which the landscapes were yet newly shaped, the seas not bent, and many strange and fantastic monsters roamed the terrain. They hunted down these monsters, for many of them brought destruction and woe to the race of men. And so the days and years passed, until one day, when the king's friend was mortally wounded by the Bull of Heaven, and immortal though he was, yet he too passed away to their Hades. And the king, distraught and broken, sought long and hard for a way to resurrect his friend, and his quest for true immortality and everlasting life took him to many lands yet unexplored, where the stars are strange and the wind is still. Yet just upon the brink of immortality, he failed the ultimate test, and he accepted his fate, and returned to his kingdom, a humiliated and mortal man, to build and educate his citizens, who enjoyed prosperity and wealth during his sovereignty. Yet it is said that, ere he passed away, he was reunited with his friend, he whom the king had loved the most, and the gods made them immortal and set them to watch over the lands, and to guard the race of man until the final day of our age." He fell silent, and gazed out of the window, where the translucent beams of the sun were permeating the silk hangings on either side and casting long jagged shadows upon the carpeted floor.

    "And do you believe it to be true?" she asked, looking at his now shadowed profile.

    "Everything I believed in," he answered, "failed when the Argives took my country, my lands, my family, all that I loved. When Scamander flowed crimson, and the very dew of the early morning was scarlet - the gods are using us as mere pawns. We are the cotton balls that your sister's cat is so fond of playing with. When countless ages have passed, will we fade into oblivion too? Will later generations remember how fiercely we loved, how bravely we fought, or will our names only be marked by the cities we conquested, by the armies we ground to dust, and the temples we rear from the ground? Everything we do now, is seemingly only for the greater good, for design on a much grander scale. What we individuals want, what we desire for - is unimportant and unremarkable, in the eyes of the gods. At the end, it is their whim that is our will. Priam's city was doomed from the beginning, as was his son, the tamer of horses. What did it matter that Hector was a far more noble man than the leader of the Achaeans - that our forces, so few pitted against so many, were yet able to hold them for eight long years, to be finally sabotaged by our own traitors in the city, in a fight that was unjust and unaccounted from the start. Yet we were doomed to fail, condemned to die and be razed in the dry dust, no matter how valiantly we fought. For that is the will of the gods. So, do I believe in the story? I believe in what it tells us - that we are but the dartpieces in the gods' game of throwboard, and that what we believe we are doing by right of free will is in reality merely the means of achieving the gods' ends." His profile was sad and stern, and she looked at him, feeling equally the pain that he emanated, the helplessness and frustration in his fate and immobility.

    "Forgive me," she said at length. "I should not have..I only desire your happiness, my lord, and the joy that we may bring each other."

   "Nothing to forgive," he said, turning from the window and walking back to her side. He ran his fingers through her hair, and smiled tenderly at her. "For I am happy here, happy now, happy as I have seldom been for a long, long time. I feel complete when I am with you, my lady and Queen. Would that this is the fate the gods have spun for me, that my last abode is here, even though it is far from the now barren soil where I was born and which I love."

   "I believe," she said, "that we all weave our own tapestries of life. Yes, the gods have the power to alter them, for better or worse, but we are our own grand architects, and it is not only by their whims, but ours also, that the world moves and wonders. So, you may have been blown here by chance, to a Phoenician woman you have never seen before, by grace of Aeolus. Yet it was our choice, you and I, to fall in love, to sculpt the wholesome life that we have now. Maybe not all is as it seems, great warrior. You are here now, and we are happy; we need no eternity in which to love or great kingdoms to witness our joy. Perhaps tomorrow you or I will die; perhaps there are only days or weeks left to us, but what of that? There is now, and you, and I; that is enough. And," she rose and took the bottle of wine from the table, and poured it out into two chalices, "shall you, my Lord? Let us feast and drink, for tomorrow we shall die," and she laughed in merriment, and he joined her in her laughter.

Barcelona, part III - Barceloneta and Iglesia de Santa Maria del Mar

These entries are all small-ish because I'm trying to theme them as much as I can. There will be some fairly large entries quite soon though - judging from sheer bulk at least; for the Montjuic district, and of course Sagrada Familia.

I visited the Iglesia de Santa Maria del Mar, or St. Mary of the Sea Cathedral, which was also quite close to Jaume I, jostling with the other Gothicisms in the Ciutat Vella. Admission (all these Barcelona cathedrals require rather expensive tickets) was 3 euros, I think, but I happened to visit when they were saying mass, during which entry was free. It was a very beautiful place, not as grandiose as Barcelona Cathedral, which is after all the city cathedral, but still impressive.

A cotton tree. I absolutely had to take a picture of this because the cotton was growing in huge clumps, and it's not really something you see every day.

Can't remember what this road was called but it was in the neighbourhood.

Now we're finally getting the emotional part I mentioned way back in June, but it does feel rather anticlimactic since 9 months have elapsed after all, and I then went to so many other places, but that obviously doesn't make it less of value. And I must stop and remember that this blog is as much about words as it is about pictures, which I seem to have sometimes forgotten. Walking into the hostel room, my first hostel, and that cute, longhaired Japanese boy sprawled on the bunk next to mine, a Macbook and cables strewn across his sheets, raising up a bleary-eyed face and saying, "Hola," whilst I thought, Yes, I'm going to LIKE Barcelona.

Next to my bunk were two Portuguese men - Jozef Pedro and Luis, who had arrived at the same time at Henri and Piia. I vividly remember waking up and joining in the half-embarrassed, half-humorous flurry of the entire dorm as people got dressed and got ready for the day ahead. I squeezed into the rather small bathroom next to the dorm room, where Luis and Pedro were also brushing their teeth, and we made amicable small talk. It turned out that they were both students - what are you studying? I asked. Pedro pointed at his toothbrush in his mouth and said around it, "Teeth - dentistry." It struck me as extremely funny, and I went back to the room and shared the joke with Piia, who also found it hilarious.


This was the second day I think, and when I returned back to the hostel in the evening I chatted with Piia and Henry, the friendly Finnish couple who had welcomed me the night before. Yuta from Osaka, who had just arrived, joined in the conversation, albeit slightly disjointedly, and we compared notes as always. Where did you come from, where are you going after this, is this your first time travelling, how long are you going to be here for. But of course this was my first hostel and first trip and everything was brilliant and a brave new world for me. It was also Henri's first trip, so I suppose we were all pretty lucky to meet each other - fresh, virginal and full of expectations, rather than the September version of me, which would more often than not go back to the hostel, put on the prickly "mein space mein time" face and deflect all social activity that required me to do more than smile thinly and say "Fine thanks, yourself?" to friendly but bland bunk banter.

There was a computer in the lounge, which I'm slightly ashamed to say I spent quite a lot of time on - typing on tablets can get so tiring. After dinner - something disgusting and microwaved again - I went up to find that the computer had already been taken by a thin, dark-haired boy. I remember being in a rather crabby mood because of the heat and all the walking I'd done that day, and I grabbed my tablet and flopped down on a nearby sofa with a loud TSK and very bad grace. Which was certainly not my finest moment either, but we'll see.

After about ten minutes, the boy turned round to me and said something. I frowned at him - I didn't understand what he was saying - and asked him to repeat it again. After about two more attempts, he grinned ruefully and opened a Google translate page, and began typing. I frowned at it - "Would you like to use the computer," he had written. I thought that was a bit of a moot question to ask, given that he really only had to walk away for me to use it, but figured that he was just being friendly. I tried to speak to him in English, but he shook his head with another apologetic laugh and managed "Google translate." Where are you from, I typed into the Google translate. Romania, he replied, but I'm living in Spain at the moment. Romania! I said out loud, my jaw dropping to the floor. Really! He laughed at my expression, and nodded. Are you a vampire, I couldn't resist asking. For some reason he understood the English for that, and he chuckled, "No." He pulled up an extra chair and sat down, and we spent the rest of the night - a good three hours - chatting via google translate. Post September, post so many trips, I still look back on that experience as one of the most memorable moments in my travel log. It turned out that his name was Alin and he was 21, hailed from Vlad Dracula's old country of Wallachia, had been in Madrid before Barcelona, and was flying first to Italy for a few days in Rome, and then to Greece, where his mother ran a restaurant. I hadn't taken a proper look at him at first, but then realised that he was fairly good looking, although a little too lanky and thin. He had spidery long fingers and quick dark eyes, and smelt of tobacco. We talked without interruption till about 11, and then Yuta came back and joined the club. Since the three of us didn't speak a common language and it was getting late anyway, I decided to go wash and turn in. I went back to the room and chatted for a while with Piia and Henri, and (rather to my embarrassment now) showed them Hetalia, which I'd been shamelessly fangirling over at the time. The Finnish version of Hetalia was Santa Claus, which they found very funny, and then of course I had to show them all the other Nordic countries.

The next morning we all slept pretty late. Actually, we all got up rather late every day - except for Yuta, who was up at 7 apparently. Piia and I nicknamed our room "the lazy dorm" - it was a scream, getting up at about eleven every morning and finding our roommates in the kitchen: "Yeah, you slept in late too?" And, but, oh! What a kitchen. I remember this kitchen fondly.

One thing I really liked about the hostel was that they provided free milk. I can make do with black coffee at a pinch, but it really raises the bar for me if the hostel provides milk. Of course, the best hostels have a free coffeemaker, coffee granules AND milk. I've come to measure a hostel by the quality of the coffee it provides - access to hot water and mugs is pretty basic (though apparently not in Germany), the next level is a free coffee machine, then granules and sugar along with the machine, and right at the top of the pyramid, all of them along with a well-rounded continental breakfast. There's something weirdly and oddly satisfying about making yourself a cup of coffee in the early morning hours before going out for the day or catching a bus; therapeutic even, I would say: dolloping the granules into the machine and waiting for it to brew, pouring it into a mug and stirring it up with sugar then milk, and sitting down and drinking it. I could write a whole article on morning coffee and what it symbolises for me. In May, my staple drinks were these rather disgusting ground coffee capsules I had accidentally bought instead of instant coffee. I would stir them vigorously, and - depending on my mood that day - usually spoon out the granules that hadn't dissipated (most of them then) into the saucer. And then repeating this over and over again: in Toulouse, in Barcelona and in Maastricht.

We had planned to go to the beach together, us lot from the lazy dorm. I can't remember who suggested it - I think Henri and Piia, or perhaps even Yuta - but we'd been talking about our plans for the day, and it transpired that most of us were going to Barceloneta, so someone said, "Well why don't we all go together!" a statement that was met with enthusiasm. When you meet people, it's sometimes hard to gage whether or not they really want to spend more time with you, or if it's just a one-time thing. In Barcelona, though, it was that rare occasion where we all implicitly trusted each other and wanted to hang out together as much as possible, and made no bones about it. I've been in enough countries, met enough people and stayed at enough hostels to appreciate how serendipitous these encounters are. Anyway, Henri, Piia and I headed out of the hostel in high spirits, and walked into a tall, dark-haired girl in shades and yoga pants almost right away. The girl introduced herself as Nadja, and said that she was looking for the closest metro station and could we point her in the right direction if we knew. Sure, we're going in that direction so why don't you walk with us, we said. She applauded that suggestion - it was broad daylight and apparently the three of us did not look like psychotic murderers, plus it probably beat poring over an unintelligible map - and so the four of us set off to Lesseps. It turned out Nadja was from NYC and on a trip of her own around hr Mediterranean, and she would be visiting northern Africa after Barcelona.

We journeyed together to Passeig de Gracia, the big station where people usually get off, and Nadja said her farewells. I fully expected never to see or hear from her again, but on the platform waiting for the Barceloneta line, she ran up to us after a few minutes, and breathlessly told us that she realised she was actually going in the same direction as we were. We greeted her with gusto and invited her along, which she agreed to with equal enthusiasm. When we arrived at Barceloneta, Yuta was there waiting for us, and we shrieked and yelled and hugged him as if we were all old friends. We then proceeded to the beach, and strolled along the boardwalk. The weather wasn't perfect - the most annoying sort for beaches in fact, dull, grey and windy, but what fond memories these photos evoke. The five of us strolling along, talking and laughing, all of us at our different stages of life and dreams and despairs.

There were various street performers here, a lot of them from north Africa. Talk about building your castles atop of sand. Very impressive, though.

We eventually tired of walking, and sat down on the boardwalk. There were swathes of empty beach chairs that we'd tried sitting in, but hurriedly retreated once their owners came up and told us that we had to pay to rent them - no wonder they were all empty!

So we sat down, and talked, and talked, and talked a load more, and eventually decided that we were hungry, so we found a random restaurant for a very late lunch. The restaurant was very unfriendly and served awful food, but at that point we were all so hungry that anything tasted like gourmet.

Vignettes:

• "I noticed that you're really aware of temporality.. you keep making references to time and how this too shall pass." -Nadja
• Yuta and his double order of seafood paella, which he didn't leave enough money for, and poor Henri had to pay his share for him - I'm pretty sure Yuta reimbursed him, though.
• "I really like Jodi Picoult too!" - Nadja
• "And here I was thinking that I'd never see you lot again!"
• "We probably shouldn't eat those olives. The restaurant might charge us extra for them. They tend to do that a lot here in this part of the world.. they bring you dishes and you think they're extras, and then you find out that you have to pay for them." - Piia