The List

The air was different. Dry but warm. 

There was dust in the air, and a lot of cigarette smoke.

I coughed.

Memories surfaced of times that I had forgotten.

Times before smoking was banned in most public areas, back home.

Of times when everything was happier.

I wheezed, willing my heart to stop racing.

Would I still be able to breathe here?

I felt I could barely move.

The flight was bad, cramped in allocated seating in a metal box.

I didn’t think outside could be worse. 

But people are everywhere, leaning, smoking, kissing each others’ cheek.

Hands gesturing, everyone is taking up more space than they needed to.

I shut my eyes tight.

What am I doing here?

Pictures. There were pictures.

The words made no sense to me. I was foreign.

The symbols on the sign are my lifeline.

There were pictures, and arrows.

Transport this way. I begin walking.

The last time I felt this anxious was high school.

I feel like an invisible claw sunk itself into my chest with its huge talons and grips my insides tightly.

I feel like the inside of me is about to fall out onto the shiny marble floor.

But I keep stepping. Wheeze after wheeze.

Eventually, many, many doors and then, there is a taxi rank.

I want to cry.

I don’t understand this man.

I push a paper that has my lodging on it.

Scribbled in more words that I don’t understand.

I’m going to get ripped off.

I don’t even know how to say, how much?

And for all I know I will give him the wrong note anyway.

Is this what children and babies feel like? Lost in a foreign world? They cannot move, cannot speak, cannot understand. Everything is different and strange and loud. Painful, cold, hungry.

My stomach rumbles.

They fed us so many times, but still I am hungry, and so, so thirsty.

We drive. The car is configured backwards. I clutch the door grip as we hurtle along the wrong side of the road. I keep thinking the cars are coming towards us but they are going the same way we are.

There is a familiar word, words, on a sign inside the car.

‘City Centre- 45’

I breathe.

It is something to align myself with. I could get the notes out now, so I’m ready.

We swerve. There is a beep.

How fast are we going? I peek around the driver’s body.

The speedometer is past 140KM.

On second thought, I’m holding on. I stare out the window fiercely.

If we are going to crash, I want to know. I want to know before it happens.

I want a split second thought to myself before the end.

I never thought I would die like this.

Fully conscious of every part of my body.

There is no final jolt and we slow.

There are hills, and apartments, and tall trees stretching up to the sky like brown arms growing from the ground, their hands holding moss. The buildings are stone with render, all earthy colours, double story, grounds, and gates.

I’ve only ever seen buildings like this in books.

People actually live in these places. It really isn’t just in fairy tales or antiquated history books. There are flower boxes filled with red geraniums.

I had read, but I didn’t fully comprehend how different this place is.

Or am I near death and this is just some drug induced delirium?

We drive into the city and pass through huge walls. They stretch down the road as far as I can see, and they are the height of a three storey house.

Walls!

I see a man urinating on them. Gross.

And a woman not far off loitering on the side of the road beckoning to the drivers.

I stared.

This was a land of history, and of lore, but some history seemingly had not been modernised.

There was still an undercurrent of the old and illicit.

The road begins vibrating under us. Cobblestones.

Seriously? Insane.

More giant walls of an unknown ruin loom over the transport zooming on the roads below.

I can’t help but stare. I am so small, and insignificant, fragile, and young.

My country is ancient, but compared to these buildings, every building back home is the latest model.

The wheezing starts again.

I am sucking the dust, ancient dust of thousands of years of civilisation, into my weak lungs.

Cough. Cough. Cough.

We pass a river. Temples. Churches. Fountains.

People, people, so many people. 

Hundreds of people who cannot understand a word I say.

Especially over the noise of the traffic and the honking.

A dark cloud shimmers and moves in the sky ahead of us.

What on earth is that? Spirits?

The driver says something I do not understand. The cloud screeches as if possessed as it swirls and whirls through the sky over the road. As we get closer, I think it must be bats. But it isn’t dark.

No, it’s birds. Hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny screeching birds.Would they swoop and attack? Would they hunt? Like a murder of crows? But tiny noisy ones?

We drive by unhindered, except by several buses packed so tightly that it looks like every time the bus puts on it’s brakes that a passenger is going to burst out of the doors like a button bursting off a shirt.

We turn and turn and then we are going down some secluded and very narrow lane ways.

The claw around my insides tightens.

Had I made my way into the city to fall into the hands of robbers?

We stop. My driver stops for a chat, not helping the sense of unease I feel. Oh he’s asking for directions? But he’s a driver! He nodded like he knew where he was going? How do people not know their way around their own cities?! If they didn’t know, how was I supposed to even find my way back here again? I close my eyes and the car moves on.

He was saying something. I could see he was trying to attract my attention so I opened my eyes again. He gestured out the right window.

A stone fountain carved with mythical beings and sparkling water had taken over the side of a whole building. Someone was moving the curtains behind the frozen creatures. Hair, and horns, teeth, and tails, fins and fur. Beauty and terror. The car had to go slow, pedestrians forgetting that this was meant to be a road. And why not? How could you not just stop with your ice cream dripping forgotten down your arm. It was as beautiful as it was terrible. Knowing that the fountain was so old that surely the statues would have been carved by hand made any of my talents seem vastly inadequate. Breathtakingly smooth. Intricate detail. Hair made of stone, yet it still flowed.

This was some rich dream.

We stop, the man checks the address, and nods and points to the door. The sign seems to have the right combination of letters in the right order so I guess he must be right. I fumble for my money, as he is ringing the doorbell. The door is huge. You could fit three of me through it.

Someone comes and they talk.

I say my name and they nod.

I shrug and give the driver his money, plus some extra. I read that is what they do here. Another way to be confusing, the price is not really the price. I follow the man inside.

“Lamington?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, welcome! You have journey far?”

“Yes.”

“Sleep?”

“Yes, and Eat?”

“Ah yes Eat! Map, see. Eat here.”

He circles a street. “Friend of mine. Very good. We are here.”

“Thank you.” He nods and I sign, and hand him my documents, and he hands me a key and points me in the direction of the elevator.

It’s tiny, the door is smaller than the front door by more than half. As I step in it jolts and I have to close the door behind myself before I can press button 3. It jolts again, but there is nothing to hold on to except my backpack. I bargain that if I make it out alive I will take the stairs from now on. If there are stairs. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a slide, or some sort of pulley system.

Creaking, and another jolt. It takes me a minute to flick the door catch, and I am out. I live!

I don’t know what time it is when I wake up.

I shower. Well, I try and spray lukewarm water on my body with some contraption that has more pull buttons than anything I have ever used before. Still it feels better than being grimy.

Maybe I am finally getting the hang of everything being upside down. If I just expect everything to be different, then maybe everything will actually be alright.

I take a look out the curtain to realise it is completely dark, except for some stray lines of light. Wait. The window has shutters. It feels like 20 minutes before I can successfully heave the shutters up. It’s daylight. Maybe early? The sun is high, but there isn’t anyone much on the street. Except travellers, not a good sign.

I dress and head down the stairs to look for food.

But the first thing I notice is that everyone is wearing trousers. But it’s hot?

“Coffee?” The man at the desk asks me.

I gesture to my stomach.

He nods. “Coffee!” and points to the left.

I don’t drink coffee, but I follow where he points, and find my way into a little dining room with what I suppose is breakfast laid out. Lots of cups, and funny looking pots of what I guess is coffee, and piles and piles of many pastries that I have never seen before. Wow dessert for breakfast. I could do that! Maybe I am dreaming.

The pastries weren’t as sweet as I imagined, although very good, so I suppose that maybe I really am here, sitting at this small table, looking at my empty plate. 

I pull the map out of my pocket, and start thinking about working out some sort of plan.

Later, much later, I venture for a walk, even though I can’t walk far. Plus I don’t want to get lost and not be able to get back. My phone doesn’t even seem to get reception here.

As I step, the strangeness of this place grows on me. The fear slowly slips away and curiosity fills the void.

The buildings, so square, so tall, so many windows. Like windowed walls for the streets. Is this what fish feel like? And cobblestones, how much history and bloodshed had they seen?

There is more, even under the cobblestones! I watch as workmen replace the cobble stoned road over the top of ruins with brick walls made of thin long bricks. Is there a whole other city under the ground? That thought makes me tremble.

I pass an open square, but it’s been excavated. From the path I look down to the reality below. Grass grows amidst marble stairs, and stone walls and broken pillars. How many people has the stone watched pass it by? Did it hate them for leaving it cursed, lying on its side instead of stretching into the sky? Was it not still magnificent and beautiful? How had it managed to sink so low.

I lean hard on the railing around the excavation. I need to rest and I need to eat. I walk slowly and choose a random place. It has some words I can read., ‘Pizza’ and ‘Pasta’. There are very limited choices in what I know is safe. I am suspicious that this is a trap of some sort for travellers like me, but I go in.

And I go down and down into the restaurant. There is definitely still life underground. The waiter is a middle aged male, and I choose both of the safe options. I feel secure knowing there is a man with experience serving me. 

I take a sip but choke on the bubbling water they serve me.

I push down the fear, all these odd things, what it is doing is making me stop and think. I’m seeing all the moments that make up my life. I’m thinking about things I never registered before. 

One, that there are alternative kinds of water that can be consumed at meals. Maybe I should have ordered something I didn’t know the name of? 

I swill the water in my mouth. Feeling the bubbles pop against my tongue.

“Pizza?”

It’s placed before me. I get the sinking feeling that I should have chosen the option I didn’t know the name of. The pizza was flat, with barely any toppings, and it wasn’t cut into slices. Tourist trap for sure!

It smelt good though, something basic was all I needed.  I cut a messy, saucy slice, and take a bite. 

Argh.

I think I am dying and ended up in heaven. How could this pile of dough with a sloppy sauce and barely any toppings, be something I never wanted to be without again? But I didn’t. 

I bulldoze the pizza easily.

Pasta arrived then, perfectly hot. I sniffed it, unsure if it could best my new favourite food.

I take a bite. There is no way I am ever going to choose between them. Where had I been my whole life?

I am tired, my mind is living in a different sunset pattern, but I know I can’t leave it another day.

Just in case. So I agree to a man shouting ‘taxi?’ at me, and show him where I want to go.

Instead of gripping the handle, I choose to drink in the life happening outside the window.

Shoppers. Hagglers. Tour guides. Children. Buses. Officials in uniform, with guns. 

Bright blue streets of sky appearing between the straight and tall buildings. A hum of words I cannot understand. It’s not so frightening now. I can hear it’s melody.

The taxi stops and points, and I pay the metre and step out into a bustle.

I am here. Oh God!

It's bigger than I imagined. I start walking towards it. The claw in my gut has been replaced by a drum of joy banging in my heart. I want to jump up and down! 

I’m not looking where I am going and my foot slides down between some giant ancient flagstones.

I can't believe I can just walk up and touch this ancient and wondrous thing!

It is so famous that people from all around the world see it in books and travel magazines, on cooking shows and the like every day. It was the icon of blood-lust and sport. My hands shake as I approach and touch the cold rough stone. Everything here was so different it felt like a dream.

But this wasn't a dream!!! I am grinning like a fool.

I take out my phone and snap a selfie. I’ve done it!

I look around in wonder and drink it in.

I really had done it. I was here! I really had made it all this way and to this point.

I pull up my bucket list on my phone and check off the final item.

It is finished. Tears fill my eyes. I made it to the Colosseum in Rome.

I close my eyes and my eyes overflow. I need to take a few deep slow breaths before thinking about trying to join the line to go inside.

The cancer could take me now.

My experiences are complete. I am at peace.