Knock Knock

Travel is a tricky mistress. She lobs you on her steel-winged back and soars you over to another world, another rhythm. Then she plonks you back. Back here. In my room. And I start to think - did any of it even happen? Was it a dream? But through the gauze of jet-lag I try to remember... that I saw... I'm sure that I saw...

I saw a pair of rubber gloves on a washing line, pegged together by the middle finger in the prayer position. Praying for what? That eventually they'd be reincarnated into human hands instead of plastic cases for them?

I saw a branch with leaves so perfect and precise they looked like bows tied along a maypole. Only Nature could do it so well.

I saw the mountains put on their light evening shawls of the milkiest mist. And somewhere further along the range, the dry ice machine had been left on, on over-drive, pouring and oozing out between the trees.

I saw the stray dogs sleep away the time and the stray cats glare away the time. 

I saw a farmer stand in a field like a scarecrow, surveying our slow passing train, and at the last moment he waved his straw hand with such vitality it split his canvas face into a grin. 

I saw children swarm like ants out of the hive of their schoolroom to wave with their entire bodies at us.

I saw a piece of tofu get invaded by the twirl of my rice noodles, it strapped itself to the back of my fork like a child clinging to the back of its mother. 

I saw sad little crumpled ghosts of lanterns, grey and thin and smouldered, their wishes outgrown them.

I saw the small ripped corners of Coffeemate sachets get taken by the wind, they blew an absurd plastic confetti at us, a western convenience rubbish celebration in our faces.  

I saw a long leaf hanging by a thread to its mother tree, swinging like a pendulum and keeping perfect time. And then I hear it - one two, one two... one two, one two...

I saw the knock knock pulse of a double fit of lightning, revealing the clouds like an x-ray, a naked sky. 

I felt the wind blow such unpredictable splats at my face, it felt like we were locked in an invisible game of paint ball, and he was winning.

I heard... Or I thought I heard... The growl of a wild bear? No, it was the drone of a motorbike. 

I heard the laughter and garbling of a taxi driver. It sounded like a woman screaming, or crying, or mourning, or warbling, an unimpressionable sound, of colour and warmth and an outpouring of joy. It slapped grins on our faces like they'd been stamped there. 

I heard thick hardy branches rattle against the open windows of the train carriages like the world's longest glockenspiel.

The pulsing beat of

Every street corner

Tuk tuk, tuk tuk

Or the crickets cry

Chirp chirp, chirp chirp

Or the bass of the boat

Chug chug, chug chug

Or the metronome leaf

One two, one two

The heartbeat of a nation 

Soaring on the wind

The translation comes

And finally I get it

What it's saying is

I'm free, I'm free, I'm free...

So I suppose it did happen. The sights live forever in the black of my eyelids. Plus the itchy mosquito bite raging on my leg is as good a reminder as any.