He wakes up… He has no idea how long he has slept, but he is so grateful for that time. He is receiving medication via intravenous therapy, and he can see that one of the two bottles is already empty. The other one is still almost full, and he knows that he still has to wait for a long time… And he is dying for a cigarette.
He is watching the bottle for some time… One drop, then another, then the third one… A drop… A drop… A drop… And he can’t notice any change of the liquid level inside the bottle… It stays the same, it doesn’t move, in spite of the constant dropping. It is just making him more nervous, and he turns his head towards the wall… He knows that the time will pass faster if he doesn’t watch…
(It was the first time that he had noticed the similarities between an intravenous therapy and an intercontinental flight. Everybody who has ever had a long flight has seen those screens on the seat in front of them, showing the exact position of the plane on its long route. If you watch it, you can’t see any movement of the plane, because of the enormous distance between the two cities. Just like in the hospital bed, it has always made him more nervous, making him feel that the time doesn’t pass at all, that he will never arrive at his destination and be able to lights a cigarette, to have a shower and use a normal toilet. He has got used to turn that screen off as soon as possible, but some idiot would always leave it and it was almost impossible to avoid seeing it).
He turns his head again… Now he can see the change, but there is still more than half a bottle left. He looks down and sees his unpacked backpack lying next to his bed… Yes, just like traveling: packing the necessary things for a month, or a year, or some unknown period of time. It was never his intention, but he has traveled so much during the last decade. He has been on five continents, he has lived on three of them. Sometimes he had no idea how long he would stay at some place, and it is the same now… A month, or maybe three weeks if everything goes well…
A few hours ago he was admitted to hospital, at his own request, because of alcoholism. I am on the road again, he thinks. He knows that this is his last chance. The last chance for a normal life. The last chance for love. She promised that she would wait for him and he trusts her, the way he has never trusted any girl… Yes, I am on the road again. And this is the most important journey of my life, he concludes before turning his head back to the wall again.
30/10/2018