Nowhere

Virtual travel

"If I cannot be sure that what I experience when I am awake is real, can I be sure that my dreams are only dreams?"

Nowhere is about the feelings of displacement and of not belonging to where we are. It is not necessarily about being very far from home, more of not knowing how far we are from home or even not knowing where home is.

Not sure if this will ever be complete, but it seems an apt title to include on www.nomadintent.com

Sample chapter: The Centre

One day I summon up enough courage to ask the old lady why I was stopped by the men in hats. Until now I have been reluctant to step outside the rather formal relationship we have and feel it would be rude to question anything, as though I were ungrateful for all she is doing for me. I am also worried that it might somehow break the illusion of reality we have created and that once I start to question things, she will do the same and maybe realise that I am not who she thought I was. It is as though we both feel more secure not asking and not knowing, just following our respective routines.

“It is because you were trying to get to the centre.”

“What is the centre?” I asked and felt rather foolish, for surely if it is the centre then I ought to know, as did everybody else, what it was there for.

“Just the centre”.

“Why can’t I go there?”

“It is not allowed. Nobody is able to get into the centre.”

“But what about all the others who were streaming past me, pushing me like a human tidal wave…”

“They were not going to the centre.”

“But weren’t they going to the same place that I was, the market place?”

“Yes, but that is not the centre for them, only for you.”

“You mean that the centre is not actually a place.”

“Yes it is a place and for you it is the market place. You must not go that way, you don’t need to go there.”

And sure enough, my daily routines never took me that way until what seemed like several months later I found myself in the familiar street I had first seen on the day I arrived in the city. The street was as busy as before, but there was no check point and I walked cautiously towards the narrowing junction where I had been stopped before. I was not sure if I would be caught and returned or stopped and interrogated or… if the old lady would be angry that I had gone against her specific instructions. But no one stopped me or paid the slightest attention to me.

And so I found myself at last in the market place, with its brightly coloured stalls selling their various wares and even though I had no money to buy anything, I wandered along, browsing idly as the night fell. I slowly grew bored of all these goods I could not buy, and wondered what it was that had attracted me here in the first place. Was it just that it was where I was not supposed to be or was there something else. Perhaps it was just that everybody else was going there and I felt obliged to join them, if for no other reason than to see what it was that drew them all there.

That night as the old lady brought up my simple meal, she laid it on the wooden table and said:

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

I was not sure if she knew I had been to the market, so decided to be evasive so as not to admit it too soon.

“One of my friends saw you in the market place this afternoon.”

“I’m sorry I know I should not have been there, but I just happened upon it…”

“Oh no. There’s no problem with you going to the market if you want to. It’s only the centre you need to keep away from.”

“But I thought you said that was the centre.”

“Not any more dear”

We all want to be somewhere else, even if only to see what it is like and tell everyone else how good it is or how bad it was. If we fail to enjoy being there or feel we are not accepted, then we tell everyone we have been there, that it was grossly overrated and we decided to leave. It was just not right for us, but maybe there is somewhere else that is.

“The important thing is to fit in with everyone else.”

“You mean I have to be like other people.”

“Oh no, you just have to give the impression of being like them”

“But am I so different?”

“We all are and we are all just giving the impression of being like everyone else”

“So what are we all like?”

“Different”

Like escaping prisoners of war we have to pretend we are like the civilians around us. Our clothes may be recoloured uniforms and our identity papers all forgeries. Our railway tickets purchased with fake banknotes and our disguise as thin as the cardboard hats we wear. Still we stand up to the idle curiosity of those around us who also feel they may be exposed, but will we stand up to the scrutiny of the inspectors.