i sit in my stuffy corner cubicle pathetic excuse for an office separated from the nearest window by a 7-foot carpeted wall that divides nothing from nothing, twisting a coloured pencil round my fingers, cradling my head in my hand, when suddenly the phone rings. it’s my editor and he tells me to pack my bags, i’m headed to the Balkans to cover yet another outbreak of civil unrest that seems endemic to the region these days. it’s five days that i’m back from Niger and South Africa covering elections; i’m not sure whether to be relieved or annoyed. in my head i begin a long division equation to determine my present jet lag quotient. number of days travelling, times hours per voyage, divided by time zones crossed, minus hours of sleep lost in transit… but mostly i wonder when the hell i am going to be able to pick up my dry cleaning. i miss my pink shirt and it’s getting warm. cherry blossoms will be here soon.
back home i look online to find a recipe for pine needle tea. jenny says it cures depression, but only mild depression. i walk along 11th street for an hour and a half looking for evergreens. maybe this is why people in this city look so unhealthy.
a day and a half later i’m at an airport in a small city with no vowels in its name and one paved highway; this is the capital, i’m told flatly by my guide, a burly, unshaven man of about 60, balding in the back, in military fatigues with a McDonald’s pin on his lapel, a gift from another, more attractive female foreign correspondent, i’m told later that evening. i extend my hand and he gives me a bottle of water and a flak jacket. put this on. there is no time, he says. it would have been nice to have meet you. i’m unsure if he has misconjugated his verbs or actually spoke as he intended.
we wait half an hour to travel, until city lights are extinguished and the stars pepper the sky and draw shadows of mountains in the moonlight. our words are few and bitter in the canvas enclosed back seat of the Soviet army jeep he has commandeered to shuttle us to his operations center, a generous descriptor for what really consisted of seven or eight a-frames and a host of sweaty, noxious bodies lined side by side in the snowy remnants of scorched earth. cigarette, he offers. i see a faint smile on his chapped lips that seems to light up his face, and i notice that he has a lazy eye. i’ll smoke it in the morning, i say, as i put it in my pocket.
i never have a hard time sleeping in the field, no matter how unbearable the conditions, as they are this night. this stems from the fact that i cannot sleep on airplanes. i’ve never been able to. i can’t read, either, it gives me a headache. all i can do is play computer solitaire. i don’t think i would really want to sleep, either, in case i miss a quiet chance to sit and stare into space and think about absolutely nothing. those moments are rare these days.
despite my restfulness i awake in the middle of the night, teary-eyed from the humid winter air and with a burning feeling of hunger in my stomach. i think about what i’ve eaten since i left washington and all i can remember is a handful of figs and a pack of life-savers. wintergreen. what does that mean, anyway, things aren’t really green in winter. you can’t even find pine needles for tea.
i’ve hardly sat up on my cot when i make out my guide crouching beside me, peering through a pair of night vision binoculars over the crest of the ledge our camp is perched upon, beyond the barbed wire fence we lean against. he thrusts his finger to his chapped lips and purses them. now he does not smile, but i really want to smoke that cigarette. i hear the cranking of rusty wheels down in the canyon below. they are constant and begin to get louder but i can see nothing. he stares devotedly through his lenses at the earth below and motions with his free hand to everyone crouching behind and eying below, be quiet, they’re close.
i don’t remember the sound, or the colour, or the smell of the explosion that immediately followed his gesture. i don’t remember seeing bodies or body parts flying about and blood colouring the dust and snow below our makeshift beds. i don’t remember the smell of burning oil from the upended improvised explosive that shattered the cold, almost suspended night air, or the screams, of many pitches, surrounding me in disparate foreign dialects. no, all i remember is the taste of blood in my mouth. that unmistakable, acidic iron flavour that doesn’t go away when you swallow. i do not remember if it was my own blood.
i do, however, remember that it is time to pick up my dry cleaning.
Tags: Dreams
