for many of us, all roads have led to norway.
that is an oblique tangent on which to start the story.
tomorrow: remember to buy soap, a good knife, some alprazolam, and a surge-protected 4-way extension lead.
hahahahahhahaa!
let’s start with something more sickly, sickly familiar, then. waking up at 0600 after a horrible sleepless night in deep dark, still distinctly withdrawally, forcing myself out into the pre-dawn black chill of winter london with nothing, not even a valium to take the edge off...
no, wait a second, we’ve heard this one before. i think.
some of the parameters are different, though. i would like to think.
the extraction operation begins with 2 large cans of monster energy drink, a quarter of vodka, and finishing off the thai and the moroccan in between bursts of frantic packing, phoning, organising, tying up loose ends in a desperate rushed fumble.
fast forward 28 hours and four time zones or so in a blur. (i get the emergency exit seat on the emirates B777-300, giving me all the leg-room, and a pretty and chatty slovakian air hostess sitting opposite me for take-off, before she gets up to keep the passengers fed and me supplied with magical endless absolut miniature bottles.)
dubai. i am sitting in a bar half-way up a reproduction in pale yellowish stone of the great pyramid - complete with giant statues, hieroglyphs and glittering pharaonic gold - only better, because it has terraces with palm-shaded multi-level swimming pools with swim-up bars set into the side. fans of peacock feathers wave mechanically overhead to stir the cool air and eddies of cigarette smoke inside.
i am drinking what turns out to be one of several hideously over-priced vodka tonics. i haven’t slept, and my foot still taps convulsively occasionally. i am waiting for a visa. nervously. i wonder if they will take notice at the consulate that i have travelled many times before to afghanistan, but on a different nationality passport. whether they found it curious that i ticked the box saying i had never applied for an afghan visa before but addressed the clerk in dari.
...
[to be continued. we are another 28 hours along now, and despite my best efforts to bludgeon my consciousness into a blissful coma, still sleep has continued to elude me]
