Lost in a hotel room that is too large for me, a high ceiling, vast tile floor and a tiny chair. Where am I? Rome, I think, a beehive of cobbled streets, twisting alleys and whirring scooters. What street is this? Foreign drawl of a street name like the last words of a villager struck down by cholera. I’m lost in a city where I am lost in the hotel where I am lost in the room and where I am lost in this chair.
Walking now, marching twenty strides behind Odlef, a clumsy limp and with each step a wince of pain from the blister on my pinky toe. This little piggy is squealing “SHIT FUCK PISS” all the way home. The sun beats on Rome, bakes the stones and I walk on the coals. Dry air sucks moisture from my eyes. Trembling, hungering, baking, I fall out of the flowing current of pedestrians to lean against a wrought iron fencepost. I try to find my happy place inside my head, but all of my memories seem far away, across the ocean. But here’s one now: childhood days sprawled on the grass with the family dog. Playing kick-the-can with Mike and Jane. First snow of the year and I’m standing at the neighbor’s door, “Can Jane come out and play?” There now, something looks familiar. I remember every detail about a split second of those days.
Sometime during these musings I have fallen back in line behind Odlef, and I fully awaken as he comes to a stop. Look up, there is a heavy solid dome stretched above our heads, an open circle at the apex, a sunbeam shining through the cool moist air onto marble floors. This is the Pantheon.
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