Vikius in France (Chapter I)

Toulouse, France, 21/06/08. Perfect! It's already 5pm and I'm still in this freaking train to Limoges. What is today's date? Very simple, the first day. Adventures and surprises couldn't possibly wait for a couple of days.

Right, I'm in a train to Limoges where I am to transfer to another train and keep on making my own way to camp. I am not gonna do it... for now. And don't think it's because I've fallen in love and I've decided to leave it all aside and escape hand-holded with an astonishing beautiful young man. NO. The train in which I am travelling has run over a man. I don't really know why nor how, all I know is what I hear from a girl sitting right in front of me, I repeat: a girl, a young girl. As I said, she's just in front of me and if it wasn't because she says every now and then "Oh...it's such a pity!", "Oh! What a tragedy!" I would swear she finds the situation entertaining, plus that she feels relaxed 'cause she can now cross out from her "Things to do" list the following willings: to witness an accident, to be in situ in an accident.
And thank God they've given us some water... I was famished and dehydrated. Now, I'm only famished (as Javi well says). The truth is I also feel my clothes are stuck to my skin and my feet start to smell (it's really warm and the granny beside me has taken off her sandals, why shouldn't I?)
OH! Let's keep on with the run-over-by-a-train-man issue (let him rest in peace). The bloody girl is worse than an old woman. She has found out everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Not pleased with swallowing some not very agreeable information, she's spitting it out to some old couple who are sitting right next to her (the one who took off her sandals, I bet that old lady isn't gonna get any sleep tonight).
Anyway, faced with my total indifference, and the horrible longing for knowledge that this girl had, I could only think "Curiosity killed the cat". And talking about killing, accidents and bad stuff...does anyone remember (if I told him/her) that a week before I left, I had a nightmare with a raven? Because I DO.
Ok. This is the scene: an old man on a bicycle has been run over by the train. According to this chick, there are human, bicycle and other remains lying across and all over the rails. Hideous! Nevertheless, she's running like crazy from one side of the train to another trying to satisfy her knowledge yearning. After a while I've thought "Damn, what a pain in the ass, I'm going to have a smoke"...and there she is with two more ladies, between both wagons. Not only that, she is in first line to the show, she is on the step, leaning over every now and then and informing of what is going on. For Christ's sake honey, you have a problem and too much talking needs. BBBBBBut, on the other hand, I'd like to speak to her cause she may be French, but she speaks English as a native too.
Anyway, she's also said she thinks she heard the man was deaf. I wonder how on Earth she knows that, who did she hear it from? Buah! We’ve stopped again. We’re in a stop called Gourdon or Courdon. I don’t really know cause I can’t read it. There’s a hole in the first letter. This village is poor, filthy and desert, lost in a remote spot of South-France’s landscapes. By the way, they’re not too different from the Spanish central ones. And over all this bullshit I’ve got to pee…and I’m feeling lazy and I feel disgust to go to the loo because I almost threw up the first and last time I went, it’s been almost four hours. It smelled like shit, never better said. The truth is that doesn’t even matter. I recall having smelt worse places. The temperature in that mini-pissing-spot rose up to at least 40 degrees (bare in mind I’m trying to be precise here, if not I would claim there were 100 degrees). Right, besides the hot flush that came along and the confusion of not knowing how to breath (mouth or nose), it was full of midget mosquitoes and flies… EUHGGGG!! OMG!! Somebody, please, kill me!! There were even mosquitoes drowned in the liquid of the WC.
So, let’s continue narrating backwards the rest of the beginning of my day. Toulouse…full of pickpockets. The moment I arrived to the train station, I’ve been begged for money for the train or something like that. Yeah, sure… Of course, after the experience in Chicago, where a cheeky young man asked me for a dollar and made me buy his story (no money for train), I obviously said no to this new one.
After buying the train ticket, I’ve gone to the supermarche to buy me a sandwich that (what a bad luck, mine) left a lot to be desired. On my way to the store, a Moorish or Arab (there are loads of these) changes sidewalks to cut in front of me and address himself to me. Just as he saw my lovely face and soon after my wonderful back, he aborted the plan and crossed back to his sidewalk. So, I continue walking and I see that he’s hastening. He’s way in front of me and, every now and then, he stops and turns. I, still as a statue, I refuse to move a foot until he disappears (I was suffering from paranoia, I thought he would wait for me somewhere else or that he was trying to mislead me into not thinking he was actually chasing me).
I can’t handle it anymore. TOILETTTTT!!!
Ok…somebody condescended to clean the toilet! Probably, while the firemen were picking up, clearing and cleaning of blood the scenario and the human remains, someone was picking up the sh**, clearing the toilet of midget mosquitoes and cleaning it a bit. I’m pretty sure (trying to keep my paranoia creating scenes) they did all this because they feared that some authority that came to the criminal spot got in, saw and smelt all that crab and decided to give them a wonderful fine. In consequence, prosecute them for attempted murder by asphyxiation.
Uhhhh…you wanna know what? Before writing this stuff, I had it written in Spanish in a notebook. Thank God of that (me and you) because I am not writing it again. It’s disgusting. Writing disgusting stuff feels veeeery good; too good; too tempting.
Ok. When this Moorish guy disappeared I went crossed the street and I continued making my way to the store. All of a sudden, I cross a Mr and I feel how he’s turning over his feet and walking after me. And I think “Cross the street and let’s see what happens”. I halt, I prepare to cross, he passes right next to me like a rocket and crosses the freaking street! F***!!!!! I can assure you guys, I stood there with my mouth open for like a whole minute, flipping in colours. Nevertheless, I was hungry and I told myself I was only hallucinating. When I’m going in, that man is inside, but in the entrance. Top to it all, the cashier tells me to leave my luggage in a corner of the entrance. WHAT???!!! Why would you say something like that to me!!!!!??? L Hahahahahaha
Really worried, I left it there and I rushed into the shelves looking for anything. In less than 30 secs I was already with the cashier with a sandwich on my hand. Very well. I am waiting in the queue. Good. Luggage is within my field of vision. Right. The man who asked me for money at the beginning is behind the woman behind me. BLIMEY, NOOOOOOOOO!! Noooo…PARANOIA. Bigggg PARANOIA. I paid, took my luggage and buzzed out really quickly. Got to the station and ate the sandwich, and see how three policemen arrest a man and take him to the car. If it wasn’t for the weird walking way this man had, back hand-cuffed, I wouldn’t even had noticed, because they were walking, just walking, as if they were walking Ms Daisy.
I need to put on my flip-flops. Too hot, and the girl is telling the story again to somebody in her cell.
Oh…how sweet! I’m in my flip-flops and on my tank top.
Bufff…
Anyway, they took him away. After some minutes, a new one arrives and turns the corner. He sees me and comes right to me, begs me for money. I refuse politely and he goes. I’m sorry.
Fed up, I go to a magazine store and buy me a magazine. Then, went to a terrace of a not very nice bar-restaurant and got a diet coke (I don’t drink anything that it’s not DIET COKE… or water. I’m addicted to it. My classmates know). 3 hours to drink my coke. To make the time pass quicker, I read everything that was readable in the magazine. When the time arrived I wasn’t even in the middle of it.
And you know the rest…oh! OH! No!! I get up…NO! Ok. We have to continue with my paranoia. There wasn’t enough space in the terrace so a lot of strangers just sat about wherever they found a free chair. Strangers sat with strangers, and I wasn’t gonna be less. At first, it was cool. The first Ms came, then went off. The second woman came…oh! No! The thing is…of for Christ’s sake. Let’s rewind a bit. When the second Moorish begged me for money and I said “no”, he went to a guy that also refused his proposal, when…what do you know? A good Samarithan (Moorish) comes into action from nowhere and gives him some money like “Hey, I was walking by, heard you needed some money…here, let me help you out!” Coincidence??? I DON’T THINK SO.
When the second woman came to sit next to me (she was Moorish too), it didn’t bothered me at all. Suddenly, she started to try to have a normal conversation with me, as in asking me questions and trying to be nice to me and stuff. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about having a conversation with a stranger so my answers were short and nice. She even offered me smokes for all heavens! IN FRANCE!! People don’t offer smokes to strangers in France. If they are extremely cheeky, they’ll ask a stranger if they can have one. So, “no, thanks. I’ve already got, thank you”. And then, from the side of my eye I see how she turns her head and looks somewhere. When I lifted my head an old man (Moorish, if I may say), just passed from looking at her to looking at me. PARANOIA. I stayed there as long as I could. Where was I supposed to go? She left. Soon, my time came and I took all my stuff and left. As I was leaving, I notice that the old man was waving hi at me saying…stupid stuff that I couldn’t even get to hear because I was a bit terrified and had already rushed into the station. After all this, you already know: weird but nice girl, horrible WC, a dead man…

Well, you all take really good care of yourselves now.
Special kisses and hugs to baby-smurf, dreamer-smurf and angry-smurf.
And a special kiss and hug too to a new smurf that may read this anytime soon. Take good care of you. Hope I can speak 2 u soon.

Poet-smurf

Right, it’s 9pm and the sun waves goodbye far away. The differences is that from here, you can see a beautiful sun, warm and cosy that waves goodbye while hiding behind the mountains and the green; drawing the last orange, yellow and green reflects in the river. Once in Limoges, everything got better. Even the place was better than all that I had seen up to there that day. The sunset dyes orange some loose leaves in the trees and makes funny postcards. The river flows gently during some stretches and really angry in others. The frondosity is such that sometimes you lose sight of the river. Trees are as tall as the moon. We’ve let behind the civilised world (whose name is not very appropriate, personally) to enter the heart of the department of Correze, South France. The rustic world, the wild world. I can sight every now and then trees with orange spots on them. And all of a sudden the green opens to let space to an amazingly beautiful village, full of trees, full of green, with a river and bridges, docks in the facades of some houses, a church on a little hill…a village so beautiful, you can’t do anything but stare. It is one of those moments in which you feel obliged to stop everything you were doing just to contemplate everything you can get sight of as the train, indifferent, leaves it behind.
I see myself reflected on the window, even I look more beautiful, calm and peaceful. The civilised world is mad: and the rustic world is prairies of quietness, peacefulness, rivers of glory and idyllic postcards. Old cosy stone houses that seem drawn out of a tale. All of a sudden, a wall. A wrinkled, irregular stone wall is suddenly erected in front of the windows of the train. A hole made just to fit the train, just for the train.
The last rays of sun cross as if they were being shot to the clouds and the sky from their bed in the horizon.
I don’t smell awful anymore, I’m not hungry anymore…this train is great. Just in case, I won’t do a visit to the WCs, just in case they’re also horrible and they deceive me.
Blimey, when they say Frenchmen are skanks (thanks to my new friends who teach me well English), they’re talking about civilised people, not the ones from the countryside. These people are great. The countryside is awesome, beautiful and clean; very well kept. People in the wagon are normal.
…and…toilets are clean. Yey!!! Hahahahahaha

Thanks to everyone that has read up to here, I know it’s been long and that my writing can be confusing sometimes…but it’s just my style.
BYEEEEE