Heading West - Day 25 (Prague to Willstadt)

“It is suicide to be abroad. But what it is to be at home, ... what it is to be at home? A lingering dissolution.”
― Samuel Beckett

Karura went to the main Triumph dealer in Prague. Indeed, the only Triumph dealer before Bratislava. He wandered around the new motorcycles feeling a tinge of lust, combined with the nagging guilt of infidelity as his own eight year old Sprint ST 1050 sat still beautiful and overwhelmingly loved outside.

There were no other customers, but there were a few members of staff sitting around, staring so intently at their PC screens that nobody noticed Karura. He saw some stairs and, as ever, was drawn upwards. In a large room at the top, Karura found himself surrounded by all manner of spare parts and a handy counter to stand at. He noticed another four members of staff sitting at computers, tapping away.

Things started to look up when one of the tappers got up and wandered to the other side of the counter.



Geek App Fuel Stops - Think Anti-Clockwise

Karura: "Dobry den"

Triumph guy: "Dobry den"

Puffed up at his fluent Czech, Karura continued:

Karura: "May I speak English?"

Triumph guy: "Sure"

Karura: "I need two headlight bulbs for my Triumph, please"

Triumph guy: "I'm sorry, I don't know what bulbs Triumphs take"

Karura: "They are H7s"

Triumph guy: "Right, yes, I don't think we stock them"

Karura: "You are the main Triumph dealer in Prague, right?!"

Triumph guy (turning round and randomly moving a box on the shelf behind him): "No, sorry, we don't have any"

Karura: "This isn't  a Monty Python sketch is it?"

Triumph guy: "?"

Karura left, remembering to check that the Triumph sign outside was indeed indicative of motorcycles rather than lingerie. In the entire time Karura was in the Czech Republic, he failed to spot one single other Triumph motorcycle. There seemed to be some correlation.

It was early in the morning and Karura aimed to be nearly 400 miles away in Strasbourg before 17:00. He was astonished at how twisty the German autobahns are, and how much lean they require on a motorcycle . . . . . at anything above 150mph! Karura arrived just in time for a late lunch.

Total Eclipse - 24/07/99 to 24/07/13 - Day 24 (The Agharta Jazz Club, Prague, 'Round Midnight)

“I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.”

― Albert Camus

Falling (In love)

And then I was falling
Through that mist of complete intoxication
I remember vividly the free fall, the rush
At times, all I wanted was for everything to stop
For the essence of that moment
To be encapsulated forever

I could not see the bottom
But I could feel your hand in mine
Intertwined in that special way only we know
Firmly gripped but as soft as your lips when we kissed

We fell together through the magic and the sorrow
We tumbled and danced and flowed
And twirled and laughed and glowed

But I grew weak with the weight of our failure
And as I grasped more tightly
Your grip loosened
Until you were gone

And I screamed for you
And I screamed for you
But another had your hand
Our story lost, redefined

Asleep in Gubbio, eyes still closed
I reached for you
I opened that nectar capsule briefly
And ravished a last, sweet drop

Beautiful people, the best
Grasp me, slowing my descent
But still I fall
And still I cannot see the bottom

Once more, all I want is for everything to stop
For pity's sake, where is the blessed bottom
With its cold, hard rocks

I am coming sweet rocks
. . . . . . . . . .
Take me soon
. . . . . . . . . .
Blot out my shame

Drawing Against Oblivion (Children of the Flames) - Days 21 & 22 (Vienna)

“I see and hear old Kuhn praying aloud, with his beret on his head, swaying backwards and forwards violently. Kuhn is thanking God because he has not been chosen. Kuhn is out of his senses. Does he not see Beppo the Greek in the bunk next to him, Beppo who is twenty years old and is going to the gas chamber the day after tomorrow and knows it and lies there looking fixedly at the light without saying anything and without even thinking any more? Can Kuhn fail to realize that next time it will be his turn? Does Kuhn not understand that what has happened today is an abomination, which no propitiatory prayer, no pardon, no expiation by the guilty, which nothing at all in the power of man can ever clean again? If I was God, I would spit at Kuhn's prayer” 

― Primo Levi

Katharina "Gatti" Kawacz, 8 years

The Blumenkrieg in March 1938 brought the Nazi war machine to the streets of Vienna and even the gods fled. There remains a bunker deep in the Leopold Museum of Vienna where the innocent faces of murdered children bear testament to the gods' retreat.

And all the horror and all the guilt in the world descended upon these children.

The large charcoal portraits by Manfred Bockelmann are based upon police shots taken by the authorities at the time - the Gestapo, the SS, the medical profession. Many already wear the striped convicts' clothing of the death camps. Others are in their best clothes, having wanted to make a good impression when called for a photo shoot. Many were Jews, others were Roma and Sinti. 

The soft charcoal seems to bring out the person within better than a cold photograph, but this is an act of remembrance rather than art. Lifting just a few individuals from the anonymity of statistics.

Mengele had drawn an arbitrary line on a wall just a few short feet from the earth in Auschwitz. Those who failed to reach the line were gassed immediately. Karura's mind recoiled at the pitiless contrast as he saw again his own son's anguish at being above the line which would have allowed him to enter his chosen bouncy castle. How could Karura even have that thought in the face of what he was witnessing? Many of those who survived the first cull were killed later, either by gas, starvation, disease or by 'medical experimentation'. 

Karura would have avoided the gaze of others, conscious of the vacuity of his self-indulgently red eyes in the face of such primitive evil. Except he was alone. Utterly alone. Karura knew that he was not 'only' looking at murdered children in that room. He was confronted by nothing less than the execution of God himself.

The Philosopher - Days 18 to 20 (Slovenia to Budapest)

“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” 

― Ludwig Wittgenstein,

Although Karura had undertaken this journey on his own, he had met with or made friends at each stop. Budapest was to prove to be a city of contrasts and surprises, but all held together by companionship and hospitality.

High in the hills of Norma-fa, Karura surveyed the city below him. The great river Danube defines the location while the effortless beauty of the topography gives definition to the scene. Although helped by the cogwheel railway, it had been a long walk to reach this highest point. Nevertheless, Karura's step was light and he was happy in the cool breeze.

There is unquestionable beauty in Budapest. It is a city steeped in history, culture and life. Karura reflected that despite this history it feels very young - adolescent even - and he wondered how that could be. Perhaps it came from its people, so many of whom seem not quite to have found their place yet. Or perhaps it consists in the optimism of a still new market system which has yet to settle into the predictable patterns of many other major cities Karura had seen on his travels. Most of all, he concluded, it was to be found in chaotic juxtaposition of old and new. In parts there seems little overall coherence, with, for example, ultra modern glass buildings grafted onto the old as a statement of what? Function over form? Form over other form without heed to connection?

Karura was in two minds. He loved the vitality and individual expression, yet perhaps saw his own life reflected too deeply in the lack of overall coherence. The word 'integrity' was never far from his lips as he searched for ways to bring everything he felt and knew together as one. Karura had rejected morality in the traditional sense, but he was determined to find integrity. That would mean taking each part of his life and moulding it into a whole. No cracks, no misfits, no tensions. All of it glued together by character and integrity. Karura could not quite see it yet, but he was finding direction.

That evening, Karura enjoyed food, wine and jazz with friends before moving on to the indescribably wonderful 'Szimpla' to drink beer and discuss philosophy until the small hours. In this company, Karura had always found his thoughts shifting for the better and so it was to be once more. Everything was good.

Jumping Back Into The Whirlpool - Day 17 (Croatia to Slovenia)

Karura would spend his sixteenth night aboard the ferry from Italy to Croatia. As a teenager, he had driven the length of the coast road and still it held him in thrall.

As with the Pyreneean mountain passes he loved, the road snaked into the horizon with hairpin after hairpin to focus his mind. The sun beat down on the ultra-marine, ultra-calm sea. At times the water was so close Karura could touch it. At other times the false camber of the road threatened to pitch him a hundred or more feet into its salty depths.

A new motorway some miles inland had shifted time backwards on this lonely coastal road. Many who were holidaying would pass this magical landscape without even thinking. Karura lapped it up and drank deeply from the cup of beauty and truth. Nearly 2500 miles had elapsed and the syncretism of bike and rider was complete. Karura's heart beat and the purr of the engine became as one. Later that day, Karura crossed the border into Slovenia. He could sense the gods were still smiling.

The Artist's House - Days 15 & 16 (Near Gubbio)

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” 
― Michelangelo Buonarroti

There is a place in the heart of Italy where peace and tranquility are interrupted only by wild boar, porcupine, crickets, food, drink, conversation and laughter.

Karura ate plates of eggs and pasta dripping with truffles and drank Sicilian wine. Within minutes, the heat of the city, the noise of the traffic, and the endless tourists had become a thing of the past.

It had been eleven years since Karura last visited this magical place. He promised himself, hostess willing, that he would never leave it that long again.

Karura rested both mind and body, his contentment complete and the friendship more than enough to see him through the next stage of his journey.

Karura Visits the Gods - Days 12 to 14 (Rome)

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier and simpler.” 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Over two thousand miles into his pilgrimage, Karura arrived to pay homage to the gods at the Pantheon in Rome. Earlier, he had felt the thrill of walking out into the arena at the Colosseum, where the mortals had entertained themselves so cruelly. But now, Karura acknowledged the presence of the divine and became silent.

The gods came to Karura as he sat in contemplation and they whispered in his ear.

"If you, Karura, could live forever, would you at once fall to the ground and curse the gods for their malice, or would you rise up and meet the divine? Would you, Karura, become a god?"

Light seeped into Karura through the oculus as he considered the question. It was true that Karura loved life and the thought struck him that all joy must wish for eternity. Or, more precisely, that the joyous moment ought to have infinite value. Were these two notions of the same root? With integrity, could Karura encapsulate the essence of joy and not only allow it to be but also to be forever? Moreover, how could a point at which nothing could proceed further, a point which simply is, not be eternal?

Or were the gods offering merely a longer and endless struggle for perfection?

The desire for existence, the desire to be liberated from your triumph and shame, the need to experience a better life, never to lose hope. This religious instinct with its focus on a future point in time as an escape - "If you just pray/fast/meditate long enough, your hopes will be realised and your fears will disintegrate." - is not enough.

Karura sensed the need to find an answer for the gods.

The thought that things can only get better had sustained Karura through many difficult times. Yet there had been times when he needed more. It was in those deepest, darkest caves far into the underworld, where all hope seems lost and where the nothingness descends that Karura found his answer. For the mortal man, death is always an option. It is not the desire for death and certainly not the act of dying that was important to Karura, but the possibility. The knowledge that one could, if one so wished, end everything, deprives life of its sting. There is nothing that this universe can do to the free man to take away his ultimate autonomy.

Those who are immortal share with force fed prisoners the ultimate denial of integrity. Karura, the lover of life, would find such an insult intolerable. He felt sure the Roman gladiators would have understood.

As he prepared to leave Rome, Karura forgot to throw his coin into the fountain. Perhaps the gods would forgive him.