Imaginary Vacation Scenario #2

You are, in this version, the kind of person who enjoys being sweaty. You’re never happier than when your shoulders are freighted with the 30-pound weight of all you need in the world. You are backpacking around a spired and bleak-skied European city. On each corner, pigeons and statuary. Each stone mouth reminds you of the lover you left across an ocean and a dozen rivers, the lover who might be, probably is, thinking of you as you order the pain au chocolat with a perfect accent, as you tilt your face toward the rain in a way that says I am the oneyou picture when you hear certain folk songs. The men you pass on these rain-glazed streets look at you but don’t call out; the women smile as if you speak the same language. The air smells like diesel and the future: somewhere in the fog there might be a scuba dive, a daughter. You might try fois gras or rabbit sirloin. Your boots are perfectly broken in. You read maps with ease, are welcomed in lamp-lit taverns. Somehow you always have enough for cheap wine and somehow it tastes like gold. In this version, your face is unlined. In this version, everything is yet to happen.