CROATIA SKETCHES 1 // leaving Edinburgh

29 Aug, 3am.
I awake surprisingly easily. This cough has been making sleep a matter of extreme self discipline, akin to meditation. I’ve been waking at all hours, sleeping at most for stretches of six hours. I’m not exhausted, either, which surprises me.
I shut the door to my flat behind me, trying not to think of what I may have forgotten. As I walk down Clerk St in the dark there are still people about. I had forgotten this was the last day of the fringe. These people have not gone to bed. I nod good morning and they look back at me, suspicious or guilty. The kinship of the hour is not enough to negate the strangeness of it. Nonetheless, their presence comforts the traveller in me. I am not alone. I am a pilgrim and they are my silent guides.

29 Aug, 4.40am.
I’m at the airport. I’m still hawking up gobbets of yellow phlegm. They’re surprisingly solid and sit, foreign and complacent on my tongue until I can spit them discretely into a square of toilet roll. I’ve come prepared.
The effects of the cocodamol are less pronounced than I would have hoped. But still I cling to the idea of it like a lifeline. With the cocodamol I can walk and talk and carry my backpack and that is all I need right now. I must remember to get change for the bus when the plane lands in Dubrovnik.