Uneasy Riding

By Richard Segal

On or about the 6th of April 2010, the Icelandic volcano known as Eyjafjallajkull began quietly churning and four days later, in an act of super-human magnanimity, Europe's governments opted en masse to close their air space indefinitely, marking the most-massive interruption to routine transportation in sixty five years and more poignantly, approximating the first time its many leaders had acted in unison against a common enemy, no less so quickly. Roughly 100,000 travelers were stranded, including you guessed it, us.

Never has a plume of volcanic ash so punched above its weight, but when scientific expert after instant expert was paraded before TV 24 News, the universal response was "we just don't know." This is the story of near-freaking in the face of adversity and throwing caution to the wind, and getting back home by train, plane and virtually every other mode of transportation except pantomime circus elephant, while fighting against the Big Machine at every opportunity, mixed metaphors and all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496981349

Richard Segal

Richard Segal, an American citizen, resides in London, England, and works as an economic and financial consultant. He has written widely about matters relating to global public policy over the years. His most recent novel was The Man Who Knew the Answer.

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© 2014 Richard Segal. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/19/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-8133-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-8134-9 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Before the Games Began

Zoolander on the Seine

Not Yet the Name Give-Up Trade

No Reservations

Earthquake, Earthquake

Trip Notes

The First Train to Transcentral, or, Wicca Training

The Yury’s Out

I’ll See You in the Morning

Passwords Must Match

Hey Nineteen

The Lost Chapter

Second Train from Transcentral, T.Setup

In Granada After All

Third Train to Transcentral, Hidden Treasure

Karin and the Road to Nowhere

Barcelona Ho!

The Second Crimea of the Century

The Pope Noir

Kneads the Bread, Yes, I Do

Ding, Ding

Can’t Load Search Results

If You Lived Here, You’d be Home Now

Uneasy Riding, by Richard Segal, is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, and actual events, organizations or locations, are intended purely to provide a sense of context or reference point. All remaining characters, places, names, incidents, dialogue and opinions are wholly fictional and their resemblance, if any, to real life counterparts is entirely coincidental. No inferences or assumptions about any personal opinions should be drawn from the material enclosed herein, and no such representations should be made.

To my mother and father

It’s been a pleasure

Before the Games Began

Home at last, and never were three words so apocryphal. However divine, this is the story of a real journey, not an ephemeral or spiritual one, for a change. I hope I’m able to explain fully, what’s in my head, how meaningful it was, but here goes anyway, here’s lookin’ at you kids.

What if we were to wake up one day, only to discover that our fates had already been decided for us, that we are living in the gothic tale we all feared, but not of our own making. It is said that Eskimos have 300 words for snow, but don’t we as well? Think about it, but not now, because this question is not about snow. It’s about the divergence of perspective, in which we have many habits of describing the commonplace, or the trivial, but when we want to vary the language from the conventional, we’re sometimes so tired we can only manage a lazy cliché, and when we have something important on our minds, we are tongue tied.

Four beers on an empty stomach after a long workout, at least I was driving, because that’s where I wanted to be, hopping from bar to bar, hopefully each perfect for the occasion when actually none of them were. I tugged out my last book and The Lost Chapter, and my PDA with emails awaiting replies, and set them on the table in front of me. I recalled one earlier episode and began to wonder why I never began to recreate it. I set the scene: the right backdrop, music, lighting and ambient noise, food and beverages, and then permitted the next couple hours to unfold, as planned, until it became semi-dark. Now, as then, there’s a feeling that corresponds with breathing in all according to plan. But what of next? I was forever asking what of next.

It became my life’s work to rid the world of the pompous and the pretentious through prose and verse, but I didn’t have enough momentum or ammunition. The natural high rises to the surface, temporarily, so it’s alright. Every time you speak or write, you give away information about yourself, but this time it’s alright, too.

Where does perceptual anxiety end and depression begin? Part of me suffered from light paranoia and the rest from intrusive thoughts, neither of which had a basis, that much I knew, but they kept returning in different forms. I had to beat them back one after the other, before the next arrived. Where did they come from, and who is responsible? Go away. If in my mind low notions were blocked and only true thoughts were allowed to enter, I’d be blissfully aware of the good only. I will keep working at it. It will happen.

Zoolander on the Seine

The travel writer Paul Theroux is fond of quoting milestone setters before him in his search for authenticity and historical precedent. He spent a few years teaching in Malawi as a young man, only to return in his twilight years to find that nothing had changed, that it was a corrupt single party state, living off Western guilt and the proceeds of tobacco exports from farmers nicknamed Charlie. But he had the Africa bug and kept returning to the unknown continent, determined to investigate every patch of land, discover every custom and rue each misfortune.

An internationalist can fall in love with one war, but for me this was Vietnam, with a minor in the Balkan conflicts of the ‘90s. If I cut my debating teeth on the anti-political correctness movement in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and my writing teeth on the turmoil that followed the collapse of the former Soviet Union and precipitated Cuba’s special period in the time of peace, then my great battle was not against any particular ideology, it was against bureaucracy, in support of peoples yearning to be free of shackles, truly free. I was forever saying some day, some day, but at some point you have to recognize that ‘at some point’ means ‘never’ and either make a decision or don’t. What truly inspired me to put my shackles behind was the nostalgia for the dark riverside blizzards of Cambridge recounted briefly by Theroux, and the melancholy I suffered those days, followed by the landmark encounter with a young and deluded DNC campaigner, who inspired me to write the Spin Doctors.

I wish I had read Theroux’s final masterpiece before writing my final novella, but who of us alone has the right to request to turn back the clock for singular selfish aims? The stop-start Day the Muses Died was my attempt to address conclusively the fate of two running characters, it was ultimately about letting go, but it seems I can’t do that either. Once more, one more book, I say to myself, just one more and I will be content, but then what of next? My last book was about letting go, and I managed to in the end, of my recurring characters that is, but what happens next? Do I create new recurring characters, a neighbor or as before a sister of the other, the others? We just don’t know.

It was my intention to travel to the cities of global protest and outrage, to interview the emotionally and spiritually oppressed and repressed and report upon their angst and grievances in the style of the first great protest writers of my era, but I snipped instead. The idea was there, but the mind wasn’t willing and I ran out of time. I sidestepped into consumer culture and studied post-information age internet marketing successes in the world between East and West, but it was merely a cortina de humo, as they may or may not say in Spain and if they do, it’s the smoke from a volcano, a 2010 Icelandic volcano. Society doesn’t want to be hoodwinked into buying designer clothes during flash sales from shiny websites and their better mousetrap is not a nationwide click and delivery service for pita, or pide as they might say across the Bosporus, but freedom of expression without some self-righteous captain posing as the mukhtar, telling them what to do, how to behave, who to vote for, and most importantly, under which surface not to peer too closely.

I will keep writing until I don’t have to anymore, I’ll keep driving all night until I don’t have to any more. I’ll keep lecturing until my friends, cousins and other collectives have that freedom, where the short arms of the tin pot despots who listen only to an inner circle out of touch yes men do not attempt to become the long arm of overreach, claiming dominion over everyone with a passing resemblance to a nationhood that once existed in fairy tales.

When my eyes passed across a listing for Balkan Beats, my mind flashed back to the long distanced taxi ride, when we slowly crept through the streets of Hoboken on a Halloween Friday night, we being my giggly friend Peggy and my obnoxious East Asian workmate Michael, as a stubborn traffic light became a passing glance at the Balkan Café, serving hunks of meat, steamed and fried vegetables and memories of shepherddom. Flash forward to the next century, and professional days become personal nights, lingering under lime trees, discussions about business opportunities transitioning into personal tales of the revolution, which failed, and then failed again. Residents of the Balkans wanted the opportunity to prosper in their neighborhood and city as their grandparents had, and they felt as I had across the seas, but they were held back, obstructed by the authorities. In the warmth of the late spring sun, shielded under the lime tree sipping delicate brandy, I could sense their despair. I wanted to hold court, and to hold forth on the tales of Great Ulysses, as seen through my eyes, but I could only sense despair. My great regret is that I cannot put the tales of this and other global wanderers and their sense of despair into words. Pontius Pilate could have been sitting across the table from me, he could have been sitting next to me, and I wouldn’t be able to express the sense of history and poignancy of moment, as he meets his maker, his conqueror and his vassal, and makes one last stab at peace of mind, before he must relive the long solitary walk across the beam of light to his purgatory, over and over. It’s a beautiful walk, this beam of light, but it can’t be explained or choreographed in real life and he must repeat it over and again, without end. What good is bliss, if nothing comes next?

Let’s go to Kalemegdan, the three of us, and we’ll wander around in the pitch black, stumbling across the soft green hills. Why now, why the three of us, and why in the dark? Because I love you both. There, that’s the only way I’d be able to say it, and this is the only way you’ll indulge me.

If you love someone let her go. If she comes back, she’s yours. If not, she never was. I was afraid of letting go, because I was afraid I couldn’t let go, but I had to, and it was painful when I closed my eyes and then opened them, and she was gone from my mind. However, I let go, and she came back. She kept coming back. Hallelujah. No, it was not a person, it was a concept, it was a set of concepts, but I do love you both. If I could suspend reality for just ten minutes and say what’s on my mind with impunity, but I already said it, I already just said it. I want to see you before I go. There, I said it again.

I was searching for the sense of calm, peace of mind being out of the question, and I achieved this via an ulterior motive. Neither of these panned out, except for one obliquely, but there was a destiny to this sense of calm once it was set in motion and all I had to do was say the word, the words. I invited several colleagues to share in the glory of an early 20s success and for the sake of supporting me, and purposely did not invite several others for the sake of the latter, though I wish I had because I knew they would have ignored me and I seek this confirmation in retrospect. I received the important information which was at the root of my quest, and this proved more than an anti-climax, but it was another notch in the dedication to my cause—Jane delivered Lisa’s promise—it was another reason to sigh. It was not the modern equivalent of meeting a woman whose name I later would discover was Nicole, and I had no choice in the matter.

I thought we were a couple who should meet, Nicole said as soon as I said hello.

But I approached you, I protested. Never mind, it was long ago,