“I cannot believe we are here,” laughed Nathan. “How did you persuade me again?”
“I needed a vacation.”
“But we’ve just moved into the new place! We’ve not even opened the boxes yet! What got into you?”
Ramona thought for a while, looked back at what had happened when she realised she wanted to get away.
“Tomatoes,” she decided. And walked off to look at another stall in the souk.
***
“It’s this level of odd that I’ve always loved about you. How you can just throw things aside on a whim and how it always makes sense.”
Ramona looked up over her couscous. “You’re asking why we’re here again, aren’t you.”
Nathan blushed. “Kinda.”
“Why does it matter? Why can’t we just sit and enjoy the food. We’re in Marrakech. We’ve bought things for more money than they were worth, but for much less than we’d get them back home. And we have no idea how we’re getting them home, or what we’re going to do with them once they are home.”
“But people don’t do things like this.”
“Yes they do, Nathan. They even have a word for it. Spontaneity.”
“How did you know I’d even have time off?”
“Nathan! 1 – you web design. 2 – you freelance. If there was anyone who had time off it was you. Hell, even if you didn’t you’d have just dragged your laptop with you and worked here.”
Nathan sighed. And wondered why he was arguing about it.
“Look. If you must know, it was like this. I thought about my brother – who I haven’t thought about in ages. I went to get a salad. I met an artist. We went and had coffee-”
“Wait, what?”
“Ok, I’m not going to enjoy this anymore. Pay, and if I have to go through this, I’m going to at least stomp and sight see.”
***
“You’re not happy?”
It was a stomp and a walk into the story. “You felt like you were missing something and you booked a holiday?”
Ramona was looking down an arched passageway, wishing she’d bought a camera. “Yeah,” she answered, not really listening. “Something like that.” She could see something halfway down, something moving. She was aware that Nathan was talking but she … wasn’t listening. “What? Say that again?”
She stepped into the passage – there was something there.
“- It us? Ramona?”
“Shh”
A shape moved into the corridor. Ramona jumped.
It was a child. She giggled. Scared by a child.
A child who was beckoning to her.
“Ramona! Where are you going?”
“Hey there. What’s your name?” She said with a smile.
“Don’t you remember?” the boy asked, hurt. He showed her the book he was carrying.
“Do…do I know you?” The book was blank.
“What is it?”
“It’s your book of ideas, Ramona.”
Ramona went cold. Ice cold.
“Siberia,” she mumbled.
“No.” The boy replied. “Austria”
Ramona stumbled. Looking past the arches she saw a sand pile with a perfectly formed angel imprinted in it.
She felt her balance going, span round and saw, past the end of the passage, past Nathan, a shed. A hut. A Garage. A barn. A –
Her knees went.
“I’m Has-”
There is a noise when the world rights itself. A rushing, roaring of a thousand trains in a thousand tunnels pushed by a thousand winds. It starts loud, and crescendos. It fills your ears, your world. It is the sound you feel.
And there is but one response.
Ramona fainted.
***
Today’s image is supplied, once again, by Chris Wild
