Hitchhiking

by Stanley Ward

Something has gone terribly wrong. The friendly baldheaded Slovenian who had been our lift for the past two hours got a little confused by the Slovenian/Croatian border.

Approaching the border, there are usually two options.

Option 1: Do not cross the border into Croatia.

Option 2: Cross the border into Croatia.

Much like Bill Clinton, our Slovenian friend found a third way.

Option 3: Accidentally cross the Slovenian part of the border, panic, tell us to leave the car, and drive back leaving us stranded between both.

We’re in a new country now. It’s a small state, consisting entirely of some kind of police station, multiple checkpoints for passenger and commercial vehicles, and an under-construction duty free shop (UCDFS). The flat area we are standing on is flanked by walls of grey ragged stone. Not climbable. Besides, not only are we not kitted out for hiking, but the border security is also armed. On one side of our new home is the Slovenian border we have just passed. Before the border it’s all highway, where it’s not only dangerous, but illegal to flag down cars. On the other there is a road, passing through a ravine which leads to the Croatian border. There is no footpath.

To get a ride, a hitchhiker’s best bet is a gas station, but any car park is a potential option. Any place where you can accost people when they are no longer protected by the aluminium walls of their vehicles yields better results. People behave differently when they’re secured by walls. Walls, borders, oceans. Us and them. Us and the Other: the not-us. A petrol station is where we met our large Slovenian friend, who was returning from a nightshift in one of the many roadside casinos we’d seen billboards for. In our new country, no cars stop. These travellers do not seem interested in the goods and wares (giant Toblerones, identical perfumes, whiskey) of the UCDFS. We stand in the UCDFS car park as the initial dusting of snow on the asphalt becomes a decent coating, and it is beginning to settle on our clothes. An umbrella is used as a makeshift solution – if the snow settles and melts into the fabric of our coats, it’s game over.

Despite the umbrella, it is starting to get very cold. There are three of us travelling together for safety reasons. The downside of this is that truckers (the most generous of the road users) are not legally allowed to carry three passengers. Two truckers have stopped to tell us this. Nobody else has stopped to tell us anything, perhaps too intimidated by the stone-faced security guards (who keep asking us to step away from the checkpoints) to park their cars in this no man's land. For two hours we fail to flag down a car. Each rejection wears down my hope in humanity - we are the tired, the (temporarily) poor, the huddled masses - please just give us a fucking lift.

In March of 2019, I talked my way onto a FlixBus headed to Zagreb that was forced to stop for inspection. It was the conclusion to what, for me, despite the inconvenience was really just a holiday. An adventure. A way to kill a week off for less than 80 Euro. A pretty good story to write about. In May 2019 a migrant boat capsized and 70 people hoping to reach Europe drowned in the Mediterranean. It was the deadliest such incident in this ocean since January. A rescue ship that carried 30 survivors to shore was seized by the Italian authorities after docking - Italian waters are closed to such NGO vessels. The captain was investigated for aiding illegal immigration, and Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interior minister, tweeted from within the little aluminium walls of his mind. The tweet read “The ship has been blocked and seized; this will be their last trip. Bye Bye!” Last trip, as if it were a vacation. As if it didn’t end in lungs filled with cold water.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

Imagine you sit at a table, at rest, nothing missing, maybe even some friends or family around. Suddenly, someone moves forward and decides to light a candle. You observe how the person carefully makes the flame and gives the silent candle life, retreating into the seat with a sense of success. You stare into the newborn light. Fire has always touched you in a place of your mind you could only hardly grasp – a place on the edge to the realm of the unconscious and depths beyond. Always this constantly changing pattern of something which yet stays constantly the same: this magical flickering, the catching crackling, inevitable hypnotizing, of this entity given – or sometimes stolen - to humans from Gods above. You look at it carefully, listen to it artfully, feel its warmth curiously. Slowly, you start to lose the feeling of the chair you are sitting in, lose touch of time even. Slowly, everything else starts to become blurry. More and more the only things you know are you - and the living childish flame. You are alone with yourself, but together with the flame. Still it moves in mysterious ways - but it does not frighten, nor does it bother you, really – it only evokes awe. You sink into this marvellous play of the elements, and a smile finds and touches your face. Through your nose you breathe in, deeply and richly, and your body reacts accordingly. Sometimes, you realize faintly in the back of your mind, deep breaths are like little love notes to your body. So you sit and watch this tiny flame doing its play.

Quietly, a voice emerges. Soft in its tone, warming your mind like the candle does your heart. And as the voice grows strong enough, you hear the melody ask:

"If your life would be a flame, would you like it to be as much of a burning engulfing blaze as it can be, wondrous and a point of admiration, an explosion worth of writing down in the books of history; or rather a tiny but peaceful flame in a candle, providing light for a limited space but yet a source of evoking calm for the ones who can see and feel it, creating a sense of home?"

Which one would it be? Which one should it be? For you?

Breathe in. And breathe out. Step by step you come back. You feel your chair, feel the air of your living room, feel your arms and legs which apparently are still there. You open your eyes. The tiny flame bounces in its place, still, sort of happily and very much alive; as if it would like to say hello. You stand up. Breathe in one last time.

And your day continues.