I was traveling with Kurt in some snowy Eastern European country. Kurt was driving, and the roads were jammed. Men in black hunting caps with rifles walked down every street. At one point Kurt missed a hidden off-ramp and we found ourselves driving down railroad tracks. There was road access further down the tracks, meaning at some point you were actually supposed to drive where a train might hit you.
Cut to an underground parking lot, the air teeming with white dust, spiderweb-like fibers. It looked industrial and unsafe, like everyone was breathing in wisps of fiberglass. Guards escorted Kurt and me. I covered my nose and mouth with my coat, and a guard demanded to see the inside, like I was folding my arms and covering my face to hide something. I told the guard I spoke only English and he handed me a flyer about visiting their country, making it sound incredible.
He said, “they invite Americans for the tourist dollar but is not safe; also comes terrorist, criminal who would hurt American traveler.” More guards demand to see other people’s belongings and clothes.
One flamboyantly-dressed man is wearing a huge gold choker with a box on it and leopard print coat. A guard gets suspicious and demands he open the coat, but there’s nothing dangerous. The guard gestures to his neck and says “choker, choker” to communicate “what about that?” The man says, “choker, I hardly know her!”
One or two of the guards get it and laugh. The first guard notices that my brother and I are still covering our faces from all the filaments and white soot in the air down here. He tries to make a joke too: “we have, um, kept some of your… September 11… gas,” not knowing how to refer to the ash in New York. And September 11 being something we’d all understand.
