Closely Watched Dreams
The vision was always the same. I was swiftly walking through the passageways of Hlavni Nadrazi in Prague, twisting about a constantly shifting and expanding labyrinth of arches and stairwells- echoing the sketches of Brunelleschi. I was searching for a platform- unsure of its number but steadfastly I marched on. I knew that she’d be there, that marmoreal phantom. Her name and face were both illegible, her chestnut locks floating around that effervescent smirk. Being a nauseating romantic, bent on fulfilling poetic prophecy, I searched for the meaning behind it all. I read all of Hrabal, watched Forman, and drank only pilsner for over a year. One might say I was depressed, and my over-priced therapist would have agreed with them. Every night I slept as a certain character from a story by Borges, putting all of my focus to my dreams, in hopes of materializing this figure from the mud of existence. It was time to come to Prague.
I quickly found a Master’s program at the Academy of Art Architecture and Design in Prague, and got accepted on the fourth of July. I left my job shucking oysters and cleaning toilets, and the rest of my life in Upstate New York- on my way to have a much needed conversation with the city haunting my dreams.
It was good to be back in Prague, and to be a student again- but I wasn’t making any progress on my mystery girl. Two months in, and after a couple of crazed harpies, I was left feeling like an idiot. I was in the city, I visited the train station often, and couldn’t help but drink my healthy share of pivo, alas, not a raven-haired maiden in sight.
One desperate night, alone in my flat in Nusle, under my bunk-bed for one, I wrote a list. To quote a bit of it: “Big brown eyes, freckles, and a significant nose- reads books, wears cardigans (preferably red), and owns practical shoes”
Dopey? Yes. Sad? Without a doubt (at this time perhaps I should remind the reader of just how delicious and readily available Czech beer is in Prague.)
Midnight in Prague
Tak, I suppose it might be time to start getting to the punch line of all of this nonsense. Did I find this girl, or stop obsessing over my psychotic dreams? Yes and no. A few days after the night of my pathetic list I stumbled my way into a date, unintentionally with the cute Turkish girl I had met on my first day of classes. We discovered U Sudu together, snuck into a famous cubist apartment building with an attic full of goldfish, and couldn’t get enough of each other- or the great city that had brought us together. It has now been one and a half years since then, we’re together, and I’m even more obsessed with her than I was before we met.