The Twig
It’s your second trip here not your first so you get to pretend this place is familiar. There’s a favorite restaurant around the corner from your hotel and it doesn’t occur to you that you’re lucky it’s still there. For you, it’s always there.
You love that restaurant because on the day you discovered it your feet were very tired from walking all around; tired to the point of hurting you. You were very hungry after all that walking and thinking about a favorite restaurant in a very different place, a restaurant with a specific sort of cuisine you can’t find readily but one which you found yourself craving. Your feet were tired, your feet were aching, and your stomach was growling when you looked up and saw the sign in a language you don’t speak but with one word that you recognized. And with that you knew it served the exact sort of food you’d been dreaming about as if you yourself had conjured it. It was magical.
But you hadn’t conjured it. Based on your own experience it’s always been there. The dining room is huge and clearly has a history that has nothing to do with a restaurant which makes it mysterious and charming, at least to you. And it’s not a tourist place like the one the hotel sends you to.
Now you consider yourself something other than a tourist even though you are one. You consider yourself more adventurous, more worldly...more local.
Afterall, you’ve been here twice.
It’s a strange story but it’s true: Last time you were here, you fell in love with a twig. A twig, a silly little stick. But it was perfect. From one angle it looked like a fawn; from another, a witch’s hand. You saw it in a shop and from across the room – a room filled with treasures and expensive, beautiful things – you saw that little twig and it spoke to you. You held it, loved it, wanted to possess it. You asked for the price. The woman in the shop looked you up and down and said the twig is not for sale. She walked over and took it from your hand. She put it in back and clearly that was that.
But you couldn’t stop thinking about that twig. It’s hard to explain that you fell in love with a twig or why you did, but that twig moved you. So you actually planned a second trip to the same city the next year, specifically (of all things) with that twig in mind. You go to the same shop, and the same woman is there and so is the twig, sitting just where you spotted it that first time. Frankly you were all braced up to be crushed but you asked the woman for a price and she gave you one. So on this, the first day of your second trip to this city, another dream came true. Just like it did with your favorite restaurant that first time.
For this reason, you’ll be back again.
You love that restaurant because on the day you discovered it your feet were very tired from walking all around; tired to the point of hurting you. You were very hungry after all that walking and thinking about a favorite restaurant in a very different place, a restaurant with a specific sort of cuisine you can’t find readily but one which you found yourself craving. Your feet were tired, your feet were aching, and your stomach was growling when you looked up and saw the sign in a language you don’t speak but with one word that you recognized. And with that you knew it served the exact sort of food you’d been dreaming about as if you yourself had conjured it. It was magical.
But you hadn’t conjured it. Based on your own experience it’s always been there. The dining room is huge and clearly has a history that has nothing to do with a restaurant which makes it mysterious and charming, at least to you. And it’s not a tourist place like the one the hotel sends you to.
Now you consider yourself something other than a tourist even though you are one. You consider yourself more adventurous, more worldly...more local.
Afterall, you’ve been here twice.
It’s a strange story but it’s true: Last time you were here, you fell in love with a twig. A twig, a silly little stick. But it was perfect. From one angle it looked like a fawn; from another, a witch’s hand. You saw it in a shop and from across the room – a room filled with treasures and expensive, beautiful things – you saw that little twig and it spoke to you. You held it, loved it, wanted to possess it. You asked for the price. The woman in the shop looked you up and down and said the twig is not for sale. She walked over and took it from your hand. She put it in back and clearly that was that.
But you couldn’t stop thinking about that twig. It’s hard to explain that you fell in love with a twig or why you did, but that twig moved you. So you actually planned a second trip to the same city the next year, specifically (of all things) with that twig in mind. You go to the same shop, and the same woman is there and so is the twig, sitting just where you spotted it that first time. Frankly you were all braced up to be crushed but you asked the woman for a price and she gave you one. So on this, the first day of your second trip to this city, another dream came true. Just like it did with your favorite restaurant that first time.
For this reason, you’ll be back again.