We continue to creep through the jungle. The Butter Mouse and I have spent the last few days locked in our cabin. She’s moving all the time, and, like everything else in Nadada, this once strange acts blends in my daily routine. We have even added something to our routine where she runs across my shoulders.
Nearly there. Nearly up to date.
With the grinding of brick walls, the Freytag House shuffled off. A tacky fire door swung shut behind us. The ceiling is so low we have to stoop. Two woman at the bar drink pina coladas, and a man plays darts on a melted board with upside down numbers. His glass contained cocktail umbrellas, and lots of ice. Something with a lot of crooning plays from a cracked glass jukebox.
Talk about extremes. Today The Kandinsky is a skyscraper. The vessel squeezes onto space at the edge of the harbour. From my position in Tzara, a cocktail bar on the fifteenth floor of an actual building, the window of my cabin is now a square pane of corporate glass.
The design of Tzara is up to you. A group of older woman sit on battered leather sofas and drink champagne. A man in a white suit and cowboy hat stands at a trestle table, sipping beer from a plastic tumbler. I chose a window stool, the metal legs curved into unweldable patterns beneath a blue seat cushion.
My drink started as something like a whisky sour, but the spirit was too bitter for my taste, so the glass got taller, and the colour turned red. The current form of a Bloody Mary is a lot more suited to my needs. The Butter Mouse sits next to the cocktail. I pointed her to face the window, and we watch this world go by.
Our journey pauses here in Lozowick for a couple of weeks. This gives me the chance to get some writing down. We should complete our first interview this month. In the meantime, time to let you know about our arrival.
I want you to remember that what happens next is a substitute for baggage checks, passport control, and form filling. Why is it only Nadada that offers this service? Why don’t airports invest in this new stratosphere of invitation?
Everyone who arrives in Lozowick goes through a tunnel. You get so close to the city, then at the last moment head towards an opening on the seafront not much bigger than a supermarket door. We all had to leave the ship, a process that takes a good few hours. Not that you would want to stay inside. For a brief period The Kandinsky was the size of a suitcase, carried under the arm of our captain.
Lighting runs along the ceiling of the tunnel and orange neon covers the walls. When the last passenger is offloaded, the illuminations flickered between red and green on no regular pattern, like pound shop Christmas lights. The music kicked off at the same time, even though no speakers were visible. Two Nadada stewards dressed in lime green suits stretched our their arms, and lock hands. One is in her seventies, and I am sure she has been doing this since all of her ‘working’ life. The other, a blonde woman in her early twenties, winks at The Butter Mouse, and becomes my hero.
We had to pass under their human bridge. My fellow passengers went through range of emotions. For many this is a business trip, and crouched under like someone throws a parade for them every day. Others smiled, but uncomfortably, like when carollers come to the door.
Only the Nadadians joined in the celebrations, even if I could not tell who was born here, and who has lived in this world long enough to count as citizens. All have their arms outstretched, identical grins on their faces.
We walked further. Mixed in amongst the music the words “Welcome to Lozowick” repeat in dozens of different languages. Holes appeared in the neon walls. Small patches marked the brickwork at first, then whole missing panels that defy structural integrity. The town surrounded us, from the staff walking their tigers after ‘work’, to the commuters hovering through the air. The ocean is already a long way away.
My Bloody Mary is finished, and we are on stage in an hour. The Butter Mouse twitched last night. Perhaps my experiment is working.
