Battery low, lost in the jungle

A drunk, lays dead on his kitchen floor for a week, before a kindly old lady, that lives a floor below him, finds his old dog roaming the staircase and calls the police. This is not uncommon these days but happened in our Moscow block of flats, on the top floor above us (see best posts "a soap opera"). As you may have read, the mans mother, fell from the balcony a few months ago, to become strawberry jam and he continued is alcohol fueled, lonely existence with just an old, farting dog for company. His next door neighbors, when asked by us, said "we did not know him", with a shrug of their shoulders and with total indifference, shut the door as if this man had never existed. A week later, his life is dumped in a skip, life time photos, an old guitar, chairs, pictures and clothes, lay piled high as silent witnesses to a human life. His long suffering family, repaint, and repair it. They rent it out to idiot expatriates, for thousands of euro a month. Human nature and human existence is vastly complex, vastly diverse, vastly ugly and at times, tremendously beautiful.

Occasionally, I like to test human nature and to pinch myself that good still exists among us. I can say, without doubt, that it does exist if you look for it. Stories link to stories, in an endless chapter of existence and can be found on these pages, if you dig deep and step back. Here is one of happiness, that links to the previous post.

Yesterday, kid and I were lost in Moscow. We had returned to the clinic to see painted finger nails, (the doctor and alleged "assistant surgeon") to check his willy healing progress. We arranged to see her at six. We told her on the phone, that we would not pay and that we already given them vast sums of money for his operation and would not pay a ruble more for a checkup visits. To our surprise, she accepted this and let us see her. We arrived early at the clinic at five thirty. Doctor, painted finger nails, was glued to her white iPhone. She saw us but kept us waiting till the agreed, appointment time. She stood at the reception, in her white doctors coat, high heels and glossy red lips, chatting and laughing, while we waited, with no intention of seeing a moment early. We she did see us, she had the look of a woman who was casually looking at handbags in a designer shop and despite her doctors coat, looked indifferent and rather bored. After I had questioned her, it seemed all was fine with willy. Russian doctors are not used to being questioned, even in a private clinic. We said goodbye, promised to never to go back to the AMC (American Medical Center) and got in the car to head home.

This time, we were flying home solo, without the help of a WNA (wife navigation assistance). I only had my iPhone, that does not have a speaking map, in the form of Google Maps. I typed in the directions home and with the phone balanced on a knee, we joined the buffalo herd heading home, feeling very nervous of where it was sending us. From behind me, my kid kept saying "daddy whats that", "daddy can I have a sweet", "daddy want to get out" while we crawled along, with the herd, as predators of fear, stalked my mind. Map, without speaking, indicated to me, via a long blue line on the screen, to turn right, so I turned right, we were herded into a steam of cars, with no way of escaping. We were sent, with the iron herd, over the river, to join a vast road, heading god knows where? After an hour, my phone messaged me with those terrifying, two words, that no idiot, lost in a vast concrete, foreign city wants to read "battery low". Map and the chance to call my wife to say, "we may never see you again" were fading fast, as my phones life ,slowly ebbed away. The road offered us multiple signs, with multiple options of getting lost, sending us further into the concrete jungle. From the back of the car, my kid said "daddy I feel sick". The second words, that no idiot, lost in a vast concrete, foreign city wants to know. I handed him an old plastic bag, that I found tucked in the drivers door and told him to puke into that, "no daddy", "stop, get out". I could feel panic rising up from my stomach. Then it came, warm vomit, mixed with carrots, flew in the air behind me, sending bits of carrot, down the back of my shirt. My kid began to cry while his trousers and the car floor, were covered in the soup from lunch time. Traffic fumes, dust and vomit, filled the air of our small car, as we headed further into lost land.

In desperation, I parked the car, jumped out and asked a man in the street, the way, I knew he would speak English, as after years of living abroad, you develop a sixth sense of knowing when a person will speak English. Typically, he told me he was lost as well. I grabbed another man walking by and asked him the way, with a shaking hand, I held out my iPhone map, to within an inch of his face and said, as best I could, without crying "center please, which way?". He told me to go back the way I had come. I ran back to the car, got in and like a madman on the run from the cops, drove backwards up the one way road, at high speed, swerving the on coming traffic, to rejoin the road I had just stupidly left. Kid gently sobbed in the back, resigned to his fate, at the hands of an idiot father lost in Moscow. 

We continued on for a while, boxed in by other metal wildebeest and I still had no idea where we were going, although the map showed me where we were located. I began to doubt its accuracy and I began to think it was playing a cruel joke on me, a technical conspiracy could be at play. After a while (ninety minutes later), since we left to go home, we were stuck in the central lane of a vast six lane road. I stopped, put on the flashing, car hazard lights and to the sound of a million angry car horns, jumped out the car and tapped on the window, of the car in front. A pretty, young girl opened her electric window, looked at me in disbelief and smelling the vomit, smiled at me nervously. She spoke English and after I had blurted out my story, she said "follow me". Another two words, that an idiot, lost in a vast concrete, foreign city, really does want to hear. I stuck to her car ass, like a Beagle dog chasing a rabbit and followed her all the way back to the main road that goes into Moscow. Familiar, Moscow buildings passed us by like old friends and I knew where we were. I waved her goodbye, wanting to give her a kiss and headed back to familiar ground and back to our Moscow flat, with a useless phone and puke covered, sobbing child. 

The moral of this story? Don't buy a phone that does not have Google Maps, don't get lost in Moscow, don't give your kid soup, if he suffers from car sickness, and good human nature really does still exist. If you find it, celebrate it, share it and be very happy. Where there is indifference there is always humanity. Charge your battery on stories of humanity and feel alive again.

Related stories: Do you speak English?, A soap opera, Dad excommunicated, Brit Milah

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