Akif Pirincci.

SALVE ROMA!.

A Felidae Novel.

Humans plan. Though everyone knows that life wouldn't follow any plan. And though everyone also knows that above all the best things in life accrue from unscheduled events. Why, at least when looking back and, well, sometimes anyway. Then again, life and this world apparently can't be overmastered without having any plan at all. Everything is just too complicated as to simply leave the handling of our future to chance. Even the most enjoyable moments, waiting for mankind like eerily wonderful air holes, need some planning. That's what makes humans tick.

Yeah, humans plan. But what about us, about my own.

kind? (1) I admit, we aren't any better! We also have fallen for scheduling, though in a somewhat more relaxed manner. And as for me, I'm positively obsessed with making plans. When things don't go according to plan, I freak out. As a matter of fact, this happens all the time. Because if anything goes according to plan anyway, it's the fact that our bodies one day will make the delicious acquaintance of worms!.

So this was the plan: Springtime, oh thou gorgeous May, oh thou homeopathic v.i.a.g.r.a for elderly men, oh thou young Prince of Seasons, capable of vitalizing my old blood! So this welcome monarch stood at the gates of our district, and towards us he had already blown his fresh breath in the shape of wildly budding flora and luxuriant sunshine. Gone were the icy Christmas holidays, when like narcotized I had been lying on, underneath, beside and as I remember dimly occasionally inside the heater, and when I had been sucking for days on those bones of the Christmas goose in a size of a cow that Gustav had prepared. Also gone were January, February and March, the period of these boorish brothers, who always seemed to fight about if it was to rain, snow, freeze or fog. May had a foot in the door, and I had my head in the clouds.

Through the open bathroom window I squinted at the backyards behind our Grunderzeit building, which positively exploded with luscious color and stimulant redolency.

Swarms of b.u.t.terflies fluttered above the clinker brick walls that formed a maze. The weather-beaten, mostly brick-lined back facades of the old houses, which had been built in a square, beamed skeptically like a blind man after the saving surgery.

Families of birds tried to out-tweet each other, human families sank down on their loungers and got their first sunburns. And family of mice bred like there were no tomorrow or, more accordingly, us.

Oh yes, the plan! To outsiders it might sound a little trivial. More precisely, it wasn't so much a real plan but quite honestly more of a longing for paradise. More detailed, the pipe dream which comes to haunt me each year in springtime: sleeping underneath shady trees in the afternoon, lazily s.n.a.t.c.hing at flies, rambling the territory carefree at sunset, taking one or two colleagues by surprise whilst their rackers and giving them a clip round the ear, and eventually tracing a sweetheart and becoming one with her in sunrise. In short: enjoying the warm days.

I admit that at my age such expectations have as little relation to real life as the childlike belief in angels. After all there exists an undeniable coherence between the real season and that in which one is stuck in age-related. And bringing to mind the recent teasing comments of my highly admired fellows, the burning lack of interest on the part of the whiskered ladies and the steadily increasing, pitiful miens of "animal-loving" humans at my sight, I had found myself in arctic winter long ago. But whatever, I stuck to the plan because even if it didn't dangle an Indian Summer, at least it promised a somewhat Indian Fall.

However, there was a big time contrast. Namely between my cheerful mood and the desperate situation, Gustav found himself in recently. Gustav? Well, that's the 290 lbs heavy, almost bald 58-year-old "can opener" afflicted with the looks of an industrial silo approved for demolition, who guess what usually opens my food cans. He has everything a successful man at his age doesn't have: a tattered terry bathrobe from the era of Boris Becker, in which, due to his gory red-wine-hangover and his pale stubble face, in the mornings he somewhat looks like a prisoner of war finally facing execution after months full of torture. Being the responsible guy he is, he always carries a condom in his wallet, which after fifteen years of inviolacy appears like some ornate imprint. Even more, he has some impeccable sense of opportunities to earn money, which really offer everything but earning money. Did I mention his job as "cake face" at the local amus.e.m.e.nt park, when hyperactive kids could throw cakes at his face for as less as 3 bucks? Or the one where he sold Swiss cuckoo clocks from Sri Lanka on the Internet?

And why this whole lot of misery? Because the good man is a scientist without appreciation, a misjudged genius, which has as much talent for merchandising his knowledge as a vocal cord amputee has for belting out arias. Gustav, a globally respectable archeologist, had never been able to s.n.a.t.c.h a stable job at an inst.i.tute, despite his detailed knowledge of Egyptian G.o.ds and the Roman Empire. Now and then a short interlude as in writing a reference book, but that's it for serious breadwinning. The rest contained a tragicomic sequence of efforts to fill both our stomachs, which I have to admit to our own disgrace occasionally enclosed the creating of bizarre diet sheets for women's magazines. Maybe you remember the so-called "air diet": One pants for air ten times before each meal and then imagines being full. For a guy having the appet.i.te and the shape of a blue whale, who totally freaks out if he's not having at least 3000 calories with each of his meals, this truly is the climax of self-denial. It was a miracle that he could afford this pretty though run-down pre-war apartment.

Am I being ungrateful? Does this sound like the contemplation of a posh creature that mocks the hand that feeds it? If I gave the impression, it applies only partially. Sure enough, it doesn't take great skills to mock an allround loser like Gustav. Just envision the slapstick-like event, when a figure reminding of the Michelin Man forces himself into the bathtub, squeezing out the water with his several cubic meters so that the whole bathroom quickly looks like the showdown in the Book of Noah. In the end he even remains stuck inside the d.a.m.n hutch and can only be dragged outside by neighbors after hours of crying for help. Or think of the miserable suicide attempt which of all things failed because of the rogue just contrary to popular belief: Occupational lack of prospects combined with chronic financial straits propel him to this unholy act, and as he is aware of his impressive weight, he spends the very rest of his bucks at the hardware store to get a high-quality rope that could easily hold entire trucks. At home (and in the face of his horror-stricken pet) he ties a solid knot to the lamp hook in the living room, climbs on a chair, babbles muddle-headed parting words, sticks his neck through the loop as it knocks at the door. Surprise, surprise, here comes the bailiff! This guy, being the unemotional civil servant he is, searches the whole apartment for seizable treasures but doesn't discover any. Until he notices the brand spanking new rope and takes the good stuff with him. Well, even suicide nowadays is a matter of money.

May his deeds sound as ridiculous as it gets, Gustav himself isn't ridiculous at all. It was him, who accorded me some princely shelter from childhood on, whereat I sure enough had to help along by hunger strikes due to inferior food presentation or by rancorous war for room on our favorite armchair. And it was him, who granted me the much-needed tender loving care after hard fought battles, who cheered me up on desolate days and gave me security in a world full of horror and madness. Yes, it was Gustav who had made me the center of his life and had settled for being a servant.

So it was even more depressing to watch this loyal, though rather limited companion reaching the point in his life where there was no chance of progress whatsoever. Neither descending to the hollow of selling rubbish "made in Bangladesh" on the Internet nor desperate calls at museums around the globe, begging to at least employ him as a tourist guide during the summer months, were going to help now. The day finally had come on which they threatened to cut off our landline thanks to unpaid bills, the day on which Gustav finally went bankrupt. He was simply too old for another suicide attempt, as well as for a restart. Despite the stunning sunshine, the shadow of a dark cloud dampened our spirits.

I was in two minds about the lure outside and my sense of duty for a.s.sisting Gustav in his darkest hour. I saw him at the desk in his office, staring into s.p.a.ce, stony-faced. Again, two conflictive impulses were battling inside me. What should I do? Quickly run outside, like it was in my plan and nature, and try to forget about everything while hitting at a beauty with pointed ears? Or walk through my collapsed friend's legs to comfort him my way? But how would that change this bad situation?

The phone rang. Apparently some guy at the phone company had slipped his mind and totally forgotten about our arrears. Yet! Gustav let the phone ring and kept staring outside the window like he was cast in resin. In the backlight of the streaming sunshine he became a silhouette of a sad Buddha. The phone kept ringing sharply and cruelly, and I was tempted to run there and pick up the stupid thing myself, just to restore calm.

Eventually Gustav answered the phone, moving intolerably slow. He still seemed like narcotized when he put the phone to his ear and moonily and quietly answered "Uh huh ... uh huh ... uh huh" and "Yes ... Yes ... Yes". Usually n.o.body called him, and when someone did, they only brought bad news. Maybe the sleepy head at the phone company had noticed their failure and called to disclose that our landline will be shut down immediately.

Then something seemed to happen inside Gustav. The sad Buddha's posture showed some spectacular change. The ma.s.sive upper body straightened up little by little, bend forward and backward nervously as if he was devoting himself to something, the melon shaped head sea-sawed and nodded like crazy, and the bloated face was haunted by a thousand twitches. Oh my G.o.d, they wouldn't disclose the launch of capital punishment by lethal injection for clients in arrears! Then he stood up and indicated a movement that looked a lot like a salute. At the end of the conversation he once more said "Uh huh ... uh huh ... uh huh" and "Yes ... Yes ... Yes ...", though this time almost euphorically. Supposably, the double blind of life had finally driven him insane.

He kept standing motionless for a long time after he had hung up. Turning his back on me, a gigantic silhouette in the with dust particles compound light of the window, framed by floor-to-ceiling shelves on every wall, each holding at least two thousand books and pictorials. A defeated king in the kingdom that he was soon to be banned from. And so was I. Alas, I was close to bursting out in tears mainly because of myself, as I thought of this kingdom and one square mile around it more as being mine rather than his.

Suddenly Gustav turned towards me with an elegant twist, and I was afraid he might make heinous faces, begin to bleat or something like that, just like it was to be expected from someone stark raving mad ... But no, none of that. He smiled blissfully, like someone who just had happened to answer the one-million-dollar-question.

And as my lifetime companion just didn't have any listeners to share his happiness with (something he never happened to have by the way), without further ado he made do with me. In a soliloquy the good news from the call came bubbling out of him, although of course he didn't know that I understood every word. I listened to him observingly, while I gave the impression of a creature with an IQ of a balloon. After he had finished his report, he ran to the bedroom and began to pack. Thunderstruck I stood behind and tried to not fret too much about the loss of the rope that the bailiff had taken at that time.

Just now the object of my sympathy, within just a few minutes Gustav had managed to get in line with some of the worst sleazebags of the human race. So what had been the topic of the telephonic twitter that had cast out the darkness at Gustav Lobel's house one hundred percent? Quite simply: The two hundred percent foiling of my plan!

The first part of the message still sounded like a literal last-minute rescue. The call had been from Bella Italia, from Rome more precisely, and to be even more precisely, from the "Sopraintendenza Comunale ai Monumenti Antichi e Scavi", thus the Roman Administrative Agency for Ancient Buildings and Excavations. As far as I understood Gustav's hasty mumbling, he had been told that they had found hints on a so far overseen, early Christian catacomb at the Forum Romanum. In fact, on the very spot in which Gustav had believed it to be in one of his academic papers a few years ago. The Roman archeologists therefore looked at my good old jinx as the intellectual father of this discovery and insisted that he will personally jet there and supervise the excavation. His services would be worth fifty thousand Euros from the agency. They would even be willing to immediately pay half of the money in advance, if he left for the Eternal City this very day. So far so paradisiacal.

All our problems seemed to have solved at a single blow. And so it seemed for the problems in the near future. What more could I want? Two things: First of all, see Rome and die. Because over the years I hadn't been able to resist Gustav's pa.s.sion for places which's names were already firing my imagination. Rome that wasn't just a name but a dream that I had been longing for due to secret reading at his library. The Capitol, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Villa Borghese, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Campo de' Fiori, the nooks and grannies of Trastevere, the thousand churches, the glorious palazzi, the dignified weather-beaten bridges across the Tiber, the countless fonts, the Vatican ... Yes, I felt like in a former life I myself had been purring in Rome and had spent my days on earth on those with pillar rudiments fitted roof decks of this Capital of the World. All roads, even mine, led to Rome; that was something I had always been sure of. As to die without having seen Rome would have been a life and death of no importance.

Gustav, provided with the sensitivity of an anvil, sure enough didn't have a premonition of my longing when he told me about his working vacation. And he even took it to the next level when he confessed that he didn't plan to take me with him. That already was an infamy beyond compare! He should stick his reasoning that I would disturb his work on the excavation where the sun doesn't shine. Shedding streams of tears, I had still been willing to sit tight, wait for his return and keep only dreaming of Rome. If he had just left me my plan.

But he didn't intend to. With what we come to the second reason why I didn't just wish him the rope around his obese neck but the complete torturing routine of the inquisition. My can opener had something vicious in mind. He wanted to give me over to other can openers during his absence. But not even to Archie, a straightjacket hedonist, who lived upstairs and probably earned his money by lending his body to prospective physicians as an incarnation of a chart about drug abuse. Because this guy had already left for the south a few weeks ago, as apparently the call of spring had reached him a little early. You know ... dwelling on nonsense and ripping off people also works well under southern skies.

No, Gustav, really had something evil in mind for me. During his absence, he wanted me to be in "professional care". At a home for my kind, called disgustingly cute "Guesthouse Paw". Irresponsible humans brought their pets there during their holidays or stupid business trips. Incredible! Shocking! Animal disregarding! I was to be send to jail and listen to the tragic lifetime confessions of lonely, soft-minded fellow prisoners day in, day out, so my so called owner could be celebrated as the Einstein of Archeology in beautiful Rome. My answer to that: Absolutely out of the question!

As early as one second after Gustav had finished panting about the happy news and left for the bedroom to pack his clothes that for the most part were remains from the seventies, a new plan stirred in my brain cells. Yes, this might work ... Though only if the animal foe would carry the backpack that looked like the monstrous hunchback of a gnome from a fantasy movie, like he usually did. Also, only if he, like the scatterbrain he was, forgot to lock it at the top. This way it really might work. And if it did, then not only would my plan become reality, but more than that it would even outdo itself.

Loaded and dressed like the most stupid tourist ever, Gustav was back in the hallway only about half an hour later and looked at me full of phony pity. On his back I saw the backpack, probably left over from his blessed times as a hitchhiker, when as a young blue whale he had senselessly tramped through the world. Of course it wasn't locked at the top. A stage win! He was wearing a golf cap and multi-colored shorts as if he was leaving for a concrete castle at the Costa del Sol. When the Roman scholars saw him, they would probably push him into this early Christian catacomb and fill it up again.

After he had ordered a ticket over the airline's check-in hotline, he used his foot to push the basket, which was usually used to transport me to my annual check-up at the nice doctor, from behind the doorjamb. I acted like I didn't have a clue about his intentions. Satisfied about the fact that apparently I wasn't about to bolt, he came towards me, grabbed me around the waist and put me into the box. A last checking glimpse at the turned off gas range and the turned off lights, and off we were in our old Citroen CX-2000 to our purportedly oh so different destinations.

I have to admit that the place, which was situated in a former bakery, didn't quite look like the dungeon of Dr. Fu ManChu from the outside. Through a big showcase, pa.s.sing pedestrians were able to a.s.sure themselves of the proper care of the prisoners and enjoy their sight with endless "aww-how-cute"-whoops. That boundless boredom counted as a form of torture wouldn't cross their minds.

Inside at the welcome counter stood a skinny, graying old woman who was dressed totally in black and might have a good chance to win "Ms. Knotweed" at the Night of the Witches. She smiled the smile of a marionette, at which her lower jaw jerkily flapped up and down while the rest of her face stayed absolutely fixed. For the one-month-care the animal lover told Gustav a price, which easily might have bought 80 hectare of the best spruce forest in Canada. While my false friend battled against the hypertensive impact of the price shock, he opened the grill of my box in pa.s.sing so I could have a look at the dungeon and, in his belief, was able to acclimate.

Everything was exactly like I had expected it to be just as fatal. It was a big room with a terrace-like, gradient wooden platform divided by several barriers. On that there were doll's beds and pillows, in which about thirty fellows (in misery) dozed towards delirium. Those who were awake stared ahead apathetically. Food and water bowls as well as litter boxes lay about everywhere on the floor so that the smell in the air reminded of a giant just having thrown up here and simultaneously having answered the call of nature. Almost depression-triggering appeared some "toys", which were dangling from the ceiling like bells and looked as new as on the day they were bought. Those who resided here didn't play anymore.

I walked by a gray-headed Persian who was standing in one of these cute doll's beds and was keeping the ceiling in view.

"What attracts your attention like that, brother?" I said, likewise fascinated by his strong grimacing that ranged between fear and great expectations.

"They're coming closer", he replied.

"Who?"

"Well, the mice."

I raised my head and inspected the ceiling for anything mice-like. Without any result.

"But I don't see any mice up there."

"They aren't normal mice." His white whiskers vibrated in tension like they were carrying power current, yeah, his whole matted head shivered so much in fever as if he was to explode any second.

"They come from Planet Nagor-X and can stay invisible and penetrate solid matter."

"Got it", I said, nodded compa.s.sionately and intended to leave himself completely to his studies of extraterrestrial mice.

"Don't listen to the nutcase!"

I turned around and faced an attractive Egyptian Mau. Her green eyes seemed to reflect the seaweed fields of all oceans. Her dark patterned tail, which grew out of a sand-colored, cheetah spotted body, brushed my face.

"They should have showed this guy the rope a long time ago", she said, approached me very closely and acted most conspiratorially. "There's no Plant Nagor-X. Actually they come Planet Harfohr-X. And they aren't mice but c.o.c.kroaches. Plus they can't penetrate solid matter like this douche bag keeps insisting, no, they shoot laser beams from their eyes!"

So much for the state of mind of the "guests" at this establishment.

"I already thought as much myself, honey", I comforted her. "But it could be worse. Imagine you'd have to pay taxes!" I moved on.

A red colored fellow, who crossed my path and seemed somehow awake, was actually just giving his lifetime confessions.

"... and then Mommy said, don't go too far from my teats, Otti, oh yeah, I remember very well that she said that, because in the backyard there are dogs, she said, you know what dogs are? My son, they are very big animals who make very big p.o.o.p but in opposite to us don't bury it so that humans will step in it which dogs find very funny, me too actually, Mommy said ..."

Gustav could as well have brought me to a nuthouse which by the way would have been much cheaper for him anyway, if I was interpreting his angry bargaining with the Night Witch correctly. A total waste of time and energy. Because I would have rather poisoned myself with the consumption of dog p.o.o.p than to endure just a single hour with these morons. Therefore I instantly entered the next level of my plan.

Like I already mentioned, Gustav was very busy with persuading the old witch to give him a price deduction before the plane took off with him inside. Both didn't pay any attention to me because naturally they a.s.sumed that there was no escape from this clink. But there was, and what a simple one!

Sweating and blushing from all the disputing stress, Gustav had put down the backpack next to his feet. The essential time slot seemed to have opened for me. During a couple of gasps I felt far away from the view of the two discomposed negotiators as well of the nuthouse inhabitants. The latter preferred to watch the various threats from outer s.p.a.ce anyway. I sneaked to the welcome counter very slowly, and when finally I reached the striking distance of my can opener's elephant feet, I was out of danger that anyone might notice my secret mission. So I crawled inside the open backpack and made myself comfortable.

After a while I heard through the fabric that apparently they agreed on a price and now exchanged some final pleasantry. Eventually, my absence got noticed, too. Gustav worried about that a little, but the villainous guard said that it was quite usual for newcomers, shocked by the change of territory, to hide underneath the platform for the first couple of hours. Hunger would then cause them to leave their hideouts for the food bowls. With that she produced a guttural sound like a hyena in darkest night, which apparently seemed to be wicked laughter. He should care about catching his plane, because usually it would take a short eternity to find his little friend's hideout in the middle of this mazed arrangement. Gustav kept acting somewhat worried but in his mind seemed to be far away already. In short, he willingly swallowed this Everything-is-fine-message. Or to put it differently: My plan had succeeded. But when he actually showed the impertinence to protest full of hypocritical sadness, that he would have loved to say a dearest goodbye to his beloved Francis, I would have liked nothing better than jumping outside of this d.a.m.n backpack right into his hippo face, sinking my sharpened claws into it with ultimate pa.s.sion.

The end of a friendship must be one of the most painful experiences a sensitive creature can have. Of course this doesn't mean that one can't exploit this friendship while it's going down the drain as long as it's still useful. Trapped in Gustav's backpack I followed this motto, squeezed between dirty socks and underwear, which due to their size of a moist sky diving school could have easily rescued me from my misery. Relying on the Night Witch's calming words far too willingly, my ex-friend had left "Guesthouse Paw" head over heals as if he was getting rid of his sickening grandpa at the nursing home.

But the grandpa was still close on his heals, respectively was stuck in his backpack in the backseat of his Citroen. On the way to the airport I was able to stick my head out a couple of times and watch the highway, which seemed to fly by like a monotonous movie, without being noticed myself. The happily back and forth swinging motions of his neck already showed me that for the driver the dreary monotony was long-forgotten, and so was my humble self. Which even confirmed my resolution! Along the way I thought of the Guesthouse chick's stupid face when after a long search she still wouldn't be able to find me in her "establishment" and would begin to sweat over a good answer she would give her customer about his pet's disappearance about a month from now.

We arrived at the airport, parked at a collective garage and took the escalator to the terminal upstairs. Although I had never entered an airport before I wasn't really stunned by the giant complex. The school of the public, TV, apparently had robbed me of one of the last tangible adventures. Nonetheless, the ma.s.s of humans in front of the check-in desks offered a couple of quite interesting sights. During my longterm togetherness with Gustav I had lost track of his fellow humans' lifestyles, especially as he wasn't true to type at all. Now I saw with horror that all of these vacation-hungry, scantily dressed people were tattooed. Incredible, this tacky desecration of the body, which had once been a custom along sailors and prisoners, meanwhile had mutated into an ideal of beauty! In my mind's eye I traveled through time about thirty or forty years to a nursing home in which old people suffering from Parkinson's and incontinence kept triggering spontaneous laughter from their nurses due to their withered body paintings on their wrinkled rolls of fat. The employees at the morgues would also have a ball.

What also stood out was the raging baldness-craze around men, even with guys who weren't naturally bald at all. Because all of them had their noggins shaved, which didn't just make them mistakable but in this frequency looked like a still life of deodorant sticks. Had our good old Bruce Willis sensed what he was about to trigger when at that time he made a virtue out of necessity and decided to chop those last three halms on his head, he probably would rather have stapled a mop to his scalp!

Gustav waddled towards the counter and received his booked ticket. He checked in and joined the line in front of the security check. Then suddenly things started to get turbulent. Before he walked through the metal detector, he dragged the backpack on the conveyor that transports baggage towards the X-Ray scanner. By the way, he did that in such a rude manner, I was forced to do a couple of full turns inside. I have to admit that my great plan didn't go any further than up to this point. I had been so greedy of the expectation to see my dream city for once in my life, I had totally forgotten about the inevitable challenges that lay on the way there. Now what the situation needed was some talent for spontaneity, because as the backpack was moving towards the scanner, above me I could already see the security guy's face in front of his monitor. His keen eyes, which were trained on the fast recognition of Kalashnikovs and maybe even foldable atom bombs, must have started to brim at this moment. Because inside the backpack he saw something he had probably never caught a glimpse of before: the (moving) skeleton of an animal, surrounded by a colorful beaming silhouette of sharp claws, pointed ears and eyes that stared right back at him!

Instantly I heard the alarm go off with a howling noise. The security guy had recovered from his shock and had pushed the panic b.u.t.ton. Now I needed to act fast. But how? And in which direction? Nimbly I sprang out of the backpack and onto the conveyor. I didn't mind the omnipresent darkness, as despite my progressing age I still boasted my eyes, which also featured X-Ray. In front of me hung the fringed rubber curtain that guaranteed optimal dim-out for the scanning. I stuck my head out and noticed a big unlocked leather bag right in front of my nose that was placed ahead of the backpack. If I hid inside, would its owner notice my few pounds when he got it back? Whatever, I didn't have time for any more finicking speculation.

As quick as a flash I scurried inside the bag. Just in time, because just after I had hid inside, the bag was picked up off the conveyor and carried away without hesitation. I could only pray that my savior was also traveling to Rome. Despite the tenuous situation, I insisted on sticking my head out and looked back. Four security guards attacked the backpack as it came out of the scanner and picked it to pieces full of as much dedication as if they were disemboweling a pig. Gustav stood there in complete astonishment, observing the scene unbelievingly, and as he actually felt like he had been smuggling a foldable atom bomb, at the end he even put up his hands.

The last thing I could see was that the situation began to calm down after they couldn't find an animal or its skeleton inside the backpack and apparently they started to believe in an optical illusion or a technical breakdown. Nevertheless, Gustav's stupid facial expression revealed that he somewhat had an idea about what just had happened without knowing anything about it.

I let my eyes wander across the hand that held the bag up to its owner. How nice, I was carried by a young man of G.o.d. The black suit with the white round collar, that emerged a little from underneath the shirt's collar, proved it. It was a young man of handsome appearance. His face resembled that of an angel in a Pre-Raphaelite painting and only his gold-framed gla.s.ses indicated something earthly about him. His hair was brushed back with gel in an elegant way so that it was shining in thin flicks, his delicate hands of such stainlessness as if they didn't abstain from a manicure and fine creams for just a single day. A silver cross dangled around his neck, looking like bling jewelry. Years ago, a guy like him would have been called a "Yuppie". But who knows, maybe after the tanked stock market and Internet booms the Yuppies had found their salvation at the Good Lord's meanwhile.

As he headed for the departure lounge he talked to another suit walking next to him. This guy was a little older though and, in all likelihood, not a churchman. Quite the contrary, military insignia on the snow white-haired, butch man's lapel marked him as being a member of the US Army. If my long lasting studies of TV shows hadn't fooled me, he even belonged to the top bra.s.s of this club. The conversation between these very different fellows resolved about some event at some church. But I didn't try to overhear it, as I was too busy with figuring out where they were carrying me. At some point, the two men's paths went separate ways and, oh gracious wonder, on the display above me blinked in neon writing: "Rome"!

I considered myself lucky, as my new partner didn't deposit the bag inside an overhead bin but on the empty chair next to him. Accommodation inside another darkroom had certainly triggered some irreparable claustrophobic trauma. Pleasant also that he traveled Business Cla.s.s, as if he had known how much I set value on journeys befitting my rank. This way I had saved myself the brashly impertinent redneck chatter of an all-inclusive-tourist including his constant jingle for the stewardess to bring him cheap hooch in a plastic cup. But the lucky coincidences wouldn't come to an end. The dear priest wasn't at all led into temptation to grab inside his bag and expose the blind pa.s.senger. As far as I could see through the slot, during the whole flight he kept typing some complex calculations into an uber-modern laptop with a plastic pin. He was probably calculating today's income of the collection box. After about an hour and a partially nibbled serving of lobster meat, he stood up and went to the board bathroom.

Finally, I spotted a chance to gasp some air and stuck my head completely out of the bag. As I hadn't had a single bite in a whole day and already hallucinated about how I attacked a grownup manatee and ate it up including the bones, I wanted to feast on the remaining lobster before the man of G.o.d returned. What he was about to think when he faced a plastic bowl that had been licked clean as a whistle by now mattered as much to me as if the plane was about to land in Baghdad instead of Rome. So I crawled outside the bag, put my forepaws on the armrest and stretched my snout towards the tidbit on the tray.

At that point a shadow was cast upon me. A tremendously big shadow. And a well-known one! Gustav, coming from the rear of the plane and apparently also on his way to the bathroom, stared directly back at my pupils. His facial expression showed a certain similarity of an ox that had just been run over by a tractor. His eyes had widened to the size of espresso cups and his lips moved without bringing out a single sound. Spontaneous sweat was brought to his brow.

"Francis ..." he said eventually. And then again and again while shaking his head: "Francis? Francis? Francis? ..."

As I a.s.sumed that he already knew my name I didn't bother to answer him.

Suddenly he moved his head like a bizarre bird. Being relieved, he laughed out and began some muttered monolog that apparently was aimed at comforting himself. That what he saw wasn't even possible because his darling was placed miles away from here, and very securely, and by the way pretty expensively, but this resemblance, really, if he hadn't known for sure, he might think that his little Francis had followed him directly to the airport, which of course was ridiculous because how could that even work ...

"I got one of your kind at home", he eventually ended his monolog loudly.

"I got one of yours, too!" I replied.

Of course I didn't, I just thought to myself before Gustav winked at me and disappeared.

If I had had the anatomic ability, I would have crossed myself three times after this stressful episode. Or I would have aligned myself with the devil, which had been much more appropriate given the insights of h.e.l.l that were lying ahead of me in the City of G.o.d.

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. Shortly before landing the pilot managed to maneuver the plane in a way that allowed the pa.s.sengers to enjoy the view of the sun kissed city. My heart beat a couple of ranges faster when I glimpsed out of the bag and saw this magnum opus, which seemed like an opulent model of an urban layout masterpiece for the very first time. O what pleasance! There they were: the thousand churches, the ruins, which emblematized the perpetual echo of the Ancient, the by several bridges tied green snake called Tiber and the warm color of the countless palazzi, daffodil yellow, ruby, red violet, rose ... A rag rug braided from treasures, which left every beholder speechless.

Then on the ground the big disillusion. The airport didn't differ one bit from the one we had departed from functional architecture with insignia that simulated circuitousness. All over the place hung oversize advertis.e.m.e.nt in which rather germfree looking human actors performed a Don't-worry-be-happy-slogan for some dodgy property fund. Restaurants, whose delicacies were owed to the invention of the microwave only, were lined up next to each other. I guess all airports in this world got this boring charm. And when someday there will be the first flights to Mars, the first thing humans will see there will be a five dollar bill for a cup of coffee or a tour poster with the mug of Robbie Williams.

It was about time to say goodbye to my man of G.o.d. The travelers loped out of the plane, towards the jet bridge and finally towards the hallway huddle like they were escaping the Last Judgment. I, however, had to manage the flying change out of the bag back to Gustav's backpack without being noticed. But now, where was my litter bearer?

Suddenly I saw him! No, just his rear view, consisting of a silly golf cap on a watermelon head, giant backpack and pale, very hairy calves which grew out of silly shorts. Gustav let himself drift towards the exit with the flow of hurrying people. Almost telepathically, I forced the churchman to approach him, which I succeed in little by little. I only had to wait for the perfect moment to get from one point to the other in a single bound. Because I didn't even want to think about what would happen to me in this foreign and confusing place far away from the city, if I failed to make the break. Maybe it hadn't been such a great idea to indulge in wanderl.u.s.t to such a radical extend. For a moment, I even caught myself craving for the opportunity to seriously argue about the mice from Nagor-X with the other nutcases at the "Guesthouse Paw".

And so I used the very moment, when the churchman got in close contact with the other hastening people and wouldn't misinterpret the vibration inside his bag, to jump out of the slot sideways. I shot through the air and landed head first inside the open backpack without anyone noticing it. Technically, a really great success. Then why did an inner voice tell me that something was wrong? In the darkness of the backpack I followed this steadily rising voice. The feeling that it created began to scare me. But it weren't my brains, which finally set me on the right track, it was my nose.

Exactly, neither did it smell like unwashed socks and undies nor could I sense Gustav's specific sourish body-odor, which used to conservingly stick to his things for ages. After all, nothing in here smelled of Gustav. Quite the contrary, I had the smell of clean laundry and freshly blackened leather in my sensitive nose. Shortly, I found myself in the baggage of a very well prepared traveler. Panic began to rise inside me like the malodor of a creepy substance. Oh my G.o.d, where had I ended up?! And where was this journey headed?

I decided to let go of all protective measures and stuck my head outside the backpack again to gain certainty. By now, I didn't care if I got noticed. I shouldn't have done it though because what I saw right in front of my nose horrified me more than the uncertainty inside.

Gustav, who was waddling right behind the guy who carried me without knowing it, was staring right back at me, again. So he was sort of following his Doppelganger. I had jumped inside the wrong fat guy's backpack! From afar and from behind they could actually have been identical twins because they were so much alike. So this came from getting involved with a throng of humans: They all were the spitting images of each other.

When he saw me, he screwed up his can opener-face like someone who had just hugged a steamroller whilst crossing the street. Again his eyes widened in shock, again his head vibrated like a clanged bell and again his mouth closed and opened without something coming out of it. One could watch in his bewildered mien how a couple of different explanations of the impossible were battling inside his featherbrain. But following the motto that which must not, cannot be eventually he settled once more for the theory he had found the first time we had met on the plane. I was one who looked a lot like his pet. Thereupon, the worry lines disappeared, a melancholic smile showed on his face and he even dared to pet my head.

"You again!" he said finally. And as he was a paragon of originality, he repeated his go-to phrase: "I got one of your kind at home."

Then I couldn't even realize as fast as the story took its course our paths separated. As Gustav didn't have any more baggage than his backpack, he pulled ahead of us towards the exit and disappeared. This meant that my further fate was at the total mercy of the new fat guy's traveling plans. He forced himself inside a fully air-conditioned shuttle bus after he had grabbed his suitcase off the luggage belt and off we were to the highway.