The Dark Tower

In Brno I went to a cave in the countryside with an old friend and lit a fire at its mouth. I walked inside the cave and felt unwelcome, as though the earth wanted to expel me. Later when I told Matej of my experience, he said, "Did you ask her first?" I am such a fool. I know better than this. Our stories are full of people who fare ill for entering sacred places without asking permission or being invited. I observe this when going into a special forest or before climbing a tree in which I sense a certain Life. How stupid of me to forget this time...After discovering the indescribable fun of peeing on live embers, we set off in the moon-dappled forest. I found myself choosing the right forks in the road by mindless instinct and so we trod in single file through trees that blazed with silver and shone with highlights on every leaf.
Strange footfalls sounded in the forest around us and we almost fell afoul of a snake on the path who shimmered silver in the moonlight and disappeared into the grass. For several minutes at a time I would stand still and gaze dumbly into the dazzling full moon. It is like looking into the eye of the universe and I understand how people become moonstruck. Upon reaching the village, we watched our moon shadows do battle with our streetlight shadows until we eventually lost ourselves in moonlit fields and arrived at a cottage in the valley to rest.
I met my couchsurfing host Martin the next day in Prague beneath the arse of a great bronze horse. He drove me north to the ruins of a tower that stood out in the countryside like a fairy tale feature. The path that circled up the hill was littered with wild pears, apples and plums that I gathered into my bag though nettles burned my legs and hands. We gorged ourselves and continued to the top where the custodian was locking the gates. An animated discussion took place between her and Martin after which she shooed us through and locked us inside. Apparently she said, "You never saw me. I never saw you. And I'm only doing this because he is from New Zealand." Ah ha! The antipodean charm strikes again.To say that the ruins of the dark tower of Hazmburk are dramatic is like saying that dead people are laid back. Climbing up the jagged rocks at the back of the tower was like stealing my way up a witch's stair. The entire experience was intoxicting - not to mention the view alone - however upon returning to the car we were greeted with 'the turd in the pool'. The back window was smashed and all his valuable documents and IDs were stolen. I spent the new while sitting outside a police station in a tiny Czech village, feeling nervously responsible for something that never would have happened without me.The next morning I set off with freshly charged technology and a new layer of sunscreen. In the metro I watched a pair of super-sized teenagers with hickeys on their necks conduct a thorough search for each other's tonsils. It was horrific and yet oddly mesmerising, like watching Armageddon wipe out those people you don't like.I paid a surprising amount to visit the Old Jewish Cemetery and found something other than what I expected. There was no quaint old resting place, only an outdoors museum in which tourists circumnavigated the graves in a strict anterior circle with no place even to sit and enjoy the mood. I thought, "I got drunk on burčák for this?" (the autumnal fermenting grape juice sold direct from the vineyard). So I moved a barrier and made a place to sit. NZ$25 and no opportunity to sit down and write a postcard? I think not.I adore Prague and it is one of my favourite cities ever, but I found it draining my energy after a while. There is a shadow in the capital of Czech that now and then nipped at my heels.