October 15, 2006 - Sunday

October 15, 2006 - Sunday
going sideways
A very good friend of mine told me a wierd tale Sunday morning.

It seems this asian-english girl he had hung out with intermittently during his travels though thailand had taken a shine to him. She sent a few emails requesting to visit him in Prague. He politely said he would welcome her as a friend –just a friend – should she decide to come.

Last thursday he checked his emails and everything went sideways.

The first message from her was saying that she had arrived in Prague and was waiting in a cafe for him. Keep in mind, this is without any prior notice.

The next message was slightly more desperate; detailing some angst at not being able to find him. Apparently she wandered around the noted tourist spots in the hopes of running into him. Even going to a cafe that shared his name, the logic being that if the cafe had his name he must be in it. Already we can see some crossed wires in the logic department.

At this point my friend, slightly freaked, gave her his mobile number via email.

He get's a call on Friday at work. She's calling from a mental home in Bohunice -- could he come see her?

Apparently in the three days that she was here she went toally loopy and the authorities tossed her in a lunatic asylum.

My friend went to visit her but it was unclear what had transpired leading up to her incarceration. The problem was, he said, she was so twisted on psychatric drugs that she was not corpus mentis enough to tell him what the hell had happened to her. In addition none of the staff spoke english well enough to explain.

Another friend that accompanied him to the mental home said if he came to visit this country, having never been here before, not speaking the language, in an institution where nobody speaks his language, knowing one person vaguely; his first thought would be "Get me the sweet fuck out of here".

This may be so.

However i would like to know how the authorities, whomever they may be, decided without understanding a word she said that she should be tagged and bagged as a loony.

Where do you draw the line? Better yet how do you cross the line? How easy is it? Could it happen to you?

Has it already happened to you?

Has it already happened to me?

But fuck all that. These are the kinds of cliche's you wrestle with on acid when you're fourteen years old. Still, you have to feel for the girl. A stranger in a strange land, goofed on psychotropics, where nobody can understand a word she's saying.

Could be a normal night out in Prague.