IN PRAGUE,
there were two obnoxious Americans sleeping in the bunk next to Claire and myself.

One of them was from Las Vegas. “Really?” Claire asked dryly, “there are people who actually come from Vegas?” He assured us yes, there were indeed a breed created and formed in this strange, radiating city in the middle of the Nevada desert.

He asked us, “which part of The States are y’all frum?”

We said no part. We are from Canada.

“Oh,” said he. “I haven’t heard a “WICKED” out of ah-ther of y’all.”

We said we don’t say “wicked” all that much anyways.

We came home early that night, I think I had forced Claire to walk downtown to get a really bad piece of pizza because I was starving and nothing was open. We walked into an almost-empty hostel room.

A little brown man with glasses sat upon the Vegas guy’s bed. “Hello,” he said. I said the same back. He offered to leave the room while we changed into pyjamas. I said that wasn’t necessary. We talked when Claire left the room to get ready for bed.

He was Pradeep, from South Africa, working in Holland at a Fortune 500 country. He traveled on weekends and spoke with an accent mixed between South African and Eastern Indian.

I said, “You know, there were two men sleeping in that bunk earlier. You may want to make sure that bed is not already taken.” He told me there was nothing in the drawers underneath and nothing suggesting someone was occupying the beds.

We went to sleep, to be woken up in the darkness of early morning by the obnoxious Americans returning home drunk. They discovered the little brown man asleep in their bottom bunk and began filling the room with stage whispers.

“Dude, yer bed’s bin stolen! Someone’s sleepin in yer bed, man!” The one from Vegas jumped on the top bunk, leaving his friend high and dry. In our room, beds that had earlier been empty were now occupied.

“What?! All the beds is taken?! Who’s in them? Maybe they’re all together!”

I could hear Vegas Guy hang the top half of his body down so as to speak directly into the bottom bunk and address Pradeep.

“Are you with them, ya fuckin’ bed stealer?!”

Pradeep sighed. Maybe rubbed his forehead. “No,” he breathed. “I am a loner.”