(Short story) Travel Camps
My first short story. Dedicated to my muse (look: 04 and 21)
2020-04-21

I just returned home. Oh, how I missed this place. This smell. Old tiles, old furniture, plant soil and food. Here, everything has a purpose. My movements have a meaning.

My first encounter with another person, talking about my trip was at the office.

• Colleague: So.. how was the trip?
• Me: It was fine. We had a good time

That's what you're supposed to say, no? I couldn't really bother going into details. And, more importantly, I didn't know how to express my mind. And on top of that, I didn't know what my mind was thinking exactly.

• Colleague: Hey, so did u try it?
• Me: Huh?
• Colleague: The durian fruit.
• Me: Ah, no. Didn't occur.

So what the fuck did I do there? Well.. I did have a good time. Visiting an exotic place.. but.. that's it? My gut is telling me that everything about this trip, the flights, thousands of kilometers flown across the globe using an airplane.. a freaking airplane.. was it all for me to taste some exotic food, take pictures with elephants and.. "have a good time"?

He put the book aside. The sun was hot and it was one of those hours that there was nothing to do in the camp. He was just lying in his hammock for the time being. The book was free to borrow from the reception. The writing was sparse, and people were saying that it didn't make much sense. He couldn't really bother with these critiques, he was interested in the psychology of the man. And his own memoirs seemed the best means to that since every piece of article he would read was extremely biased and colored - from either sides.

He got up from the hammock. He wanted to take a stroll around. Since he arrived, it was quite weird actually. The moment he got off the plane, some guards with white whole-body suits and masks welcomed them and guided them to a bus in which they drove for like 30 minutes away from the airport. There they reached the place where, as they told them, they had to stay for a week.

The place was like some prisons you see on the television or the movies. Cells arranged in a square shape all around the middle common room. There was also a library, and an outside yard. Hmm.. "like" a prison.. seems weird but it feels that it was always like this. Even his parents went through this. But 100 years ago it wasn't like that.

His thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from a distance

• Hey Mark. [He quickened his pace to reach him] It's me, we were sitting next to each other on the plane.
• Mark: Oh hey.. uhmm, remind me your name..? Sorry i'm not good at this.
• Nick: Well, Nicholas, but you can call me Nick.. So what do you think of this place? It's not bad, right? I mean plenty of people are complaining, like we are prisoners or something. Slaves even. But it's not that bad, right? It's like a free hostel"
• M: Hostel? I wouldn't really know, it's my first time traveling
• N: Oh.. Well they're places to stay, but mostly just sleep. Cheap ones. You live with like 5 other people in the same room. It's basically just a bed.. A dormitory! That's the word. [Pauses for a little bit] But then where are you staying? You have someone here?
• M: Yeah, my uncle lives here. I came to visit him for the summer. He has a place here by the sea. I have a photo somewhere..

And he showed him the place. A one story house, made mostly out of wood, with a great view to the sea. By the house there were plants, vegetables, and some animals.

• N: So this guy is self-sufficient right?
• M: Yeah, I guess he is.
• N: That's nice.. one of the free ones.

You see all these people. Walking aimlessly around the city. Meaningless. Generic happy faces looking up. Looking at the trees, the buildings, the fucking pigeons. Everything is looked at with AWE. Everything is nice and shiny.

It's those people you usually have to push.
Push to pass by.
You go from point A to point B.
They roam.

I wanna say.. focus people! But no. Impossible. They're currently busy consuming. "Gather around, dosage time."

Don't interrupt. Must not interrupt them.
Should not interrupt them.. frowned upon.

They.. they love us - and fill our pockets- They make our economy run. Cause, god forbid, to have to rely on our own. What fun would that be? That requires work.

---

All these ideas were blowing steam in my head. Were keeping the engines running. But I was sitting idle. Idle and burning steam. Quite the internal conflict.

He let the book rest upon his chest and his mind race.

"Uhm.. but why would that awe be bad? I remember every time I visited my uncle's house at the village I would get this feeling that everything is new. Waiting to be examined. And it's a nice feeling. You feel new yourself. And I feel that I don't follow him."

"So how would you regulate tourism?" was the question to my friend. The friend with whom I went to Thailand. He must think I'm weird. Well of course he knows I'm weird, after so many years of us being friends.

So I went on thinking out loud:

• Cause in our current system, the way things get handled to adjust the demand is price. So would you want to adjust tourism, lower it? You make it more expensive. But.. that doesn't seem fair. I mean it would be fair if the income distribution were without these intense extremes. But.. how do you make traveling.. flat. For all. Like a basic need, such as access to bread or education. But also limit it… How?..
• I don't know, man, like make people fill out an application or something. You'd have to write something like "I want to visit India cause I've been fascinated by Buddhism ever since my youth." And then you go on about that and your application gets evaluated. Or yeah.. just make it more expensive, whatever..

And he laughed. We both laughed. And then we just stared at the reflections of the trees on the water of the lake. We were quite high.

But something inside me wasn't cutting it. Couldn't pinpoint what or why.. but it was definitely (cause of) something.

---

Time flew. Now I was moving from clerk to a more stable position at the Ministry. So much time passed.. and then it happened. The virus. It spread so quickly and was a global slap in the face. Two months after the first case and the whole population was in quarantine. Staying at home. We stayed there. At first to make it more gradient. And then we almost forgot.

Frankly for me it wasn't much of a change, since I was already working from home. But after a week I felt it as well. My face missed the sun. The walk in the park. And after the 2nd week, it hit me.

Global population was moving insanely fast. Faster and faster, the last two centuries. So fast that it was time that we fell and hit our faces. An incident that would otherwise happen in a certain area made it to the rest of the world immediately.

And that's when I got the idea. Buffers. We need fucking buffers. You want to visit a place? You get hosted in a buffer zone. It can be for a week. A light quarantine. You stay there until you check out. You know what you gain like this?

• prevent pandemics
• regulate tourism.

And this is where things started to get tricky.

I see… So it's the quarantine that started all this.. Or even before? He said he was already troubled by tourism, so..

• Nick: [shouts from a distance] Heyy, what's up!? Didn't see you yesterday. How are you?
• Mark: Hey man.. I'm good! I was mostly reading yesterday.. and.. thinking. Don't know, my mind is wandering a lot.
• N: Yeah, I get you. So.. two more days eh! You excited or what? You get to see your uncle, right?
• M: That's right, yeah, my uncle. I'm quite excited, yeah! [he let a slight smirk] Hey, by the way, what are you going to do? You never told me.. and well I never asked you.
• N: Well, this trip was quite special. So it's my 3rd one, right. In my first ones I had made a complete schedule. Where to go, what to do. The first one was for scuba diving. Getting the diploma. The second one was about surfing. You see, living in the north, you don't get to do these things. But these two trips were to the east, in the free zones. So I got a month off from work and took the trip. But this one is different.
• M: You mean cause of the quarantine?
• N: Yeah.. but not only that. I don't know, it's the whole vibe. First I was terrified about the 1 week quarantine. So I felt the urge of planning everything, once again. And I felt the need to do so cause it was going to be 1 week here, so time is precious. The idea of letting a week of my time go like this, felt terrifying. But then.. well let's just say that I had an epiphany that changed my view and.. decided to take this trip as it goes. No plans. That made the whole quarantine thing feel trivial.
• M: Huh.. quite a weird idea.. but.. I think, I get what you mean. For me it is the opposite, I know exactly what we're going to do with my uncle, we even had online calls to make our schedule.
• N: Well.. whatever suits each person, man. There's no recipe. Don't forget that! [He showed a big smile] Well, see you later, I'm gonna try the yoga class.
• Μ: Sure, ciao!.. Hey, one last thing. You ever had like a.. how's the word.. a premonition? Like an idea or sense of something, before something happens?
• N: Uhm.. maybe.. I think I get this all the time, I just don't analyze it and.. don't give it any names, heh. See you later.

The sun was hitting his face. Hard. He loved this feeling. Laying there not moving a single finger. Quite slowly he fell asleep…

His tie seemed crooked so he went on fixing it. One last look in the mirror, one last breath. He exited the bathroom, an envelope in his hand, heading towards the last door at the end of the corridor. Slowly the letters started taking form. "Ministry of tourism". Blank.

• But that seems quite.. radical, no? Like doing chores in the army.. People won't like it.
• Well, sir, my job isn't to propose what people like, and surely they won't like it. But this is what I feel needs to be done. That's the best and my most sincere suggestion that I came up with. It's up to the people of the future to refine it. Also people need to understand that not everything comes for free without making any sacrifice. Cause we had clearly forgotten this.

His body was covered in sweat and had an aftertaste of sleep in his mouth. He searched for some water and his dream journal. His dream journal was right underneath the book, so he fetched the book and postponed the dream writing. After letting out a big yawn, he went on reading once again.

After delivering my proposal, my first draft, a chain of domino reactions took place. First, the Ministry of army wanted to get involved for some reason. They wouldn't let me know why, and never got any explanations. Also, the Ministry of immigration. That's when I realized that my proposal bore awful similarities with refugee camps. What I also noticed is that, while tourists would have to stay in that camp, let's say for a week, immigrants would end up spending months there. That, naturally, made me think of how much time would the upper class end up spending in those buffer zones.. I think you can guess.

My idea quite back-fired. My first "aha" moment thinking about the buffer zones was that everyone would get to spend the same amount of time. Cause time is something we equally value. Tax-based tourism regulation never clicked with me cause monetary resources are really relative. Time, on the other hand, is a currency we all share.

It was a moment of realization. Realization of my profound naivety. Took me a while to get over it. And even longer to talk about it. My means of resolution were to write about it. Go through my motives and thoughts. Cause that was the best and my most sincere suggestion that I came up with. It's up to the people of the future to refine it.

The sun was about to set. He went onto the rooftop of the kitchen, where you could have an unobstructed view of the disappearing sun.

• Nick: Hey there he is. [He seemed eager to welcome him by his side. He even had a big cushion to share] Last day, tomorrow we're off!
• Mark: Yeah had almost forgotten that. [He paused for some moments staring at the sun.] Hey Nick.. Do you ever get the feeling that your time is not exactly your own?
• N: Uhm.. in what sense?
• M: Not sure yet..

The last day felt like a ritual almost. They packed everything, gathered their bedsheets, dropped them off to the laundry, and went to the medical center for their last check. Everything seemed normal with everyone, so no-one was worried. After doing all the checks, they were asked to pull up their trousers to accommodate the tracking device on their ankles. That was a new measure which they didn't know of, and some of them protested. But, in the end, all of them got out of there with it.