The Irish and the Ill

The YHA in Perth (city) is filled with Irish. It being the Lord’s Day, I assume they have been on their best behavior. Only a few were shouting to the bartender and only a handful sat on the deck next to the café listening to various minor hits from the 90s, like The Prodigy’s “Fire Starter.” The rest were either playing pool or lounging around the reading room with their big, thick pulpy books. But it’s only 9:45pm, and it seems that most are going to bed: no more music, no more shouting to the bartender, no more clicking of the billiard balls. The only few that remain are yawning and staring blankly at the open pages of a book. Each one just drifted off like a leprechaun needing to wake up before sunrise to prepare his rainbows for the new day.

There was only one wee lass that I could see, and she was sitting at one of the four comfy leather chairs next to me. The more I looked at her, the more ugly she grew. When I first sat down, I had made sure no one was sitting there. She looked up, smiled kindly, and said it wasn’t. I thought to myself that it was a nice face; I hadn’t seen a feminine face in quite a while. But with my occasional curious glances in her direction, I grew dismayed. Oh, too many freckles—some can be cute, but she’s got the Irish splotch going on. Actually, eh, her nose looks funny; it’s twisted nearly forty-five degrees. Everything looks asymmetrical. More of a belly than I first thought, too. Her legs short and stumpy, and those toes—I’m not even going there.

And so I went from fantasies like these:

“Oh, hey what are you reading?”
“The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Me neither, but it’s won the Booker Prize.”
“What’s that?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’ve got a double ensuite to myself, want to find my pot of gold?”
“I’d love to.”

To the reality of when she stood up:

“Oh, fuck, she’s a lot older than I thought, too.”

All in all it was a nauseating day. I slept a few restless hours, checked out of the Royal Hotel (which despite its name isn’t royal, but I had a reasonably quaint room where I found free Internet), hauled my broken suitcase two blocks with a broken wheel to drop it off at the YHA, got a cappuccino and a large apple muffin, consistently felt more and more ill, dragged myself to a nearby park, and laid on a bench under a shady tree for well over an hour. For a while I suspected I was going to pass out again like on the plane, but instead I was in a mindless, immobile state, hardly able to open my eyes to glimpse passersby and merely danced around any actual sleep. Eventually I mustered the energy to sit up and find a toilet, but I went through the day like a zombie—snacking on some brains here, munching on some brains there.

What I find more irritating now than any of this is that I feel more awake and energized than I did all day. I had struggled to stay awake at 7, but I told myself to last two more hours. Now it’s well past 10 and I’m ready for a party or at least a drink or two. Instead, as is my habit, I’ll find myself wandering around Perth and the halls of this YHA until the early hours of the morning because no matter what continent I’m on, I’ll never be able to sleep like a normy.