My family vacations have always been... Interesting. Having previously resided in England, the possibilities of vacation were nigh endless. A quick ferry ride and we would arrive at the cusp of Europe, ready to set out on some new adventure. It’s funny though, I can’t remember a single time wherein the vacation wasn’t fraught with stress, like fraying chord dragging a great crate along the road. A combination of pedantic parents, a sickly father, and a contentious sister tend towards each vacation going seriously wrong. I say wrong, but what I really mean is awry. Something causes them to divert from the perfection of the planned route, some slightly, others ending in a enthusiastic fireball of failure and emotion.

A joke within my family is that we have seen every hospital in every place we have ever visited, and I doubt we are far off. There was the time my father broke his knee, spending the next 8 months on crutches; the time when my sister managed to get attacked by a monkey in Malaysia, and of course the time when I managed to grind away all the flesh on my knees during the New Year’s of Searing Pain. I’ve had some horrifying experiences, and some of the greatest experiences of my life on vacation, but the one that sticks out most prominently from the mountain range of ups and downs that is my vacationary life, is the time when we decided to go to Paris.

It was summer time, roughly 5 o’clock in the evening, as we crawled into the centre of Paris, our air conditioning struggling against the wretched heat that had engulfed the city. Out the window I saw the tar bubble like magma, and citizens using the thermal currents produced by manhole covers to rise into the air with nothing except an umbrella. We had been driving since 8am to reach Paris, having barely made the train across the Channel due the customary farce that is our packing. The car valiantly fought its way through the dense air, and the equally dense French populace (if you’ve ever driven in Paris, you know what I mean), until we finally reached our destination, the random-unpronounceable-name-that-is-french hotel.

The Whatchamathingie Hotel was located in an alley coming off of one of Paris’ infamous three-way intersections. My father pulled up to the buttressed overhang of the curb, and deposited both my family and the luggage onto the frying pan that is the pavement. We scrambled to gather ourselves and our luggage as we rushed inside, afraid of combustion. Whilst we checked in my father obtained directions to the nearest parking lot from the nearby valet, he gave us a curt nod and we understood that he was going to park the car. He staggered backwards as he was struck by a mob of sweating air particles, desperate for the cooling shower that was the air conditioned lobby.

For as long as I’ve known him my father has had a notoriously bad sense of direction, which is curious seeing as how he used to captain ships for a living. My sister and I lay in our room, baying like hounds for food, whilst my mother browsed brochures, assuring us we would eat when my father returned. The minutes ticked by, dragging on in the manner which they do when one urges them on. Ten, twenty, forty minutes, eventually after an hour of fending off neigh rabid children my mother decided to head out and look for my father, sure he had managed to get himself lost. She dropped us off at a nearby bistro, supplying us with the means to sate our animalistic appetite.

We devoured what was laid before us, and were sitting there amicably (for once) gazing out the window in silence as we saw our father stagger past into the hotel. My sister and I followed him to our room, calling his name and tapping his shoulder. He seemed strangely oblivious to us, we saw the determination in his sagging eyes, to reach the room, to reach safety. He fumbled with the key, as he scrambled against the door in his desperate attempt to reach the safety of the room. My father burst forth into the room, a boulder smashing through the thin wooden barricade that guarded his sanctuary followed by the debris that were his children. He collapsed on the floor, twitching and moaning. Sweat sliding from his brow, soaking his hair, and pooling on the floor. His eyes drooped and fluttered as he faded into unconsciousness.

Naturally, my sister freaked out, she scrambled around the room searching for the phone to dial 911, to dial my mother, to dial my father lying on the ground, anyone who could be of some help. I stood up from my father’s side, head cocked as I looked at him. He was big man, my father, it was odd to see him lying there sprawled as though dead. I felt strangely calm. “I think he has heat stroke”, I called out to my sister, still rolling about in a frenzy; “I’ll go to the front desk. Calm down and take care of him”. I knew she could do this, she had spent two years attending, and sometimes even teaching a first aid course. She too seemed to remember this, and began tending to him, laying his arms by his side and making sure his airways were clear.

As I waited to board the elevator I heard a door crash open. Silhouetted in the door to the stairway stood my mother, having clearly given up the search for my father she had decided to return to the room to await his return. “Elevators are broken. Heat or something” she said, somewhat out of breath. I looked at her and realized she didn’t know about dad. “Mum, I think dad’s having a stroke”. I said to her. She stood stock still for a moment, then ran past me admonishing me for not calling her. “But our phones don’t work internationa...” I called after her, trailing off when I remembered the pointlessness of arguing with my mother in a crisis. I continued down to the desk, where I explained the situation and asked for an ambulance to be called.

Over the next hour the paramedics came, rushing up the stairs, fumbling with supplies and a stretcher. They examined my catatonic father, and quickly decided that he needed to be taken to the hospital whilst they determined what exactly was wrong. Of course there was a problem, the elevator was broken. The stairs were a classic narrow spiral, perfect for carrying a 6’2’’ 250+ lb man down on a stretcher! But somehow they managed, the clattering and swearing, however, alerted me to the fact that it was only just barely.

Now this has been going on for a good three pages, 1138 words too, so you’d think that by now the story would be coming to a close. As I ride in the ambulance with my father, I have some revelation about life, a raison-d'etre, but no, this is not the case. Everything up until this point has been an introduction, for now the real story begins, though knowing me it will probably end up being shorter than the introduction...

The ambulance, a vehicle designed for saving lives and not for family transit, only had space for two additional people. My mother and sister decided to take the ambulance, and had the hotel staff call a taxi for me. I was to travel to the hospital and rendezvous (see I used a french word! It’s relevant!) with my mother or sister outside the emergency room. I stood at the curb, watching the ambulance speed away, lights flashing, and the sun glinting off the golden caudecus emblazoned on its blood red side.It was late now, around eight at night, and the sun was beginning to set. The fire on the street faded as the fire in the sky intensified, the air grew still around me as I waited for my taxi the calm of the evening settling over me and the city.

I was jolted from my trance by a polite bump on the shoulder by the valet. “You’re taxi is here, sir”. I thanked him and glanced at the taxi. It was an understated affair, not the bright yellow you see in New York, and not black elegance you see in London. It was a small white Renault, with a sign so small and so dimly lit, that I had to search for it when I was standing a mere 2 metres away. The valet walked me to the car, opened the door for me in the customary manner and gave the driver what I assumed to be directions to the hospital. We set off into the evening traffic of Paris, of tourists searching for fine dining, and of natives scorning their curiosity.

After thirty odd minutes of red lights and traffic jams, I arrived at the hospital just outside the emergency room. I stepped out into the night, a light breeze flowed past me, dousing my worries in a river of air. I payed the driver 11,20 euros, thanked him for his trouble and turned to face my mother, patiently waiting outside the emergency room for me. Except not. As the low moan of my transport crescendoed into the dull roar of escape, I realized that my mother was nowhere to be found.

The doors hissed at me as I ventured forth into the flickering fluorescents of the french emergency room. I stood in the doorway and surveyed the room briefly, taking in the yellowed walls and linoleum floors. The usual assortment of disheveled tenants were sprinkled around the room, waiting lifelessly to be told they were yet to live. Emergency rooms get eerily quiet after a certain time, the babble dies down as people resign themselves to the wait, the babies cease their crying as they to doze, and the nurses thin out as they go home for the night. Upon locating the desk, a small affair no more than 3 metres long, I course directly for the remaining receptionist.

Naturally, the receptionist is in the midst of a phone call, somewhat less naturally though, he was male. I waited patiently while he finished his call, casually inspecting this anomaly; this forty-something black man, with greying hair and frayed shirt. I’ve been in a lot of emergency rooms (though only one time was actually for me), and this was the first time I had ever seen a man tending the reception desk, much less one dressed so casually. His nails were cracked and encrusted with mud, trademarks of a man in physical labour, had he come here from work? Was he working a double job? And if so, why? These questions were needless, and certainly not relevant; they were merely curiosities of a stymied mind. I was alerted to the end of the conversation as his voice took on the universal cadence voices do when ending a call. He placed the phone back on the receiver and turned to me. He greeted me in French. Crap.

In moments it was clear to both of us that we were incapable of understanding each other through verbal means, and so began a game of charades. I cupped my hands around my eyes, before rotating my head around like a bobble head on a bumpy road. He looked up at me from his seat, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed. He gazed at me for several seconds in this manner, before his features relaxed and a look of comprehension dawned. He smiled and handed me a pen and paper, proceeding to point at it, then his computer miming himself typing. I accepted the paper and proceeded to print my father’s first and last name before placing it on the desk and rotating it to face him. He slid the paper off the table, cascading over the side as he holds the bottom righthand corner. He gives his arm a flick and the note snaps to rigidity. Whilst gazing at the paper in his left hand, he input the data to the computer before puncturing the silence with the triumphant sound that only the enter key can make. His brow furrowed once more as he looked at the results, he turned to me and shook his head. No results.
I tried again, with the name of my mother, using both her maiden and married name, but once more, nothing. My lips tensed as I pressed them together, forcing my tongue into my cheek as I thought on what to do. The ambulance should have arrived almost a full hour before me, and I know that the names are entered into the system almost immediately, sometimes upon the time of call. I looked to my side and saw the insignia of the hospital, a blue gear surrounded by the customary ribbons and confetti, the name of the hospital curving underneath like the wicked smile of a cyclops gazing at its dinner. I swallowed, my whole body contracted, bracing itself for the blow it somehow knew was coming. The symbols didn’t match. I was in the wrong hospital.

I spun around, my eyes scrambling across the walls in search of a phone. Nothing. I turned again to see the receptionist gazing at me reproachfully, his ear pressed firmly against his phone. I started towards him, but was halted yet another punch to the gut: even if I had access to a phone, there was no one I could call. Our phones had no signal and no service. I stood stock still for a moment, not blinking, not breathing, as I thought on my options. Hotel Thingamabob was at least half an hour away by taxi, which I could not call due my lack of funds and address. I couldn’t phone anyone, thanks to my abysmal memory for names and numbers. And I couldn’t fly, due my lack of wings; so I chose the next best thing: walking. I knew the general direction of the hotel, and so I planned to walk in said direction until I found something I recognized.

The ice of my frozen form shattered as I started towards the exit. The crippling ice cracked and fell from my legs as the door slid open before me, the balmy night air warming my half frozen vessel. I looked up to the sky as the still warmth of the night was replaced by a soothing kiss of breeze; the stars were out, shining steadfast in their own midnight blue void. “Lovely night for a walk”, I thought to myself wyrley, and set off unto the darkened streets of Paris.

I meandered across bridges and roads, roundabouts and intersections, threading my way through the lessening swarm of people and traffic. Napkins and newspapers bounded down the road, hopping and tumbling like rabbits in the wake of each passing car. Before long I was on my own, the faint buzzing of mosquitoes and the odd car my only company. Time blurred as I wandered from street to street, scanning the streets for any clues as to the location of my destination. Days passed, my shadow rose and set as I traversed the yellowed light of the electric suns placed at intervals along my path. The night was calm, and I with it, despite the gravity of my situation. It was a pleasant disparity, the chaos of the day and the stillness of the night.

The light of the street faded behind me as I entered yet another alleyway, lit only by the dimmed radiance of shopkeepers’ windows. I glanced around, taking in their wares as best I could.Things were different here. Through the haze of darkness I saw towers and spires; hills rose, ribbons writhed, and the landscape of soft red velvet glistened in the displays’ vaguely roughish lights. I continued down the alley, the light at the end spilling forth as if to embrace my triumphant return to its domain. But something was different again. The light was not yellow, but red.

I emerged from the alley onto a street unlike any I had previously encountered. It was inhabited, but stationary, at odds with the city I knew. The street was lined with clubs, shops, and scantily clad people of both sexes. The unexpected change in atmosphere took me by surprise.
I paused in the opening of the alleyway, my mind attempting to make sense of what I was witnessing. Short bursts of air escaped my nose as my diaphragm contracted and I doubled over, exhaling in a breath of pure amusement. I was in the Red Light District.

I had learned of this place from an old teacher of mine, Monsieur Lombardo. As his name suggests he was French, a native of Paris. He was my French teacher, well one of them, and oftentimes during class he would regale us with tales of his homeland; with Paris’ famous flea market, of the Louvre’s secrets, and, of course, the Red Light District. It was a place I never thought I’d go, at least not until I was older; yet here I was, completely by chance. I found myself rather bemused. I was looking for something I recognized, and I against all odds, I found something I did! Just not what I was looking for.

It took a moment for me to reorient myself after the shock of discovering my location. I began to walk once more to my derived destination, soaking in the district’s atmosphere. The air was filled with the charge of competition, of merchants vying to distribute their wares. There was much hailing and cat-calling, amicable banter about past sales, and their more important customers. I walked behind them, listening in, absorbing their energy. The district was no different to markets, the feel no different, the atmosphere no different, the only difference: their wares. It was fascinating, a place so alien to me was yet so familiar.

A parade of g-strings, short shorts, skirts, and tights went past me as I wandered down the street. Some turned at my passing, calling after me in their foreign tongue of French and sex. Catching the eye of heavily make-uped woman, she winked and lifted her skirt to reveal that not all was as it seemed. Taken aback I continued on my way, the overt displays of sexuality still reeling in my mind, confusing and enticing, a whirlwind of emotion and discovery. I was a boy raised on old British values in an all boys boarding school; sex was something naughty, to be hidden away, to be talked of in whispers. Yet here there were people, not only talking of it, but yelling it, screaming it to the world for all to hear.

My chain of thought was broken by a slew of French speech. I looked just in time to avoid hitting the crimson beast that blocked my path. The light’s of the surrounding stores silhouetted the creature. It stood tall upon two thick piles of mud, grass sprouting at odd angles and lengths, knotted branches protruded from its upper regions, rippling as they swayed in the breeze. Topping off the arrangement at 6” something was a humanoid head; a head unlike any I had ever seen, half illuminated by the storefronts. It was bedecked with make up, the eyes dark, the brow strong, the chin firm, the cheek pale and pock-marked, catching the light in such a way that it appeared to me as the wasteland of some long forgotten battleground, arrows of stubble protruding from the blood soaked rocks and soil. To top off the ensemble was a dress of what appeared to be fine satin, cascading from one corner to the floor pooling on the ground, an oasis of pink in a desert of stone. It stepped forwards once more, reiterating its statement. The light shifted to reveal the man, or was it woman? The chest hair poking out from above the dress indicated male, and yet the attire suggested otherwise. The giant repeated itself for a third time, annoyance creeping into what I could now see was worry.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak French,” I stammered.
The giant heaved a great sigh and spoke once more: “Are you lost, little boy?”

The voice was deep and ambiguous, the accent a veritable blend of tones taken from all around Europe. I was taken aback, this monster, this person, this alien entity, was clearly concerned about me. I was not used to the kindness of strangers, much less of mountains.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” I replied hesitantly.

“Anything I can do to help?”

So I spilled, I placed my trust in this stranger. I told him what had happened and where I wanted to go. I described to him the cobbled street and terraced houses, the Italian restaurant and the authentic creperie. Luckily for me she knew what I was talking about. Turns out she lived on that street, about a half mile down. Apparently, I had passed the hotel a mile back. She gave me directions, and off I went.

I arrived at the hotel around midnight, my mind still reeling from the day’s events. My mother was there, fretting and pacing, looking as though she wanted to scream. I was only eleven years old when this happened, a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, debatable one of the most influenceable periods of one’s life. I learned on my own that there are two sides to everything, night and day, chaos and order, calm and chaos. That things which may be alarming are not always things to run from. There’s a duality to life, but also a mix. You cannot live in black and white, because the world is not that simple. I always look on both sides, I will always provide a counter argument, I will always attempt to understand. This is one of those rare moments we all experience, that I can point to and say for sure: “This made me what I am.”