After all this years in this city, I find myself in the most unlikely place. On this rainy Saturday morning in August I have an appointment in the city center. I struggle finding the entrance of the building. Surely it can’t be here where some tourist shops sell some souvenirs and dodgy looking jewellery? And yet yes, here I enter. In this bazar, in this labyrinth that doesn’t look much different from some eclectic markets I visited in Asia not so long ago. Merchants staring at me as if I’m an alien clearly here ‘my kind’ – whatever that may be – do normally not enter. Tourist walk with their suitcases between the golden chains and cheap umbrellas.
In this surreal place I see another alien only this one seems to know where she is going. I follow her, to the elevator as my instructions told me to. She goes quite decisive, she knows where she is going and is no stranger to this foreign scene. She seems to get off at my same floor. The elevator opens to a different scenario: a sterile white hallway going left and right. I follow the indications to the left to the office I need to reach. Before me she goes steady and fast into the same direction.
In my mind Kafka shows up. This hallway, much like the one I normally work in, seems a long sequence of white wall and doors with no escape so it seems. As Kafka could have described this exact space in his books. Bleak and grey they seem to close into me.
Suddenly she stops, in front of a door. She turns the key opens it looks at me and with a friendly smile, lets me enter a totally different space. A welcoming waiting room, light with plants. As surreal as it seems, my journey has ended I’m back into my world. The alien has landed.
