Gods of Aberdeen by Micah Nathan

Author:Micah Nathan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2005-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

We crossed the Charles Bridge and headed into Stare Mesto, the old town square. Even though I’d taken one hit I was very stoned, and I think Art was too because we wandered for an hour before finding Máchova Street. It had started snowing again, a light downy shake that floated languorously from a soft black sky, swallowed by the slow-moving dark waters of the Vltava or curling in the wind around streetlights like fluttering moths.

Groups of people spilled out of bars and onto the street, laughing and holding onto each other, some with bottles in hand triumphantly raised to the night sky like pagan kings howling at the moon. I saw a man bend over and throw up into a snowbank and there was a woman rubbing his back while she talked to her friend, and I marvelled at how many good people there were in the world, and how I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else at that moment, gliding through the snowy streets of Stare Mesto on a winter night in Prague, Art walking by my side, his black greatcoat trailing in the wind, bag slung over his shoulder, while I listened to his stories about the Premysl family, Bohemia’s first dynasty, and their rise to power in the 10th century.

And then suddenly we were there: standing in front of a gabled, low-lying, boarded-up brick building that ran the length of the sidewalk to the street corner, Hotel Paris painted on an old, faded sign in peeling black paint, with a silhouette of a dancing girl under the name.

Art and I stood there for a moment, gazing up at the sign. Every window had a board nailed over it, and the front door was spray-painted with graffiti.

“That moped guy was full of shit,” Art said. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

“Are you still high?” I said.

Art kept rubbing his forehead. “I think so,” he said. He exhaled sharply and opened his eyes. “Actually,” he said, “I’m really stoned.”

He stared at me and we burst out laughing. We laughed so hard we collapsed onto the soft snow, and then we sat on the curb and gazed out over the river at the twinkling lights of Mala Strana.

“Let’s stay here,” Art said.

“We’ll freeze to death,” I said.

“I mean in Prague,” Art said, and he drew his knees into his chest and wrapped the front of his coat over them. “I have enough money. We could rent a place near the university, get our degrees there. We wouldn’t ever have to go back.”

“What about Dr. Cade’s project?” I said.

Art remained quiet for a moment.

“He’d find someone else,” he said. “There’s always someone else.”

It was a strangely seductive proposition. I had nothing. I was beholden to no one. Would I be missed? Would anyone even notice I’d left? I’d be another story for Dr. Lang, another boy from the city who’d dropped out, and maybe one day I’d run into some student at Aberdeen, and I too would warn them

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