I am Caligula, Caligula is Me

My thighs screech like banshees as I power past other pilgrims, my enlightenment clearly loftier than theirs. Each overtaken pilgrim is another conquered province in my empire of smugness. Don't they know that inner peace is a race, and that I am the victor?

'Buen Camino' they gasp.
'Yes,' I reply. 'It is,' kicking up dirt and flexing my rippling calves as I pass.

They'll have run out of enlightenment by the time you arrive, pal. They have to order it in from Sweden, don't you know.

(Has anyone seen my meds lately?)

Weee whew, this was a long old day.

My phone is broken. The display has been claimed by a black mould of breached pixels, voxels of rot that have consumed it in the night. But there is a renewed freedom that comes in walking without it. Initially it feels like nakedness, I reach for my pocket and find only air. Every now and then the path forks without waymarker. Left or right? Who knows. Does it even matter?

Eventually I reach Sarria, and decide I probably ought to buy a phone before my mum hires Magnum P.I. to track me down. The woman at the shop doesn't know a word of English, she looks at me for help, not knowing that my Spanish extends only to 'cerveza' and 'Despacito (feat. Justin Bieber)'. After a short game of charades, she brings out three different phones, each in a cheerful flavour of cheapness. I eeny meeny miny mo my way into an Oppo, one of those dodgy Chinese brands (glory to Xi Jinping, top shagger. I've always been a huge fan, just don't steal my data.)

No matter how many settings I chop'po and change, it alerts me with peculiar notifications and exotic newsflashes, all in Spanish. Who knows what they mean, possibly weather updates in Toledo, possibly terms and conditions for the next bullfighting bonanza. I accept them all the same.

Later, I stop for a pint and speak to a Bostonian couple. The man speaks with the precise cadence and intonations of Harrison Ford. Every sentence sounds like it should end with 'Chewie, get the falcon ready.' We have an entire conversation without him ever even looking up from his book. I wonder if it's his dad's diary with clues to the Holy Grail. His wife clearly hates him.

Staggering in my tipsiness, Alan from Mexico joins for an evening gander. It's his second day in Europe and we chat for some time. I'm the first British person he's ever met. He tells me about how his friend was kidnapped by the cartel, I tell him how to perfectly butter a scone.

By the time I reach Portomarin, I'm forty kilometres drunker and a thousand miles more ridiculous. I slump, shattered and delirious. But rather than appoint a horse my consul, I appoint a fish my dinner. Czytaj więcej