The Tourist

In an inexplicable flash the downfall befalls me!

“Why?” came the piercing shriek from some panicked internal monologue. Immediately somewhat disconnected from reality, the descent begins.

A slow march now the order of the day.

From walking briskly yes, with purpose yes, but no apparent impediment or hurdle perceived!

So, “Why?”

No sense of having been pushed!

No sabotage!

No sense of tripping over my own feet.

Not self-inflicted!

“So, what the actual…WHY?”

Only now, in that split second, the panicked realisation that, in governing whatever is going to happen next, gravity is the master. The downfall, unforeseen, acquiring an inevitable momentum all its own. This downfall, harbouring some wicked will of its own, is no longer mine. The only agency left to me in what is coming next, in the absolute absence of control, being to resign myself to this fate and, simply, roll with it!

On lift-off the only bodily sensation an acute lightning bolt of pain from a right knee twisting to unnatural form. That jolt of pain shooting up the leg and searing itself with concern into my mind. Damn it! Has my knee, already prosthetic, simply failed? Is this my “why?” Uncertain but, either way, I’m flying now!

In free fall with no other immediate bodily concerns detected an imminent landing swiftly becomes the pressing concern. “How much is this going to hurt? What if I land on my head? Will I, in a vain attempt to break the fall, only end up breaking an arm? What about bruising my ego! A very public humiliation in an utterly public place thronged with curious visitors just like me! Broken bones and embarrassment? Embarrassment? You idiot!”

Given the right-sided failure, even with unknown cause, it’s clear I’m not going down face first as my body, following the natural momentum from the twisted limb, starts leaning into a barrel roll. In that moment of acrobatic inelegance the view slips across the screen in slow motion.

The geometry of the brick-paved plaza, the ticket kiosk with its impatient line, the erstwhile objective of my promenade, twisting from horizontal towards the vertical. All now heading for the exit, stage right and down! As they slip out of view, and the descent continues, a clear blue sky, only a solitary cloud, increasingly fills the stage underscored by the backdrop of the sun-bleached and arched wall at the far end of the plaza.

As the barrel roll flattens out the blue sky holds ultimate sway and the crash landing beckons!

“So, going down backwards then! No way I’m getting any hand out to break this fall! Well at least I won’t break an arm! Good God that pain in my knee, I hope I haven’t fucked it up again? Please not more surgery! How many more months of physiotherapy? On the back is it? This is going to hurt! For love of God, don’t smack the back of your head on those bricks! Shit, is this kind of stupidity going to be covered by the insurance? How good is healthcare for idiot tourists?”

“You bloody idiot!”

“Bloody hell, that hurt!”

Immediate gratitude for landing pretty much flat on my back and apparently avoiding smacking the back of my head on the floor. Somewhere in that barrel roll, by luck more than judgement, an instinctual arching of my back perhaps the saving grace? Lowering my intact skull to the ground I sense some, probably minuscule, piece of grit digging into my shaved head. Absent the presence of mind, and adequate awareness of my own hands, I neglect to brush it away and raise my head into uncomfortable suspension!

Supine, stunned and in a state of almost speechless shock but, in an instant surrounded by a sea of concern in the one, two, three, five, now eight, faces all gathering around to help.

Direct, and first, in my face one young woman announcing herself as an off-duty nurse asking if I hit my head. I respond, in that moment still not absolutely certain, meekly muttering “I don’t think so, I’m more concerned about my knee, it’s a prosthetic”. Taking my head in hand, finding no blood or other injury she, on departing, announces me to be alright and safe in the hands of the three young helpers from the ticket office team who are also standing by!

Someone, unknown, has slipped a folded jacket under my head which now rests gently!

Then, still flat on my back, to my right, and in close-up, an on-duty plain clothes policeman breaks cover to return, into shaking hands, the wallet that had spilled from my fingers during the descent. He also quietly slips the hotel keycard back into the shirt pocket from which it had slipped! Patting it down on my chest in some offer of reassurance!

“Do you need an ambulance? We can call one quick!”

“No thank you, I think I’m OK!”

“Are you with somebody? We can find them!”

“No, I’m on my own.”

“Can we help you up sir?”

The jacket was his!

Still trembling and breathless, and very meekly, I respond “Not yet, I need a minute to catch my breath! I need to check my knee, it’s prosthetic!”. “It’s prosthetic” fast becoming my mantra for the day! With the wallet back in a trouser pocket my hands fumble for that knee. Bloody hell that hurts but it is mobile and, mercifully, apparently all in one piece!

Someone else, unknown, presses a small bottle of water into my hands which, given my continuing trembling, finds me unable to muster the necessary traction. The seal is broken for me! Drinking, cool, greedily with the unanticipated thirst of a shocking lapse in equilibrium!

“Can we help you up now sir?”.

Finding me something of passing concern and suitably reassured some of those faces have now departed leaving me with a fabulous four all sporting furrowed brows and worried looks! Those three young tourist helpers in their uniform beige casual tops, and my newfound friend this gentle man in plain clothes.

“Sorry I still need a moment to gather my thoughts, I had a fall!”

“No problem, take your time!”

“Geçmiş olsun!” his wish for me!

“Thank you, I actually do know what that means!” spoken on the verge of an embarrassed tear!

My thoughts gathered, flat on their backs, too!

“What the bloody hell did you just say? You didn’t just fall…you had a fall! Have you really already gotten to an age where you feel the need to say ‘I had a fall’ rather than just ‘I fell’. You’re only fifty-nine years old! Surely that narrative shift comes later in life? The fall wasn’t my fault, something crept up on me? Is that really going to be how you explain this? By the way, that pain in your knee, just you wait until you put the pressure of that obese frame of yours onto that knee, you’re going to need another set of crutches…again! Really now, not just an idiot but, a fat old git to boot!”

Sitting myself up, with a helping hand or two, drawing my knees up to my chest and dusting myself down I contemplate the next act towards standing!

“Having a fall? Really? Surely an avoidable sign of inevitable aging? Damn!”.

I look to my left and see it clearly now! I think I know what happened!

“Can we help you up now sir?”

Grasping the offered hands, which also clasp me by the wrists for certainty, favouring my left leg I rise! These four support and escort me, limping gingerly, to a low wall where I park my backside. What a splendid view of the domes and minarets I had been endeavouring to visit with that long expectant line where I had already spent an hour shuffling towards the entrance prior to coming a cropper on the red brick plaza!

Leaving me with my young uniformed helpers my policeman friend departs.

“They’ll look after you now, I have to get back to my duties! Unless you want me to call you an ambulance?”

“Thank you, no, I’ll be OK. A taxi back to my hotel will be enough!”

With a grateful shaking of his hand, in my still trembling one, he departs with a parting “Geçmiş olsun!” I share his hope!

The tea tray, shining silver, with matching pot and bowl brimming with sugar cubes and small saucer of fresh mint leaves emerges unbidden from the ticket kiosk.

“Hot sweet tea will help with the shock!” says one of my young friends.

“Would you like us to call you a taxi?” says the second.

“Thank you and yes please” says I on the verge of being overwhelmed by kindness!

“OK, we will make sure the taxi can come into this area so you don’t need to walk. They are not normally permitted entry!” the second assures me!

“What happened?” asks the third.

I tell them of the long wait in that queue to get inside. Of me scanning my QR code displayed on my phone, only to be denied entry three times by an irritating little klaxon. Of being taken aside! Of my ticket being inspected! Of how I had been just idiot enough to be in the right location with the wrong ticket! How I, in my digital ignorance, had actually purchased a ticket for the museum but not the mosque! Of the kindness of the security officer who escorted me out and pointed me to the ticket kiosk and told me to come straight back to him with the correct code and avoid a second long wait shuffling across familiar ground!

Pointing to the red brick floor of the plaza I confess that, in my rush to change this QR code, my attention had wavered and I simply hadn’t seen the two centimetre kerb that marked out the one, the only, lane that was permissible for traffic when traffic itself was permissible on the mosque plaza! My right foot had met that kerb without the necessary conviction and thus my downfall began! Thus was I toppled! Thus did I, for the first time in life, deign to “have a fall!”

The taxi appears and they, and the driver, help me get in, however awkwardly sliding on my backside along the back seat to extend my leg fully. “It’s prosthetic!” I tell the driver.

The taxi takes the road following the walls of Constantinople all the way round to the old Roman Gate. The gate where Mehmet’s troops first breached those walls to overthrow Constantine XI thus sweeping aside the last vestiges of the Roman Empire. My driver, Adem, bids me wait as we park at the hotel just inside that gate. Adem dashes into the hotel. He returns with two of the hotel staff who help me out of the taxi and up towards a welcome sofa in reception! The cushions well-stuffed with welcome relief!

A quick SMS to two travelling companions who had chosen other sights in the city that day means that a pharmacy visit to acquire new crutches is in the works.

Sinking into the enveloping warmth of that sofa, more tea, again unbidden, arrives with painkillers on the side too! In such comfort, in some pain, my heart wells up! I am left replete and bursting with gratitude for the wonderful kindness of strangers!

If this is Istanbul then I know I will return.

When?

I do not know!

For certain I will!

After all, the Ayasofia has already waited 1500 years for me.

No doubt she will still be here when I inevitably return, unavoidably older!