Sex, Travel and The Pandemic

Vampires, Rabbit Holes, and The Czech

This memoir begins in the summer of 2018 during one of the most traumatic periods in my life. The period when I decided to take out all my savings, sell all my bitcoins, and travel to Europe with my beloved girlfriend in a last-ditched attempt to save our failing relationship. My hope had been that with enough lovemaking and travel, I could reignite the fire and passion between us.

We had been together for about two years, and somewhere within that period, love had existed, but as time elapsed, it withered into something indescribable and unrecognizable to me. I had an entire future mapped out with her; marriage, kids, and all those things that came with a traditional Trinidadian life. It was a future so bright it could be seen from outer space. That bright future was now hanging on the precipice of ruin.

My relationship, however, wasn’t the only thing in jeopardy. My blog was literally dead, no one was reading my self-published books anymore, and all the money I had to my name was 10,000 US dollars. At the age of 25, I was already a washed-up, beaten-up writer with not much to show for my life’s work.

Life was taking its toll, and at that ripe yet tender age, I had gotten my taste of the trials of adulthood. I studied Leadership and Management at the University of The West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago but dropped out in my last year. Ever since then, I’d been working for myself, chugging out blog articles and 60,000-70,000-word pieces of fiction. I was able to build a living doing what I loved most: writing. I never had to work a typical 9-5 office job, and I had grown quite comfortable with working from home. That was my life, and I enjoyed it.

I spent most of my working time writing for a political news site. The site paid well enough and didn’t ask too much of me. It was a dream come true for any writer. Then, after two years, in 2018, the website couldn’t maintain enough traffic to be sustainable, and they fired the writers and editors, which included me. I fell back on my old Trinikid blog that I had started with, but I had already neglected it for so long to focus on the political site that my former readers gave me no mercy. They simply left, on to the next blog, along with any income it may have brought.

As you can already tell, 2018 just wasn’t my year. I had a whole list of failures piled up and weighing down on my head like a heavy hat woven together with rocks. I had a few options to choose from. Actually, I only had two. The first option was to give up on my old “work-from-home” lifestyle and go find a “real job” as a newly single man working in some office or the counters of a KFC outlet. The second option was to maintain my relationship as well as to dust off my old blog and get the writing cogs turning again.

I chose the latter. It wasn’t going to be easy, and I had to start somewhere, so I decided to start with my relationship. I was determined to make it work. But how?

My girlfriend and I had always planned on taking a trip to Europe together. We’d lay in bed some days fantasizing about visiting Paris, Rome, or London. It was always on our to-do list, and now, with our relationship on the brink, it seemed like the best time to take a chance on life and make a grand decision.

So, I booked two plane tickets for my girlfriend and myself from Trinidad and Tobago to Europe. It was the first decision in a slew of decisions that would set me off on an unforgettable and treacherous adventure across the world. I didn't know it then, but my boring life was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

First, let’s talk about London.

For the first few days in London, things were looking up. My girlfriend and I pranced around the big and busy city, going everywhere, doing everything. I had an inclination that my efforts were making a difference. In London, there is always something to do or eat, and getting bored as a tourist was unlikely. We stayed at a quiet and peaceful hostel in Willesden Green called Palmers Lodge Hillspring. On the surface, we seemed like a healthy and good-loving couple but beneath the charades lurked demons. It was only a matter of time before they rose up again and wreaked havoc upon what we were trying to rebuild.