Finding Mitty.

Chapter 2: Sanctuary

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Two months before Anchorage:

Mallorca, Spain.

I nervously looked down at my hands as I played thumb wrestling with myself, not letting the left and right rocking of the bus on the pothole infested road bother me. It was about time, I'm finally gonna meet him. 15 years. The bus swerved left and after a while came to a halt. It was my stop. I slowly got up and struggled with removing my backpack from the top, fidgeting and trying not to land the heavy thing on someone's head.

"I wouldn't enjoy getting drawn and quartered in some spanish gangster's hancieda because I accidentally killed his precious abuela, would I now?" I jokingly reminded myself. I got out of the bus and then watched it get on with its journey leaving me in a cloud of Mallorcan dust - which was so golden, it almost looked like pixie dust - and above me the sun was on a full brightness setting which again, wasn't helping my body already feverish with nervousness.

I made my way towards my destination which was at a walking distance of 5 minutes now but took me 10 minutes because for every half-step I took forward, I stopped for a moment and wondered if I should just turn back and go home.

It's not too late yet? Right?

I kept walking with my head down saw the ground crack at my feet. It separated so quickly that I barely had a chance to get both my legs on one side. The destination side. The crack kept widening and the edge kept coming toward me and I kept walking backwards facing the crack. I got a glimpse inside the crack and it was my high school bully, Billy - who was all painted in red and had a hideous beard - looking at me as if to give me a purgatory-scale wedgie. Keep going Walt, your destination will be a safe place, after all, it is a place of God.
I paced faster, still going backwards, facing the crack, the edge coming at me even faster.

Thud!

Something hit me from behind, or maybe I crashed into something, and my body jerked forward towards the crack and I fell. I didn't go down into hell, but fell on solid, real, sandy ground which wasn't too comfy either.

"Bloody hell! What the - ?! What kind of a genius walks backwards?!" A female angry voice bawled with a British accent. Damn, even anger in a Brit accent seems cute.

"Sorry. I'm sorry.......I was...yeah.....sorry." I replied getting back on my feet.

I turned around and saw a woman whose face showed anger. But it wasn't a sadistic or frustrated anger which triggered a lot of old bad memories and made you look like a Minotaur. This was something else. A very light hearted anger, which was anger nonetheless, but it also kind of said, "it's okay you bumped into me, I don't hate you" and there was something deeper in her eyes that was a complete mystery to me. I kept staring at her awkwardly and involuntarily for a while.