30 Hours (Patreon)

I'm heartbroken.

If I told you about the nightmare of a trip I've had, you wouldn't believe me. I wouldn't believe me. But this happened to me. The last 28 hours have been the worst experience I've ever had to go through. I'm supposed to be in bed snuggling with the love of my life but I'm not. I'm trapped in hell and I can't get out. But let's start at the beginning...

I spent a week preparing for this trip. Packing things, repacking things and casting spells until I was completely drained to get rewards out before my flight. It was the single biggest thing (the only thing) I was looking forward to in the foreseeable future. To hold him in my arms again and smell him and feel him and kiss him and love him. To see his face when I wake up and follow his warmth straight to his heartbeat. This is what I should be feeling right now... But instead I smell stale tobacco ashes, dust and rubber. Every muscle in my body is sore and my eyes bloodshot. I haven't slept in two days. But I've cried more than I've cried in a lifetime and I can't seem to stop crying. I don't want to be here, which is why I left this place to begin with. Dragging behind me a suitcase that was described as "filled with bricks", a backpack stuffed full of electronics, makeup and hygiene products and a laptop in a slightly too small bag where just a tiny corner poked out, I hopped on a bus at 6 in the morning, every bone in my body longing to reach the promised land. Maybe I went a little heavy on the "bricks" as the extendable grip on the suitcase broke off just before I reached the stairs at the station building. I knew the ancient suitcase that's been rotting away in the basement ever since my mother left for good wasn't in great shape - well used, the fake leather reinforcement on the bottom crumbling and disintegrating... But I managed to close the zipper and that's what mattered. It was really inconvenient to drag it by the handle, but so far only a minor obstacle on my grand journey. As I was resting for a moment before my train was due, I realized the zipper on my laptop bag had come apart. And I couldn't fix it - it was too far gone. The teeth too weak to connect, I had to be careful not to drop it and shatter my only rendering machine. These things are sensitive to impact, believe it or not. I figured I'd make it to the airport, laptop and disintegrating bag firmly clutched under my arm  - and from there, look for the cheapest replacement bag. It was not an easy feat. The only affordable looking store was an unconquerable distance away (and behind the Lufthansa security area) so I kept (crying, breaking down and) asking employees for directions, dragging my much too heavy luggage from store to store and every ten feet or so sinking to my knees from sheer overexertion. Finally, I found one that carried laptop bags large enough to fit my total unit of a computer. It cost me everything I brought minus a tenner, but I was running late so I wasn't thinking twice. I tried to run to my check-in, but after violently being brought to my knees multiple times, I decided slow and steady was my only choice - and all the while praying to everything in existence to let me make that flight. The check-in lady told me I was too late but I wasn't giving up. Then she told me I wasn't registered and I said that can't be because I completed their online check-in just the other day. I didn't know why this happened or what went wrong but I didn't care. I begged her with everything I had to let me go on that plane and she took pity on me and after a couple brief phone calls, she let me through and I dashed through security like a hummingbird on crack. I promise you, you've never seen a human being disassemble and reassemble their entire carry-on luggage this fast. 

There I was, at the end of the boarding line. This was my first time traveling by myself so I kept pestering strangers with my awkward questions just to be sure I'm in the right place. And sitting on that plane, despite not in the seat Jack had ordered for me, fully crammed, noisy and a little constricting... It felt like freedom. I couldn't help my own excitement at take-off. In my mind, I was already halfway there. I say this as I'm feeling the, very similar, rumbling vibrations of the train I'm sitting in by now, going in the wrong direction. I caught my own reflection for a split second - enough to show that my eyes are swollen. I felt so close to being where I belong as I gazed out the window in the next row and admired the picturesque patchwork fields of green, yellow and ocre. There was distinctly more green and yellow than red and ocre from what I remember. The land of the free beneath my feet and time appeared to stand still. I sat there for endless hours that I couldn't help but take 20 minutes at a time (out of sheer boredom), confined to my claustrophobic seat, and yet the day never ended. In my naive excitement, I replayed the scene in my head where we would leap into each other's arms at the airport over and over again... The long, tender hug full of emotion and neither wanted to be the first to let go... The slight humming of his breath and the familiar scent of his neck which is usually about as high as my nose reaches, even when I stand on my toes. And the feelings of love and contentment bouncing back and forth between our hearts, reverberating and flooding our bodies at once. I didn't know then that this moment would never come. Inside me, it was already real. As sure as the sky is blue. 

Having guided me through most of the entire trip, he didn't get much sleep. And I got none. But even so, we talked throughout the second half of the flight in our unanimous excitement. I only had one more flight to catch, then I would see his face and... No, no I would not. With everything having gone so unbelievably wrong for the first part of the trip, I thought... What more could possibly happen? 

Then I nearly fainted in the customs line. I was in line for half an hour when my circulation just died. I had to sit down, intermittently, for seconds at a time while still carrying my two bags forward step by step to get my blood back up and running. For as long as I've known, I've had low blood pressure and a weak circulation and thus could never stand up for long periods of time. And I'm sure it didn't help that the sleep deprivation killed my appetite, leaving me only able to stomach a few bites of whatever grubb they served at meal times. I think most of what I ate was chicken and cookies. Not in the same bite, obviously. Thankfully, I started to feel better as I approached the front of the line, before the lady split us up in groups to process faster and I was right back in a longer line. I finally made it to customs, exhausted from a ten hour flight and just having evaded imminent death. I didn't mean to look this dramatic on the entire god damn trip, but I was pushing past my limit frequently. My luggage was heavy, even without the brick suitcase my back hurt like hell and I had not slept or eaten much at all. I was toast. Burnt. Toast. The guy at the processing desk asked me how I'm doing, where I'm headed, how long I'm staying for... Cheerfully, I told him that I was going to visit my boyfriend for two months. He promptly called over his colleague and hit me in the face with a question I wasn't supposed to answer. "Are you planning on getting married while you're there?" ... "Don't tell them you're going there to get married!", they said. "They can reject you for that!", they said. Ok, I was fully prepared to not bring up the topic at all... But how am I supposed to "not tell" at a yes or no question?! With milliseconds running through my fingers then and there, I answered no. I was merely following the advice of anyone in the right mind, but it was hopeless. They asked to see my return tickets, which at the time I did not have. I tried to tell them that this was my first time traveling by myself and I had no idea what I was doing, but did that matter? No. Of course not. I was promptly escorted to the interview room where multiple officers sat along a half wall of desks, processing iffy people and cases. I told them my boyfriend bought the flight for me and these two tickets were all they gave me at the check-in. Hours passed in that interview room and I was growing increasingly weaker, thirstier, more tired and anxious at the same time. They asked me way too many questions and still I tried to talk my way out of all the things I wasn't supposed to say. But they repeatedly put me on the spot. They seized my phone and demanded access, searched my luggage and found letters I was supposed to bring, from Jack to me, as proof of our relationship, where he refers to me as his future wife - of course, completely defying my story. About another hour of typing and processing later, the officer put me under oath so I had to tell him the truth. As to why I lied, I told him that I was told if I mentioned our marriage plans, I would get rejected, truthfully. Up to that point, all the struggles and the sweat and tears of the difficult journey were worth it... Worth getting to see his face and hold him in my arms again. But they didn't let me. They put me on the next plane back to Munich, of course, after taking my finger prints and mug shot. "Ally, have you ever been in trouble with the police?" Yeah. "Whoa, what did you do?" I tried to see my boyfriend. 

I cried the whole flight. And so did he. I barely got ahold of him when I was able to connect to wifi on the plane to tell him to drive back home. There would be no meeting. No romantic hug. No dream vacation. No exploring, no starting a life together, no making our shared dreams come true... And the officer acted like he was doing me a favor for sending me back and not arresting me. 

And you know what I learned? You fucking know what I learned?! I learned that the K1 petition we started over two years ago was still pending! Senator whoeverthefuck lied!!!! It wasn't denied by the department of state, to this day it is pending!!!! Yeah, I had to hear that from a cop at the border!

I'm back in hell now. As soon as I awkwardly (desperately) hauled all my bricks up the stairs to my apartment, I just broke out in tears. I'm in the wrong place. It's not just a bad place because there's constant noise and smoke, it's the wrong place because it's not with him. Children are screaming like stabbed monkeys outside (recess) not 15 yards away from me. Everything I had hoped for fell apart. Just like that, my dream went up in my neighbor's obnoxious carcinogenic cigarette smoke. 

I don't know what to do with myself now. Part of me doesn't want to live anymore but dying means giving up and for his sake I can't. I will never give up on him. But I also can't help but think that in death we'd get to be closer and that's everything I ever wanted. 

I tear off the clothes that have been sitting on me for 30 hours. I can't bear the feel of the sweat soaked cotton nor the corset lace that has nothing on the knots in my stomach. No, I can't bear any reminders of what I've been through or what I'm missing. And I've grown a deep hatred for this place that keeps me prisoner. Agonizingly void of anything that brings me happiness. This town is my enemy now. One that I must tear down or die trying.

I open steam messenger and I hold my breath in a desperate attempt to keep the tears inside, maybe swallow them. I read his username and I long for him. I see the skull in his profile picture and I long for him. I lie in my empty, messy bed and I long for him. I refuse to breathe. Breathing means feeling and I don't think I can take it. 

I open chrome and it loads up all the tabs I had open before I left, as though I had never gone anywhere. Business as usual, picking up where I left off with but a raging emptiness writhing in my core. Hate infects everything and everyone I have perceived to be in my way. It wants to swallow and incinerate the whole world for doing this to me. And then it itself is swallowed by a deep depression. I don't know when I will get to see him again and because I don't know it feels like I might not. I don't want a life without him. I physically need him. I physically need him more than I need to eat or drink or sleep. It's funny how you just forget about survival when you're denied love and closeness. But for his sake I keep fighting. I'm grieving and fighting. I'm hopeless and desperate and praying for a miracle. But I'm willing to fight until the day I die just to be with him. 

From here on, I simply do not know anything. My future has been wiped clean by things beyond my control. How do you cope when the world is against you? I don't know. Getting over this epic shit show will take time. Way more time than the 30 hours in which everything crumbled in my hands.