The Anti-Love Letter to This Wannabe Place (Not Approved by My Dog)

Nothing works, I stay: My own noir “within and without”

Image by Author

My husky rolled in a putrefying carcass.

It wasn’t the first time, but this was unquestionably the worst one yet.

It’s hard to blame her, as it’s simply in her nature, much like hiding food or howling at passing ambulances. When those deep-rooted wolf instincts take over, her ears become deaf to any command.

Image by Author

I realize that getting angry with her makes virtually no sense.

But in that moment, all rational thought went straight out the window — especially as every waft of that indescribable stench had me literally fighting my own body’s instinct for the breakfast in my stomach.

The way of the purgatory road

A small, irresistible call of nature instantly turned an otherwise ordinary day into a storm of anger.

Those mushy sheep entrails hadn’t ended up along the edge of that narrow dusty road by accident. Someone regularly dumps them there — someone who would rather break the law and risk spreading diseases than pay a few euros for proper carcass disposal.

It’s effortless for them that way. The road sits on the outskirts of town but is easily accessible by car, so why bother looking for another solution?

Image by Author

By this, they make life easier for themselves and, during the summer heat, only make it miserable for a handful of dog walkers and pedestrians. Why should they care about them?

And they’re not the only ones who think that way.

Once, we decided to haul away an entire plastic children’s playhouse that had been dumped there. The local recycling center accepted it free of charge. But for every piece of trash we’ve ever voluntarily cleaned up from that area, three more have appeared in its place.

If there is one thing without limits, it is human stupidity. I’m sure it can be found anywhere in the world, yet whenever I come across its tangible outputs, I still find myself asking the same question.

How did I end up here?

Image by Author

Towing myself from this town-untown

Don’t worry — I’m not about to start lamenting old-fashioned how I once had dreams of living abroad, my ideals, my ambitions, my plans…

But yes, I did, and I still do.

It’s more that I feel like I somehow ended up inside a dark mystery novel set in a decaying small town ruled by drugs, corruption, and human trafficking.

Maybe I’m not that far from the truth. People I know joke that I’m an endangered species. I moved to the very place everyone else leaves with a deep sense of relief.

Image by Author

I myself come from a tiny, conservative village where I spent an idyllic childhood surrounded by nature. The local belief that the further west you go, the better things get, took root in me as well.

So when my personal love story carried me here — much closer to our capital city — I didn’t resist.

But being nearer to what used to be the Western bloc is perhaps the only positive thing that can be said about this place, as it has all the disadvantages of a typical city, but none of its advantages.

The night in the capital city. Image by Author

Job opportunities — unless you’re aiming for a career in mass production halls — are basically nonexistent. There’s no swimming pool, no decent gyms to speak of. Not a single shopping mall. Bars and nightlife? Pretty much nonexistent as well.

They only opened the first McDonald’s here last year. And whenever you complain about any of this, locals just laugh and tell you that a few dozen kilometers in either direction are bigger cities where you can find everything you could possibly want.

So what exactly makes this a true town? Traffic jams? Yes, those are absolutely brutal here. And the aforementioned drug trade is no less present than in bigger cities, either.

The status seems to be dictated by the population, with which I still somehow can’t seem to relate, because my main hobby isn’t making sure I finish a bottle of hard liquor opened an hour ago.

Hm, sorry. That was unnecessarily harsh.

Unfortunately, harshly true.

Image by Author

Still, every rule has its exceptions. And if I manage to find mine in this town — someone who prefers reading over scrolling TikTok, or at the very least doesn’t take pride in how much they can drink without dying the next three days — then I’ll be nothing but grateful.

[embed]How My Best Halloween Costume Made Me Realize I Needed New Friends Anyone up for meeting someone willing to do needle-painting for 3 days straight?medium.com

A stranger in the punch bowl

This town rejects me like a transplanted organ. The contempt is mutual, and perhaps that’s what creates this whole cycle of anger and resentment.

It usually goes that way.

Any manifestor would probably hit me over the head with the old familiar rule: Anything you allow to throw you off balance, you’ll only get more of. After all, that’s where you’re putting your energy.

It certainly seems to work for me.

• More reckless seniors at the grocery store, absentmindedly slamming refrigerator doors into you.
• More drugged-up youngsters threatening to have their dog tear you apart for no apparent reason.
• More unannounced visits from people who, firmly convinced that friendship means having no boundaries, help themselves to every cabinet in your house, crack open your best bottle of rum, polish it off, and leave you with a vomit-covered toilet as a parting gift.

After all, we live here, so we’re friends by default. We’re all in this together.

That’s how they see it. They mock everything around, yet they won’t tolerate a bad word being said about their town. Not from “an immigrant”.

Image by Author

Meanwhile, I scream in frustration — just as I do every single day at 4 p.m., when the local loudspeaker system kicks in and spends the next twelve to fifteen minutes blasting the exact same announcements about the same two cultural events taking place that month.

“You should work where we do. There’s always some kind of noise there. You wouldn’t last a day,” they scoff, unable to understand how anyone could be bothered by the daily torture of being forced to listen to the same voice recording over and over again.

And when I try to explain that I work with words, so I can’t focus when someone is drilling other words into my head, they’ve already gone back to their beer and to planning where they can get the drunkest for the least amount of money next time.

Photo by Masjid Pogung Dalangan on Unsplash

Would the bye be good?

If I were an impartial observer, I would have only one piece of advice for myself. The obvious one.

Move away. Why are you still staying there?

But when you’re the one drowning in the situation, following your own advice suddenly isn’t quite so simple.

Especially not when you have a house on a quiet street with a large yard — the kind of property you not only wouldn’t be able to afford in a real city even with unicorn blood, but probably wouldn’t be able to find at all — and a partner’s stable job, something that is far from guaranteed in this country.

Image by Author

Any other advice?

• Try harder to fit in?

I did. It ended badly.

• Cut yourself off and focus only on your own life?

Tried that too, and it came back to bite me in a truly awful way.

Like Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby, I seem destined to remain both within and without. I’ll never truly feel at home here, yet leaving isn’t an option at the moment.

Image by Author

By some irony, one more book came to my mind at this point: The Secret of Secrets (which I haven’t read yet), described by its author, Dan Brown, as “a love letter” to Prague.

I adore Prague too, and I do not doubt that if I spent significantly more time there, I’d end up writing even more lovestruck passages about it than the ones I filled my teenage diaries with about American actors.

However, Prague is over four hours away by car. Mentally even further. And so, at this moment, I can’t help but write nothing other than this useless complaint letter to… this place.

Sunny Prague. Image by Author

Conversely, I should probably be fair and not look for something I never brought here with me. And not expect to have a village on my property and New York just beyond the fence.

Besides, what would I even say to someone who moved to the North Pole and is now complaining that it’s cold?

And who knows — maybe one day it will turn out that this place was never meant to be my home at all, but only a temporary stopover, a spot in the world I may one day look back on with unexpected fondness.

Image by Author

I don’t think I would then remember the heinous people, the failing bars, the dirty and deserted pedestrian zone, or that awful smell that clung to my husky’s fur — now, thankfully, thoroughly washed out.

No. Nostalgia carves different images into the mind.

The river, even though I once found a stolen, emptied wallet floating in it, its faded documents still inside.

Roasting sausages over the campfire. It doesn’t matter that a pile of construction waste laid nearby.

And all those long walks with a view over the surroundings, even if the greater challenge than walking uphill was safely passing, in the dark, the stashes of drug packages.

Is it arrogance to think you’re meant for something better? But who knows — maybe I’m simply moving in the wrong circles and using them to judge all the ripples, near and far. Image by Author

Who knows where the eastern wind will eventually carry me?

But for now, I have to stop. My thoughts are being knocked out of my head by the booming prelude to the daily loudspeaker announcement.

Joe Cocker, “Summer in the City.”

One has to at least appreciate that if nothing else, this place has a perfect sense of irony.