Heart Palpitations

I only had heart palpitations once. It was much later on in the journey. It was not while I was out and about walking the streets, as one would imagine. It was in a woman’s home. She had a massive bunch of keys attached to her belt. When she walked, the sound of her breathing and her footfall were drowned out by the jingle-jangle of these keys and their false promise of safety.

This only served to make me feel like a captive. I had been travelling for almost eleven months and in that time I had not owned a set of keys to anything. I lay in bed that night, unable to fall asleep. The most peculiar sounds were coming from everywhere. What was worse was that the French doors to the outside had one missing pane of glass. Right next to the security latch at the bottom of the door. Which meant that the big bunch of keys offered me no protection at all.

At about eleven that night I eventually got up and locked my backpack and camera in the en-suite bathroom. I wanted my notes and photos to be safe at least. The unidentifiable sounds seemed to increase, and around midnight I joined my backpack and camera in the bathroom with a blanket and pillow, locking the door behind me. I felt like a failure. My heart would not stop pouncing on itself, but I concentrated on my breathing and eventually calmed down.

Then I heard a soft tap-tap-tap coming from right there in the bathroom and realised that making a bed in the bathtub was no longer an option.

I awoke on the mat next to the bathtub quite early the next mornng. Oddly enough, the sounds were all still there so I climbed onto the toilet to look out of the window and investigate. Goats! The yard and the streets around the house were filled with goats! Silly Billy, Sonja!