Liner Notes

DSC #4: Fake Empire

It’s almost 9pm and we are hungry. There doesn’t seem to be any eateries up or down the street. We turned off another corner and still nothing. That’s it, I thought, I’m just going to die from hunger in one of the world’s best known gastronomical cities. The cold is really coming in now and I pull my coat tighter around me and stuff my hands as far down my jeans pockets as they would go.

Jean Chatillon. Street in Budapest, March 2009

From a distance, like a miracle that’s come from above, the neon lights beckoned. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief.

“Do you want KFC?”
“Holy fuck I’d eat anything right now,” I growled.

I began to feel better after the third hotwing. I can focus. I can speak again. I didn’t realise that we had been silent for so long. We picked up where we left off. We talked about the people around us and made up stories for them. We were laughing so hard that people were staring and we tumbled out onto the cold, cold street again.

It’s quiet outside and we immediately regretted stepping out into the cold. Damn, it cuts right through whatever you’re wearing, doesn’t it? We had to seek refuge in a pub and when that got too loud, we stumbled around for another and another until everything’s deserted and dead.

There’s something magical about slumbering foreign cities. As the city lies asleep recovering from the toils of the day, I can’t help but feel like we’re the last two humans on earth.