Bratislava, Slovakia

Strobes blink convulsively and the people dance and are lost, swept away for a second under the blanket of noise, alcohol and constant flickering light. Behind the strobes darkness has triumphed, disorientating and shrinking, my horizon turned to a single room, the hold of a dingy houseboat.

Click, Flash, Pause

The photos we took that day tell more than I ever could, the digital time-pauses convey the details replaced in my memory by a cocktail of adrenalin, bravado and testosterone. Flicking through them, looking closely at each one I can attach the textures, voices and sounds that make these pictures mean something more, remind me of time I did something new and different.

Click

Tristan has sleep in his eye, our grins are lopsided and psychotic and our fleeces seem smeared by a thin sheen of filth. A clock would be paused at 5:30 AM, the few people about taking care to avoid us. Backpackers, packs and bags on the ground by our feet, boots scuffed to the point of mutilation, my “slouch” pulled down above my Cheshire- cat grin.
Tourists, his camera dangling and a guide book in the crook of his arm, my photo camera making my jean pocket bulge.
Friends for a day, we are filled with cockiness at having travelled to Slovakia with no plan in mind and no reason for going. We stand there in the relative warmth of the central bank, and as they wont except zlotys we pose with promotional cardboard
cut-outs and run when security approaches.

Click

A group photo, seven of us standing upon cobbled streets, half looking at the camera and smiling. 2:30 AM one day and several adventures later. The wind is biting and cold, our grins slightly forced, our fleeced arms holding each other tightly together. The facial expressions are those of people thrust from the warm womb of a club into the streets biting air, of people impatient with the fumbling of the camerawoman as she stairs in blank amazement at the bleeping displays and complicated buttons before her.
It doesn’t matter who they are, that half those in the picture are forgotten, their names gone for me, their roles simple footnotes in the book of my trip. For that moment, resting against me, we are all there is, all we need, these five tourists and our two unlucky female locals, seemingly amused by our comradely.
In this background the flash lights a stucco wall, the plaster hiding the viewer, shielding you from the rest of Bratislava, the high tower and murky Danube, lights on the water and trams in the street.

Click

The club, the strobe frozen between flashes and the music between beats. Anna, pupils dilated by the change in light, her hair tied back and lips parted slightly. Nails are painted, her hand carefully holding a drink, the lights reflecting off the glass and ruining the shot. Her teeth are white and her eyes dark brown, her gaze fixed straight ahead, the expression slightly mocking behind the liberal application of makeup and lipstick.

Click

5:30 again, the picture shows a paint-flecked door, the side of a scuffed train that has known thousands like me. By the door I wait, my bag wedged beneath stained jeans, the halogen lights my enemy as my eyes refuse to flutter and close. My hand holds the camera and a ticket, the thin paper yet to be stamped or inspected. Nearly out of focus is the time board, thick black letters smudged by distance, the words Wien (Vienna), 5:45 quite invisible from this far away.