63. LITTLE GRAPEFRUIT AND THE CAPITALS – PART 1

Little Grapefruit keeps in touch with her parents in Bowlingham, and her many siblings across the world. After rolling around Finland for a few days, taking a triangular track from Helsinki to Turku, up to Tampere, and back to the capital, she visits an internet café, pays the owner for an hour, and logs on. On Instagram she spots GANTOB and The Benefaktor getting into a lather about a “Kapital X”. Checking her emails she spots a note from a Welsh cousin who has recently taken a rather rough ferry crossing during an adventure to Liverpool. An accompanying photo shows her cousin in a markedly green hue, almost as if still on the tree.

Little Grapefruit was going to cross the Gulf of Finland by ferry, but after checking the weather she decides to go by seabed instead, making a mental note to avoid disturbing the cables and piping she has read about in the newspaper. She readies herself for the journey committing a few details to memory. She has left all her usual kit in Badenoch, knowing that her mobile phone and paper maps would not survive her travels by sea (and create uncomfortable corners). Before her hour is up in the café, she has learnt the following lists: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia. That’s easy – alphabetical order. But in the last few seconds of her session she realises that the signs that she will be relying on to navigate will not use country names (except at the borders) – they’ll be focused mainly on nearby towns and cities. She zooms out of the map, just far enough to see the capitals. She tries to remember them all: Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw, Bratislava. She tries to think of a scheme – anything – that will allow her to remember them in order. Tractor reaches velocity with bales. That might work. Her time is up.

Little Grapefruit tilts herself to 5 degrees as she passes the owner, hoping that he will recognise this as a gesture of thanks. She can’t say anything, or she’ll forget her list. TRVWB she recites, imagining a pastoral scene at harvest. She plops into the water, holding her breath, and uses the techniques her mother taught her to weigh herself down by thought processes alone, and trundles across the Baltic Sea, reaching land a couple of days later, making a beeline for the top of Tallinn TV Tower.

AS KONVEYED TO GANTOB BY THE GHOST OF THE OBSERVER

25 November 2023

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