I stared at the tumescent bratwurst on my plate, curled, turd-like, and glistening. How had this come to pass? It had seemed a fairly ordinary day, when I had awoken in my 2nd floor flat in east London (not the cool bit, sad to say). How was I now in Berlin, sitting outside a bar, surrounded by a drunk party of stags dressed as pirates shouting ‘avast ye, landlubbers’ and other ludicrous stereotypy at the top of their lungs while they pretended to fight one another with invisible swords and calling anyone over a B cup who had the misfortune to pass by ‘busty wenches’. Wankers.

Well, this sausage wasn’t going to eat itself.

I looked at the man opposite me, handsome; but in that thick-as-pigshit kinda way. You know the type? The sort of fella who could make passing females crash their cars into a roundabout whilst checking out his tattoos on a scaffold, bit couldn't spot an oxymoron at 100 paces, let alone spell or define it.

I excused myself and made my way to the lady’s room. It seemed excessively still and calm in there after the rowdy hubbub outside, in which the only words I could understand came from the stag party. I opened the door to the middle cubicle and sat myself down on the cool toilet seat. Perhaps I could just stay here where it was cool and quiet until things started to make a bit more sense.

---

I awoke with a start, my face pressed against the tiles and a trail of drool hanging from the corner of my mouth. I was lying on the floor of the cubicle, one arm bent backwards and trailing up the wall behind me, legs in child’s pose, and the other hand extended into the adjacent cubicle. I tried to stand, and felt the blood rushing back into my legs, so wobbled myself onto the toilet seat. This made even less sense. Had the sausage been spiked? But if so, why?

I left the lavatories, completely discombobulated. I didn’t know what time it was, and until I reached the darkened street and noticed the German on the signs above the closed shops and closing bars, I’d forgotten that I was even in Berlin. The table I’d occupied with fit-but-thick earlier was empty. Well, if it had been him who’d spiked me, he’d clearly given up waiting. The floor was scattered with fag butts and bottle tops, sticky with spillages. It had obviously been a good night.

I walked away, unsure where I was and unsure where to go, eyes roving left and right and up and down, looking for clues, familiarity, something to latch onto. But there was nothing. I walked, and walked, and walked. And as the orange of the street lights faded into the ink of dawn, I reached the train station.

‘One ticket to Paris, please’.