the place where i almost got chased by a rogue goose

i woke up to a sky that looked like someone had dipped a paintbrush in cough syrup and then forgotten to wash it. 5.77 degrees, which feels like 4.56 because the wind is a villain today. i’m sitting in what i assume is a town called tangmere, or maybe it’s a dream. who knows. the maps.google.com map here is a cropped version of a sea of confusion, but the map’s okay. just don’t trust the directions.

first mistake was trusting a map. i followed an arrow that looked like it was drawn by a toddler with a crayon. ended up in a park where a goose was aggressively honking at me. not a real goose, i think. maybe a tourist pretending to be a goose. either way, i almost sprinted away. or maybe i just had a panic attack about my life choices. hard to tell. the weather here is like a badbath towel, damp and confusing. i just checked and it’s…a proper grey wash, like someone spilled ink over the forecast. hope you like that kind of thing.

the neighbors? well, if you need to scream into a pillow, they’re probably doing it too. i heard someone next door playing a kazoo at 3am. or maybe it was a cat. cats are unreliable. i’m leaning toward the cat. but either way, if you get bored, brussels is a ten-minute drive, but the buses here are from the stone age. my local noted this on a piece of paper i found under my bed. i assume it’s a travel guide scrawled by a drunken tourist.

reviews? i don’t need reviews. i need gossip. someone told me that the coffee here is just black sludge dressed up, but the bakery next door might actually have a soul. i heard that from a guy who looked like he’d rather be in a shed than talking to me. the yelp reviews say the same thing. ‘disappointing,’ ‘meh,’ or ‘i ate a sandwich and cried.’ but then i found this tripadvisor thread where someone raves about a ‘hidden speakeasy in a 17th-century church.’ doesn’t sound real. but i’m here for it.

i tried the speakeasy. or what might have been a speakeasy. it was a tiny room with a mirror and a coffee machine that smelled like regret. the bartender asked me if i wanted a mojito made with beet juice. i said yes. they handed me a cup of beet juice and a napkin with a drawing of a sad potato. i left. i don’t know if it was art or a prank. either way, i’m adding it to the digest.

the images here? they’re from unsplash. one of them is a cobblestone street that doesn’t exist in tangmere. another is a nighttime skyline that probably belongs to a different continent. and the third? a body of water that might be a lake or a memory. the alt text for these images is a lie. i know it. but the chaos is real.

i’ve been hiking here. claimed a hill as my own. no one claimed it back. or maybe they did, but i didn’t notice. the weather data says the temp min was 4.98, which is cold enough to make your eyeballs freeze. the feels like is 4.56, which is what your brain thinks when it’s on caffeine and existential dread. the pressure is 1024, which i assume means the air is holding its breath. the humidity is 36%, which is the perfect amount to make your skin itch if you’re sensitive to drama.

i almost bought a vintage sweater from a bin near the train station. it was 5 euros and smelled like regret. i put it on. it looked like a potato with arms. a local woman said it was ‘perfect for a funeral.’ i left it in the bin. now it’s probably someone’s lucky charm. or a ghost’s blanket. who knows?

later, i met a guy selling astrology readings near a construction site. he told me my sign is ‘whatever gets you through the day.’ i nodded and left. the construction workers laughed. i don’t know why. maybe they were practicin’ their russian. or maybe they were just tired of my questions.

reviews are everywhere. not the good kind. the kind where someone writes ‘this place is a dump’ and then follows up with ‘but the sunset was nice.’ contradictions! life’s a mess. i’m messier.

i ended up in a library at midnight. it was empty except for a dog snoozing on a desk. i sat next to it. it didn’t bite. probably because dogs prefer humans over strangers. or maybe it wanted to steal my notebook. i prayed it didn’t. i wrote this post while the dog slept. probably the highlight of my day. or maybe it was the goose. hard to say.

if you’re reading this, you’re either brave or lost. either way, thanks. i’m gonna go drink beer and wonder if the sweater I abandoned is now a cult symbol. the map’s still embedding in the background. the goose’s honor is intact. probably.

links: tripadvisor.com/tangmere (probably fake), yelp.com/beer-tap-tangmere (also fake), localboards.be/tangmere (might be real? i’ll buy a lottery ticket).

p.s. if you’re here, leave a review. tell me if the goose haunted you. i need therapy.

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