What might have been is an abstraction
remaining a perpetual possibility
only in a world of speculation.
(T S Eliot)
At the Malana Strana end of the Charles Bridge, on the west bank of the Vltava, a small, almond shaped island is created by an arm of the river called the Certovka, or Little Devil. This is Kampa Island, a leafy refuge from a relentless sun. I had time to spare, as I often did. Time waiting to meet or be met, time waiting to collect or deliver, time waiting to go. I was well practiced at using spare time, I inhabited that empty space comfortably enough, often enough.
But this was unused time, and left me restless. I was meant to have done something, and hadn't done it. This was not spare time but incomplete time.
I sat on the grass beneath a tree from where I could view the weir and listen to it's constant, soft rush. If a sound could be cooling, this seemed to be it. Small groups of red faced tourists passed along behind me on their guided tours, from East Germany, or Russia, or Bulgaria, or from whichever part of the great empire in their fetid smoke belching busloads they had been disgorged - to see 'the jewel in the crown of Europe'. Prague was jewel-like, it's red tiled roofs and domes and spires glowing and glittering in the sun. Kafka, I decided, must at sometime have sat on the same spot and considered likewise.
Prague's famous poet would, I decided, get his bottle of whisky at least.
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