What Has Happened?

As every frivalous sparrow must someday realise, the fatigue in its wings will eventually carry it back to its tattered, forgotten nest. So it is with me, I am back from my Spanish escapade with dustier wings than ever. And I have acquired magnificient Spanish vocabulary, such as "hour of departure", "destination" and "toilet". Lost baggage notwithstanding, (yes, Qantas better get it back for me, most souvenirs for friends are inside...) I shudder to think that the sweet memories are somehow becoming rapidly fuzzy, the devil in me resisting my meagre claim to a bit of joy in my life. The humble benevolence of the Chinese man who walked me to the hotel, his compatriots in Restaurante Chino, the stupefying elegance and beauty of Castellón mountains and the Universitat Jaume I, the towering bear of a Russian academic and heart-fluttering charm of an American girl, the erratic train rides and unsavoury train conductors...the bitterly cold mornings and nights. All becoming somewhat tipsy and fuzzy. Yes, nothing in me can possibly will the aircraft not to take off, not to land, not to bring me back here...but what has taken away the frosted kiss on its windowpane, the blissful chill of a late Barcelonian winter, the barely shimmering joy thickly coated with my weariness? El Diablo, I implore thee, return to me what is mine....do not let me die this way.