Chapter Three:Hello, Europe

FOOTNOTES ARE NOT NECESSARY TO THOUGH THEY ARE FILLED WITH HELPFUL, INTERESTING INFORMATION. PLEASE DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED TO READ THEM, BUT IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHARACTERS INVOLVED, I WOULD RECOMMEND READING IT. THANK YOU FOR READING.

*In this chapter, Tegan has arrived in Cardiff to attend her sister’s funeral. A little background; I had intended for Tegan to be a strong type who tries not to be disrespectful, and she feels very connected to the people around her. In the first paragraph, she says that there are few people attending her sisters’ funeral. The reason for this is because Tegan’s parents had died when she had just turned Twenty-two. (In this fiction, she is Twenty-three. She was very close to her Mother. She still has psychological disturbance from this, as she is not the type of person to let her hurt known.) Tegan does not have very many memories of her sister, as she had been sent off to be a missionary when Tegan was thirteen. Though Tegan’s sister was very friendly, she didn’t meet many people when she became a missionary, as she was moved around from village to village very often. There would be times when Tegan didn’t receive word from her sister for months.

**See previous chapter’s footnotes.

Hello, Europe. (ch.3)

Cardiff. I arrive here, in this place where the missionaries from the
nearby villages are shipped for funerals and burials.** I sigh, my seeming
trademark now, and try to hold back* the stinging tears. I send all my
things to the condo I had rented temporarily, and head to the airport
bathroom to change into funeral clothes. I was one of the five people
showing,* and this thought had me in the bathroom stall trying not to
sound like a complete idiot, sobbing, collapsed against the toilet in
this foreign world.**

A few minutes pass and the tears subside, I clean my face with water
from another country,* and compose my reflection to keep up
appearances.* (Of what, I do not know.)

I drop off Suzy at the complex and drive to my sisters’ burial, where
I met the people who where there as she suffered her heart attack. They
say “I’m so sorry for your loss,” and “I hope things get well,” but
I know they don’t mean it.*

I almost laugh at the service, because I had always imagined for her
funeral to be loaded with people at home, in our own church. And then
I really do laugh when I realized there’s no one else but me to come
to the funeral.*

I leave and go back to the condo, where the manger tells me I won’t
staying long, since my low offer on a pricey apartment (or, in his
words, loft**) had been taken, and I was ready to move in today.** I
sighed and called a trucking company, where they took me to the heart
of Cardiff and I moved into my new home in an alien world.**

I went to the local diner and ate my first meal in Europe. I went
home, took my first shower in Europe, and then, unpacking the bedding,
went to sleep for the first time in Europe.