"Between Time and Space”
Memet was watching the countryside unfold its colors, its valleys, its wooded hills through the passenger window. He didn't care for the moment about his neighbor who was driving in a fast but sure way. He was fully immersed in his reflection: he could hardly distinguish between the time elapsed and the distance traveled.
Probably the first big outing of his little village, he is now engaged in a journey, overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape and by a new perception of distances.
They had already traveled the equivalent of 200 km. He had never been so far before. What he once thought was far away was strangely close. He turned his head and looked at his friend. Georges was a Professor of History at the Institute of Oriental Languages in Paris. He had become attached to Memet when the latter, filled with admiration, one day sent him a letter to the Institute following an article he had read in a major newspaper.
Memet was trembling with happiness at the idea of sharing kilometers of asphalt, unexpected stops in small medieval villages along the Rhone valley, and excursions in remote places where little chapels were nestled in improbable places. Taken together these discoveries, simply helped understand for example the evolution of the population, the circulation of the Christian religion and insidiously the economic and political development of these parts of France.
Memet was looking at Georges driving, to see if he could detect the same feelings of astonishment and questioning that he was experiencing himself. But no, Georges was impassive and calm, used to these long distances where he liked to discover the little curiosities in the heart of the villages he drove through.
Between two stops, after a history lesson that kept Memet in suspense, another discovery was made in silence this time. The Professor's observation gave Memet a sentiment of plenitude.
He was looking at the man with a face that he liked to call “carved in wood", with prominent cheek bones already tanned by the mid-may sun. The sharp and intelligent gaze was exacerbated by the dark black eyes eyes giving the professor a Gengis Kahn look. Underneath, a strong jaw capable of crushing any resistance to his explanations was a strong neck that was showing the presence of above average hair disposition. As he looked around the neck, Memet's eyes noticed that the shirt Georges was wearing was a sky-blue checkered shirt, which from the opening of the first button confirmed the presence of abundant hair.
A sudden burst of brakes brought Memet out of his thoughts. It had only been a few minutes, observing this solid face. In fact a trip within the trip that made him confirm what he was feeling since some time. He knew now that he would love to spend as much time as possible traveling.
Smiling, this sentence came back to his mind: “Traveling ...It's like a Spanish inn, you find what you bring".
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