It was one of those stories that I sometimes pitched to make sure that I had money coming in: a throwaway that meant nothing to me, but which was curious enough that an online magazine would run it in return for my small fee. The money would keep me in drink a week, while I did the real work that paid even less, and I would be able to pretend a little longer that I was a journalist and that what I was doing mattered. More importantly, though I would not have put it this way at the time, I would be able to keep moving.
It was never hard to find such stories. Every town or city has one. Sometimes you’d find it in the local paper, double-checking to make sure it had not yet gone viral, and other times it was whispered across the bar on the stale breath of the local drunks. It was only a matter of being open to them. I would head out, meet the relevant parties, take a picture or two on my phone, and make sure I had gotten the quotes around which I might later weave a story. A dab of colour to remind the people who read it that foreigners are strange and the world an inexplicable place.
Read the full story in the Ferbruary 2024 edition of the Beyond the Zero Periodical.
