Friday 1 April 2016

A lunch guest - Prague Diaries 4

This story is completely fictional. 

There were more police than passengers. Police dressed as police carrying automatic rifles. Police dressed as soldiers carrying automatic rifles. Police dressed as passengers carrying automatic rifles disguised as suitcases. I guessed there was increased security due to Brussels; little did I know something else was afoot.
I checked in, and headed to McDonalds. Don't judge me - I had a hangover and I thought it might help. I sat in a booth at the back of the restaurant with my back to the restaurant. I was happily munching my burger and nodding along to the Counting Crows completely unaware of anything going on around me. That's one of the differences between me in Prague and me in Cardiff. In Cardiff I very rarely use headphones; I enjoy listening to the hustle and bustle of life, involving myself in it, being part of it. But in Prague I go into a self-contained bubble; my music and my thoughts block out the foreign, outside world.
Thanks to Omaha I didn't hear the police asking people to leave, or the hustle and bustle of around thirty people taking their burgers, suitcases and cokes to somewhere, anywhere else. I didn't notice the ensuing silence, or the subsequent arrival of the new customer.
To be honest when I emerged from my hidden booth he looked as surprised to see me as I was to see the place empty except for one lone Chinese man. He stopped mid munch. His Big Mac hanging in the air, a symbol of western capitalism dirtying his hands. Strapping Chinese secret police emerged from the shadows as me and the president of China stared at each over his burger. A bead of condensation rolled down his super-sized cola cup, and lettuce dangled from his bun, ready to incur the wrath of the president by falling on to his crisp suit.
I felt his eyes boring into me as I inched my way out of the seating area. I now knew how China had become so powerful, I too would have signed over my nuclear power stations if faced with this stare over a negotiating rather than a fast food table.
The security guards scrutinised me with equal force, readying to shoot first, ask questions never. But it seemed that they were happy that I was just a hapless
traveller who the incompetent Czech security folk had left behind. Thankfully they allowed me to slip away.
So that was it, my accidental lunch with the most powerful man in the world was over. The overwhelming feeling was a sense of relief, but there was a sense of regret and for once I felt I had something in common with David Cameron. I bet he also wishes that he'd challenged the president of China about his human rights record when he had the chance.


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