luck of the manic

Crazier things have happened. You might say it was free-spirited or fancy-free. A one way to ticket to Russia with only a few bucks in your pocket to work for a company you know next to nothing about in a country you have never been to. It’s a free-spirited action that might not belong just to the manic person buts it’s a sign you’re heading that way.
The manic snowball slowly rolls on. After a few months I’m surviving on next to no sleep and less food than a well-fed bird.
The first time I notice that my mind is changing is a flash of insanity while I’m riding in a cab. I look out at the buildings and the construction and think with pride, “ Look what my people have done, My empire is making progress towards its ascendancy.” The thought passes and I dismiss it as some flashback to earlier episodes.
I spend two hours on New Year’s Day making patterns in the snow with my foot, thinking that these symbols I have drawn somehow hold the secret to the meaning of life.
But these flashes remain just blips on the radar and I’m hardly alarmed.
By the time summer comes I’m still there in mind but the rash decisions are coming thick and fast. I give all my savings to a friend who’s starting a business and when the time comes to go to England to work for the summer I’m broke. Weeks later I’m berated by my landlord , “What kind of person comes to a foreign country with no money?” An insane sort of person, that’s who. On the day I fly out I lock myself out of my apartment and arrive at the airport late. Luckily the flight is overbooked and I’m put I’m in hotel for the night to fly the next day.
There’s a saying – the luck of the Irish. There should be another- the luck of the manic.
My room adjoins the room of a beautiful girl from St Petersburg and after a stroll in Moscow in the evening we retire to the hotel and share each other’s rooms.
Though nothing significant happens, I’m still left with that guilty dirty feeling in the morning when we have breakfast.
Things suddenly start to accelerate and the first outward signs start to show. I chew the ear off my neighbour on the plane and I don’t think they have a minute’s peace on the long flight from Moscow to London.