Chapter 45 – A Stealth Bombing
On a heavily overcast afternoon in Istanbul, while on my way to Hagia Sophia, I was overcome by the sudden urge to grab some soft serve ice cream from the service window of a shop that I encountered in a public square near the Bosphorus. Shortly after receiving my frost vanilla treat and just as I’d been leaving, it began to rain. Upon contact with each droplet, the ice cream seemed to be melting and dripping faster than normal. In an attempt to preserve my precious, I scampered over and stood up against a tall brick wall just outside a place that, in English, is known as “New Mosque.”
As I looked out upon the crowd of people in this busy area, enjoying my sugary snack and just watching life go by, I suddenly felt a drip beginning to cascade from the area between my index finger and my thumb down towards my wrist. I went to lick it and had been on the brink of putting my tongue to my hand when my eyes told me to hit the brakes. Although that which had begun to roll along my skin was at least partially white, it’d also been tinted yellow at parts and contained some black squiggles. Stepping away from the wall and looking above me, I noticed the ledge about twenty feet up had been housing dozens of big ugly pigeons, one of which had just shat directly onto my ice cream cone.