Julies Missing Persons - Backpacker Tale

Now I don't want to alarm you, but, I've lost someone. That girl that I left Melbourne with, the one that came travelling with me; well, she's gone.

She's gone, and the scary thing is, I can't remember where I last saw her.

I've been travelling for five months now and she could be anywhere in the world, in any number of airport waiting lounges, on numerous train station platforms or waiting with the locals at any of the hundreds of different bus-stops I've been. She could still be sleeping in cheap, dodgy hotels, sharing hostel dorms, being eaten by mozzies in European campsites, or crashing on hospitable people's couches or friendly living room carpets.

She may still be clinging, white knuckled, halfway up that cliff with the freaky, rock climbers in the grey, English countryside. Or she could be still be lost in London when, last Friday night I couldn't find my way home after a party and stumbled across that funky, hip hop bar. Maybe she danced to death boxing day, to acid house dance music at Cream. She could be discovering some of the worlds best live music. Learning greetings in several, foreign languages and new, slang phrases in English.

She could still be kissing that beautiful man with the ugly past in that church graveyard at midnight.

Or perhaps she never woke from her siesta with the Spaniards in that warm little Barcelona square. Maybe, she's still addicted to gelati or sitting on the Spanish steps, or smelling Venice, or visiting that masterpiece of a man, David. She could still be hung-over and sleep-deprived sitting on that bus, waiting for the others. Or still dancing the two-step with the cowboys to horribly, bad Texas country music. Or with the turtles, floating in an inner tube, down the Guadalupe.

Wherever she is, she has missed out. She has missed out on meeting some of the coolest and most excellent, people in the world. I have been shown great kindness, unbelievable generosity and heart-wrenching warmth. I have had incredible conversations with diverse, unique people who I never dreamed I could meet, and shared amazing stories with people who share a similar reality, at present, to me and I feel I have forged lifelong friendships with people I have only known for days.

Travelling solo; I have been constantly saying goodbye to people I am just beginning to love.

I wonder if she's planning to meet up with me in Morocco, Turkey or Egypt. Or she could be waiting for me in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, or Malaysia. Now I think about it I may have left her at home, on the other side of the boarding gate in the Melbourne Airport.

I could have left her in so many places, doing so many things with so many cool people. She could be anywhere. Or she could be gone for good, missing permanently. All I know is that she's gone. That shy, quiet, sensible one, the one who is afraid when meeting new people, the one who used to wonder why people liked her, the one who thought badly of herself.

Keep an eye out for her; but, if you do see her, please, please, please don't tell her where I am.

I'm having much more fun without her.

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