I have been there

The songs playing on her ipod did not complement the soundless images on the flat screen, nor did the lines from the novel she was reading. The contradiction of her story was the oscillating fan turned on high and the warm blackcurrant drink on the coffee table.

"In Venice in the Middle Ages, there was once a profession for a man called a codega - a fellow you hired to walk in front of you at night with a lit lantern, showing you the way, scaring off thieves and demons, bringing you confidence and protection through the dark streets..."

Ahhh...a codega. It's unrelated but yet not totally irrelevant as she recalled the phone call that came halfway across the earth one late night last week. "I miss home...when are you coming...I'll see you in a few months...it's getting cold now..." She couldn't remember now what she had told him or what he said to her, except that she knew he knew she knew.

There was a tacit bond. The same way she yearns the freedom beyond the fences of the cage yet hungers for the comfort its boundaries provide, he hears the world beckon, but not without the echoes of home.

"Uh-huh...yes...yes...I'll see you soon...don't forget your scarf..." she understood. I have been there, she smiled to herself.