Plan B, Considered

In Ulaanbaatar I did something disgraceful: I drove to the airport and priced a flight home. The return leg had been sitting on my chest all week, three borders, one of them twice, four thousand kilometers of corrugation, and there is a version of this trip where the Niva goes home on a truck and I go home over the clouds.

I stood in front of the terminal with my duffel like a woman rehearsing a betrayal, and took the photograph as evidence of the low point. Then I did the arithmetic of shipping, and the deeper arithmetic of arriving home without the car I came with, and the deepest arithmetic of what this blog would say.

I drove back into the city, bought the Niva new wiper blades as an apology, and booked nothing. Plan B considered, weighed, declined. The long way exists to be taken twice.