Space and Joy

At this winter evening I found myself in a house of some Syrian family. Communication between hosts and me was purely non-verbal. Our body language was sufficient to sense their seemingly friendly attitude towards me, but it was absolutely not enough to receive answers to my questions.
This whole situation came upon me out of the clear sky and reminded of some important things. Our comfort zone inflates like balloon at favourable conditions, but deflates to a size of ladybird when runs into some unexpectedness.
For instance, this morning in Der ez-Zour I was certain to spend evening in the ancient city of Palmyra.
Despite all the confidence, I found myself immersed into life of one Syrian family, surrounded by desert for tens (if not hundreds) kilometers.
Between morning and evening, there was a crucial hour in a village with unpronounceable name. I had to change buses there, but the bus didn’t show up.
Who showed up though, were the local children. Swarm of kids surrounded me, laughing, touching, shouting and eventually bringing me to a shiny all-terrain car. Driver looked like a successful businessman and seats were covered with animal skins. After exchanging with keyword ‘Palmyra’ I jumped into the car and we drove off to the desert.
After half an hour of silent driving, successful businessman sharply turned off the road. He didn’t break, keeping speed about 80 km/h, and he didn’t hold the steering wheel anymore. He was loudly swearing in Arabic and jerkily looking for something. In a second, he picked up a gun and started loading it.
Our car was wildly rolling in arbitrary direction.
Next moment, man rapidly opened the window and shot three times into darkness ahead.
I was still numb, when he took steering wheel, dropped speed and drove back to the road.
In a while, he explained that he saw some animal, and just wanted to kill it.
At this point, I breathed out.
In a twink, all concepts in my mind melted down. I saw life with fresh eyes. No impressions from the past were interfering with the feel of present moment, wherever it happened.
Later man told me that we have to visit his sister that lives just 300 km away, and we will continue to Palmyra next morning.
I didn’t mind. I thought that, actually, any trip should follow the road, not the plan.
Also I thought: every good trip changes traveler, peeling off all the unnecessary that slowly grew over him while he was following his plans.