enO traP, esreveR ni anihC ni serutnevdA

It was about 4:15 A.M. when I awoke this morning, the night still perfectly dark, the streets empty upon all views, and with Luke standing over me, wearing a wifebeater and some boxer briefs. "Joel, get up. We've got to leave in about" -- he glanced at his phone for the time -- "half an hour." I grunted and made some various sounds. "Now's a good time if you're going to take a shower," he added.

I got up out of my bed, grabbed my watch. I pressed the glow button; my watch face lit up in a nauseous green, showing it was 15 minutes after 5 -- no matter since I had not set my watch one hour back to reflect the change in time zones from Korea to China. Yes, it was nearly time to leave, and the sun had not even risen.

The water in the shower was warm. No, it was hot, the hottest I'd had since before I left Lakeland. I stood under it absently, my right hand relaxingly clutching my left behind my back, as the water ran down in columns between my forearm and my spine. The muscles there were soothed, and my feet felt light in the pooling heat beneath, the weariness of hiking the Simatai portion of the Great Wall no longer in me. I forgot myself.

When I emerged, clean but still unshaven -- you see, I'd brought no razor -- I got dressed and brushed my teeth, and finished packing my things: The t-shirt I'd purchased; the postcards to send home; the painting for which I'd paid too much; and the fan which would be for my mom. The dirty clothes were included, too, and as payment for the additions I'd made to my bag while in China, I had to carry my iPod and books in my jacket.

No cabs waited for us when we got downstairs. No cabs stopped for us. Loren complained of the stale cold, Luke of the quietness, all while I shuddered and propped the neckline of my jacket up to the lowest strands of my hair. I commented how unfortunate it was that the hotel's security guard had to stand out here and call our cab for us, because we would be unable to tell the driver how to take us to the airport.

Soon enough, a driver showed up who could take us. We threw our bags in the trunk and piled in, with Luke and Loren in the back. I sat up front for the first time. The driver smiled weakly at me, uncomfortable at my broad smile back at him. He drove slow at first, oblivious to our exigent requests that he get to the airport fast. But it didn't matter: So early in the morning, traffic was such that we arrived in 30 minutes, with plenty of time, enough to shop at the duty-free stores, to chat amiably with fellow travelers over the scams we'd each befallen -- and to sleep, intermittently, at our gate. Sleep: It was just about the only thing we felt we hadn't done in Beijing.