The van passed me without slowing down. In fact, it might have sped tip when it spied me and I reflexively took a step further off of the road. I turned to look for any hint of brake lights, but the vehicle whipped around the corner and I was left looking at a hillside of trees and rocks. The road was narrow and it was bordered by steep slopes and cliffs as it climbed the through the terrain alongside the river. With no traffic I could only hear the bubbling of water over the rocks and I resumed my pacing back and forth. My two choices hung in the air and I passed through each of them again and again like puffs of smoke, the gravel crunching beneath each pivot of my boot. I had come so far to be at this very spot, through trials and tribulations, and now my sweet goal was tantalizingly close. But was this how the journey would end? Cast off as some sort of crazed tramp on the side of a road, lost in a foreign hinterland? This, I realized, was not far from the truth. If any of my friends and familywere questioned as to my whereabouts, the most informed answer they could give would be Eastern Turkey.
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