Spaceman of Bohemia

by Jaroslav Kalfar

Burnt sausage, air-conditioned linen stench of clothing stores, police car exhaust, the rancid diapers of toddlers in designer strollers, street waffles with salmonella whipped cream, whiskey spilled between the cracks of ancient brick roads, coffee, newspapers just unpacked at tobacco stands, stray marijuana smoke seeping from one of the windows above a Gap, the sneakily abandoned waste from dogs, grease sizzling off the exposed bicycle chains, Windex dripping down the freshly washed office windows, a faint spring breeze barely penetrating the connected buildings lining the square—this chemical anarchy of scents placed in the cradle of every Prague child early on welcomes us home every time, and in this native knowledge we all simply refer to it as “Wenceslas.” It has been almost a year since I last visited, I realize, while the antibodies inside my olfactory system fight off the invasion of smog. I hold my breath. All around me lives the assurance of our sprint toward capitalism. Few things remain from the old days of the Soviet reign—the only significant remainder being the nineteenth-century statue of Saint Wenceslas, the postcard hero trudging above the masses, green and stone-faced on his trusty horse, the animal’s majestic thighs and ass generously caked with pigeon shit. French teenage tourists, unaware of any history around them, thumb through their phones and catcall women as they surround the statue’s base. Food vendors offer hot dogs and burgers and alcohol ill...

Loved how descriptive this segment was, truly immersive.