We filed into the fat, flying freightfurter carrying our comforts — pensive and bubbly. I snuggled into my seat with my hands pressed tightly atop my opinion-filled drab messenger bag. Squinting out the window, I watched the hand signals and luggage carts — anything to calm the anxiety.

I didn’t have to fidget long. The crunching of leather and overhead slam shifted my focus. Two frazzled bugeyes stared blankly; his black olive pupils sucked the good, bad, and otherwise feelings away. Still, I sat motionless — looking around for distraction.

These, however, were serendipitous times: he with his muscle relaxers and me with my mini vodkas. We were the best of friends — the kind that care too much and too little to speak.

The drop down screens flashed Miss Congeniality. Drones all around crinkled their plastic earbud packages and adjusted their neck pillows, smiling with the vapid grace of cattle.

An eight hour hangover layover in sympathetic Amsterdam staged me closer. Layers of oxidization flaked from my callous-ridden brain as I garbled enthusiastic vowel sandwiches to the smiling Dutch.

From a plane to a train, we ferried deeper into Austria. An aged, but well-styled Mercedes cab took me into the heart of Graz: an old city steeped in tradition; encapsulated in an unassuming ambiguity that extends beyond basic military isolationism.

The slow mystic signature of tranquil progressiveness informed daily rituals. And all at once I understood neutrality’s duality.