The pavement kept changing beneath my tires—asphalt to cobblestones, cobblestones to dirt, dirt to gravel—but the Rhine stayed on my left.

I hadn’t accounted for the size of the city.

The days’ shadows had grown long when I finally reached the street where my map showed the hostel. Single-family homes lined one side, with a grassy park on the other. I felt uncertain, but a man walking his dog pointed me up the hill and into the park.

I followed his directions and soon came to a mansion with “Jugendherberge” flying on its flagpole.

~

For the last two nights, the hostels felt incomplete, filled with school-aged children or retired couples, and no one between them. I’d had entire castle wings to myself, big rooms with twenty empty bunk beds. I didn’t fill them so much as they emptied me.

Only the fluorescent lights hummed.

“Probably the same tonight.”

As I set my things down, I found my dorm room wasn’t empty.

“Fancy a beer?”

A Brit, about my own age asked from the bunk across the room.

I looked at my bicycle leaning against the wall and thought about the miles I’d ridden that day.

“Yeah.”

We

Walked downstairs.

“I’m Stephan”

“Caleb. Here for just the night?”

“I have a friend’s wedding in the morning. You?”

“Summer break. Making my way down the Rhine.”

Five minutes later, we’d made it down the hill and back to town.

Stephan pointed toward a beer cart parked beside the square.

“One for the road?”

We walked toward the river with bottles in our hands.

I’d ridden past the same lawns that afternoon without seeing a soul. Now they were covered with circles of friends.

Glass bottles knocked together. Someone laughed loud enough to turn heads before disappearing back into the hum of conversation.

A nearby fire snapped, and the smell of wood smoke drifted across the grass.

We bought beers and kept walking, stopping whenever the conversation did. I couldn’t tell you what we talked about anymore. Whatever it was seemed important enough to keep us awake until dawn and unimportant enough to disappear with the night.

The fires had burned lower, but people were still scattered across the grass in loose circles, talking as if morning were hours away instead of minutes.

~

The clock was too loud. The room too silent.

Across the dorm, Stephan’s bunk was already empty.