A man spitting fire in a city of fury

Robert Tranströmer has never been in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh. Though a poor country, is much wealthier than the average, and Dhaka is the place where he had to go for working. He is a mechanical engineer for a company settled in San Francisco and the only thing that he hates about his job is when he goes to random countries with very similar names. He remembered when he thought that he was going to Slovakia, and in when his plane landed, he saw a big poster about the beauty of Slovenia. The only thing he liked about this routine was the extra paid time that he had for going around the city as a tourist, but still he thought it wasn’t worth the trip; but in this occasion, his company actually gave him more than the regular 2 days that he usually has for hanging around the city, they doubled that time. This was the reason of why he was excited about going to Dhaka, he saw in the map that Bangladesh is surrounded by India and he thought that he would get a photo of a holy cow, a dream that he always had; or that he would have the opportunity of eating Soy meat at McDonalds (they adapted their food for the religion) He thought millions of things about Dhaka. He thought that this time it would be better, because the company gave him extra paid time to go around the city of Dhaka. He only went for one week and four days he spent creating designs of machines of every height and weight for a company established in Dhaka and he would had three free days to explore the city.

In his free three days he carried a camera wherever he was. He visited several museums, attractions, he tried different dishes, he was very happy. When he was in the Buriganga River, a river in Dhaka, a tourist guide told him that the water in the river is used for religious purpose depending on the time of the year and that it could be drunk if necessary.

On his last day, he was very excited because of a pepper called “ghost pepper”, a pepper native from that country. He has always been excited about peppers, be loved the “habanero peppers” and he could eat them without any complications. When he bought the peppers, he looked overconfident and bought three peppers for 2 dollars each one. Although some natives of the zone told him to take the seeds out before eating the pepper, he decided to save the pepper for his last night in the city and eat it completely.

Walking by the Buriganga River, he took out one pepper and placed it in his mouth. He waited for about three minutes to bite it, he didn’t feel anything in those three minutes and that made him very confident. When he bit it, he didn’t feel anything at first, but then he burst in heat and he could do anything, he didn’t speak the language; he didn’t know what to do. The only thing he could do is drink water from the river, but he didn’t want to do it. He was screaming out loud and nobody was around him. He resisted the pain and fell asleep in a bench, and when he woke up, he lost his flight.