A Confederacy of Chance Encounters

After college in Kansas I traveled through Europe and ran into just the kind of guy I’d hoped to avoid. Six months, six thousand miles and one passed-around paperback later, he’d help me through a quarter-life crisis.

Illustrations by Laura Park

I’m sitting in the common room of the lone youth hostel in Holland’s Hoge Veluwe National Park with an American named Chad, a tall, gangly guy with a mop of messy brown hair. I’ve just met him a couple minutes ago, but our lack of familiarity with each other doesn’t stop us from completely grilling Avi, an interesting Israeli traveler in his early twenties who just walked in with a very noticeable limp.

“How long did it take to recover?” I ask Avi.

“Three months of healing and six months of physical therapy.”

Avi spent some time in the Israeli Defense Force. Chad and I are getting as many details as we can about his decision to once fill a duffel bag with fifty pounds of army equipment, hoist the bag onto his shoulder and hop on one leg until he injured it beyond repair, earning Avi an honorable discharge.

“And your friends, your family? Did you tell them what you did?” Chad asks.

“They were disappointed but they understood that it was my choice. They respected i…