searching for mj

I learned one important lesson on traveling recently. If you don't want to end up in the slammer, make sure you leave no trace of evidence of an illegal activity. I had leftover marijuana the size of a pistachio wrapped in a foil and forgot where I put it. I searched my pockets. My backpack. My luggage. It was not there.

"Are you sure we didn't consume it?" I asked C.

"It was good for two joints. We only smoked one. Cat gave it back to you after she rolled the joint," C told me.

"Where did I put it? I searched everywhere. I'm dead," I reacted.

"Don't worry. It's perfectly fine in Germany," C assured me. The night we smoked the joint outside Wunder Bar in a chilly Hamburg night Cat told us that the law prohibits selling and not possession. To prove her point, she lighted the joint while two cops walked past us.

"But I'm traveling back to the Philippines, and you know, sniffing dogs and all," I said, my agitation growing. "I don't want to be banged up abroad." The images of Bangkok Hilton and other prison films were reeling in my head.

"Relax." C told me, again and again, like a mantra.

I searched my pockets. My backpack. My luggage. Still, it was not there.

I pressed my fingers together, imagining the weed in my hands. I haven't tried anything like it. It was still green, and sticky to the touch.

"I think I gave it to Jean," I said, hoping for a resolution.

"No. Jean had his own joint," C answered. After the party at Wunder Bar, we went to Jean's place together with the other bitches of Hamburg to party on. We finished a joint there. Yeah, I remembered. It was Jean's.

I sat on my bed, clasping a cup of coffee, finding no answers, imagining hundreds of scenarios that all lead to me sitting in a jail on a cold winter night.