odds n' ends
どこでもいいよ
year one said I was weaker than I thought. That the things I thought myself immune to kept me awake at night. That I favored the concept of reheating cold fish. It actually makes no difference, whether you reheat it or not—the aftertaste remains the same: fishy. Either way, I do not mind. I think about someone else's ocean.
Someone's promises were made here: a town of borrowed ghosts. When the number of vows outnumber the number of inhabitants, they are auctioned off the next day at noon: sometimes dirt cheap, other times worth a pretty penny. Adults claim this is only a fad, a passing breeze leading from one pier to the next. But piers echo themselves and I am an adult. My friends wait on piers of different shores. The figure of a young sailor blocks them from my view. He directs his gaze towards the waters and does not lower his head to inspect the quality of wood supporting his thin frame. To hell with your sea. Someone hums an old nursery rhyme. They are jovial but off-tune. We do not tell them the song's origins. As I raise my glass, toast to someone's birthday, I notice that my breath smells of coconut. A memory of days I was too happy to stop and record mingled with the hazy notion of growing things: moss on yellowed photographia. An infestation easily controlled by the bravery to light a single match. But the roots are invisible to the eye. They thrive. year two says I will be brave. year three sleeps. year four will remember softly. There is segregation in this passenger car. The watchers watch the sleepers while the sleepers dream of the watchers. Though this is not parity—the watchers feign superiority as they tread upon the more purposeful side of the boundary. I think about opening my eyes, but it is counterintuitive to lie to yourself when you lie to so many others already. Uptown houses monsters; downtown you may find security.
But he falls under neither category. His eyes are open, yet they do not see. Instead, they stare headlong into the murky blackness, trying to understand why he can read the words "this side out" printed on bulletproof glass. Where is in and where is out? A faulty installation. A day's toils easily relieved by a moment of tomfoolery—the thought of two dumb kids dancing in the dark. The light at the end of some tunnel is cliché, the mirage of midnight movies and songs set on perpetual replay. Both narrate the allure of prospects, yet this tunnel merely leads to the next stop. There is light everywhere. I follow his gaze, but he does not permit me entry into his private sanctuary. Perhaps he is thinking about the state of the universe. Or perhaps he is thinking about the apple he had for lunch. The voice from the intercom, a little robotic, reminds him too much of his mother. The last time he called her was four months ago. Once he aces his interview, he will buy her a summer house, invest in an android caretaker so that she can live more comfortably. There is a future for artificial intelligence yet, but it probably isn't today. The man next to me coughs and smells of something herbal. I wonder if he is willing to share if I ask nicely. An old fisherman hums a sea shanty that you remember from your childhood. The lyrics derive from words you cannot quite place, but you recall the image of whaling ships, the flicker of lighthouses, a lone yacht hat drifting in the breeze. You commend yourself for your own imagination, for this tune never belonged to you—you are a mere trespasser in disguise. But lethargic summer afternoons are ideal for storytelling, so you concoct a tale narrating its origins.
There was once an old man who lived by the sea. Once upon a time, he had a nice girl and a nice job, but lost both of them to the waters. He grew to loathe the sea—such a whimsical yet apathetic entity completely detached from the affairs of man—how arrogant indeed! He ultimately decided to take his own life, throwing himself into the waters. After the man took his last breath, the sea lost its voice: the seagulls ceased to sing, the waves fell as still as a mirror. For unbeknowst to him, the sea loved the old man, watched him grow from a small boy fascinated with jellyfish to a strong man resolved to protect the waters from oil tankers. So this particular sea never sang again. Instead, curious visitors sang in its stead, invented a sea shanty about an old man who once lived by the sea. And a large part of my childhood was probably subject to similar fabrications as well. But I would never know, since I would not be returning to that lone shore by the sea anytime soon. 4:35 PM marks the beginning of sunset. Too early for those who arose from their slumber mid-afternoon, yet too late for the individuals who subscribed to nyctophilia the moment the word home shifted from a cozy brownstone in the suburbs to a stuffy room identical to a hundred other ones hammered into the enormous building complex someone said was modeled after a ship. But you're located in the middle of nowhere. There is no water.
As compensation, the mountains are rather generous in the plant department. When deeper hues of mauve slowly splay across the sky, the trees outside twist and turn into amorphous shadows―large, wavering, yet strangely comforting. And when you pause for a moment, briefly counteracting the gravity pulling you downhill back to your room for a night of finals cramming, you notice a soft lull that lingers in the air. It politely sits there with the flickering lamp posts, almost comically threatening you, even though the most sinister presence here would be a lone squirrel chucking you acorns in indignation because you tried to approach it for a picture. And as days turn into weeks and weeks into months, the walks through the embrace of the trees become routine. The same security beckons you, reminds you that even as a decent adult, it is sometimes still acceptable to shy away from responsibilities. You almost forget that your home was a place where the sea was objectively more attractive than the woods, where stars were either myths or airplanes traveling too slow for their own good. So when your mother asks why you haven't called, you are ashamed to admit that you googled "homesickness" and wonder why you do not look forward to concrete and pigeons as much as you should. The trees back there were touched by too many human hands to be loved. Though it's true you still miss the water. |
Authora little cynical & tired Archives
July 2019
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