Crimethink.

"Thoughtcrime does not entail death - Thoughtcrime is death."
- Winston Smith, 1984

For a long time I have roamed, without a goal or direction. Always on the fringes of the norm - I am in no directory, no data base, like the grey spectral citizens you do not see shuffling down the sidewalks with their possessions in backpack, shopping cart, trash bag - the ones you do not see but they are there! I look like a banker, a store clerk or a cop - but that is not me. I blend into the crowd, both wondering transient and time clock punching citizen - but I belong to neither. I am out of the box - cut out - severed.

Is it a choice? Partly. I choose to be free, set outside of the probing eyes of the State. Also it is my so called sickness - can´t connect with the indigenous population of this planet. I feel that I am not from here - a wondering being from another world waiting for a ticket back to Galaxy X.

But at least I am free. But is it all worth it?

On the Red Line from Tijuana to San Diego, an old Fallen Angel throws great bags of salvaged memories and shopping cart onto the train. Sits with me - funky cowboy hat, ragged clothes and sandals of chapped dirty feet. We swap stories of our intercontinental travels - we both have swam in both oceans and the Gulf, saw great and esoteric things in between, lived in strange and foreign lands south of the border all the way to Colombia and back - our lives one constant moving adventure.

This ancient sage of the Lost Highway smiles and nods, "Yeah, can´t beat the freedom, kid."

"Is it all worth it - the freedom, I mean?"

"Of course! Look at the folks around you - how bitter and sad and lost they are, Am I going to make that car payment, pay the rent, utility bill? Why should I have those unnecessary worries in my life? I am free and I am happy."

Orale. He spots me two Camels and a couple of bills when I mention I haven`t eaten in a couple of days and departs the train to continue on his way.

I sit here in the free clinic at St. Vincent de Paul waiting on the doctor for...for...for...I don`t know. Meds? Letter certifying me as nuts? To start that SSI crap again? My feet brought me here because I guess deep in the maelstrom darkness I still cling to the notion that I want to be like you, Dear Reader.

But, that is an impossibility.

Is it crazy to be a minority of one? A ver, I have accepted this existence and perhaps it is time to dive head in - step out of this frightened dying flesh and join the ranks of the free.