Trudging slowly over wet sand - no, wait, that's a song. I can't start there.
The sky is as grey and uninteresting as a dead television channel. I walk along the warped boardwalk - curled planks, exposed nails - and look out onto the equally colorless, crashing surf. Sad and weary ice cream vendors prowl by and notice my equally sad demeanor and offer nothing to this frumpy-looking gringo.The air is chilly. It has been quite cold since my arrival. Several families frolic along the littered beach and brave the brisk water.
I found my way down to the border. A huge rusted fence of steel girders juts out fifty feet into the sea. An enormous corrugated wall separates the haves from the have-nots and stretches and meanders east for miles and miles.
What brought me here was the attempt to get a reception on my cell-phone. I got one but it was in vain. The truth of the matter is: I am flat fucking broke. This move has drained all I had in the bank. To keep afloat, I was told by my landlady back in El Paso that my deposit would be mailed to me. Much needed, I assure you at this point. Even if it is a paltry fifty dollars. It would help to get by the next two weeks until I got paid. But, it is explained to me on the phone that it would take "up to thirty days to process". In other words - it will be months. Fucking bureaucratic bullshit.
My roommate Paco has been kind enough to award me a daily allowance for the past week to eat with. Money I am sure he can not spare - but, he is being humble and sweet about it. I tell my inquiring friends that it is lack of funds for the reason of my depressed mood. "I haven't been without money since 2007." Is my usual reply with a forced grin. That is a bald-ass lie.
I am so depressed. This depression is consuming me like cold fire. I just want to hole up in a room somewhere and be alone - however, under the circumstances, that is an impossibility. No one's fault but my own.
What have I done? Is the question screaming in my head. Why did I make this stupid, impulsive move? Why?! My health - both physical and mental - are rapidly deteriorating. I can feel it. And it's insidious. The mask that I wear is beginning to crack and fall away and one day, one day soon I will stand in front of these people not the suave, cool, world weary traveler that I put up, but as a shivering, babbling, terrified invalid who will simply sit and cry and sob in never ending grief. So much loss over the past few years...
I want to go. I am not supposed to be here. The main reason I had left Tijuana two years prior was the paranoia of fucking up my pension. How am I going to live here in comfort with that sword of Damocles hanging over my head?
Damn, this mental shit. I loathe conversation with anyone. I just want to be alone. Then when I am alone, I feel like shit because I realize what an insufferable monster I have become. And, seriously, who would want to be friends with my anyway? Everyone is out for their ulterior motives - to take instead of give. I just want a good friend who I can trust without any of the bullshit of physical contact to fuck it up. The fucking fags in El Paso screwed that up for me. That is why I guess I left in such a hurry - being in absolute loneliness for a year, distrustful of everyone.
And here I am in Tijuana - the city of hedonistic dreams and broken hearts - ten million people all wanting nothing more than to drink and fuck. And, I want to be alone.
And here I am in Tijuana - the city of hedonistic dreams and broken hearts - ten million people all wanting nothing more than to drink and fuck. And, I want to be alone.
I am truly fucked up. Maybe death is a way out? It surely wouldn't be skin off of anyone's back...no ones at all....
1 comment:
The stark reality is that you’re probably right about your death not profoundly affecting anyone else within physical proximity. But, you might try thinking about the finality of death before you wish for it. I mean, everyone’s story has a sad ending; death will come on its own. And, don’t get me wrong; there are situations in which I think death should definitely be wooed and quickly – Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease, brain cancer, etc. But your writing communicates a yearning that is commonly shared; it’s just that not everyone has the ability to express it. You may remain isolated, (the price all writers pay, I’m afraid), but you are actually connected to others through your writing. As long as you’re here, you can continue to transmit these reports – signals received by others you don’t know and almost certainly never will. That’s something. There’s a line in Paradise Lost by one of the fallen angels: “for who would lose, / Though full of pain, this intellectual being, / Those thoughts that wander through eternity, / To perish rather, swallowed up and lost / In the wide womb of uncreated night, / Devoid of sense and motion?” That’s a pretty good question, actually. While you’re still able to transmit them, don’t stop those thoughts of yours that wander through eternity.
Post a Comment