Twelfth page V

 

Thursday, don’t throw me back again, please!  Saturday morning: nothing in my bank accounts… the hell with it, it's Sunday morning now. I couldn’t postpone the wills to sit on the water. Duty called. Cartoons are on, so I expect to finish what I started. I’m hearing some complaints. I guess I have to cut. I have to cut in some many ways; either literally and figuratively. Let’s start with this literal one first.  Hold the line, selected by me. It was rainy all day long.  Boundaries testing and its nonstop actions.  I’m alone now. I saw a couple of pictures, a couple of a set of pictures; both of them of vacation time; two different families, both living here, both Venezuelans. I’m not sure if this is just pure envy, or if I ever have a point, but it seemed kind of a show off, and up to this point, a show off is just vulgar. Only that vulgar provokes. Vulgar always provokes. So I’m not immune to other’s good times, and I have worked a lot not to be so. I am talking from my podium of poverty,  as usual of course. Poor envy although vulgar, specially when it’s vulgar. I want to be vulgar too, I just can’t afford it, and I haven’t been able to since so many years. I want to taste, we all do. Only that we can’t,  so we have to drown this feeling with wine and words, and a new chapter of House Of The Dragon. It’s Sunday night after all, but it’s hasn’t been easy, there’s so much going on, but this is always,  every time, anything is something to worry about, to think of, and to probable turn into something we will postpone to live one more day. It’s exhausting, and nobody cares.

 

Another week. I need to get the Alprazolam.  I’m worried.  It’s in moments of sudden that we feel we don’t belong, that we are forcing something is not meant to be, that we will never fit in. I guess it happens to all of us. I have to be better, to get equal treatment.  Did we know it before we came? May be we did, but verbs feels different in first person. The fiction is over, I have to get back to the reality and go to bed. Financial blessing,  I’m still waiting for you.  Only child syndrome for writing and only child syndrome for thinking. Well, not really. Perhaps for writing. I come here when I feel alone. The TV is on. I’m waiting for the CBD to replace the Alprazolam.  Nothing has happened yet. Yesterday was different,  I boosted it with wine. I even forgot about my debts for a while. The CPR course was fine. It was better than expected.  I really thought I was going to blow it. I should trust myself a little more. I would like to, it’s just that repercussions have been coming up and showing off, so now I realized they were all mistakes; missteps, wrong moves I made thinking they were going to bring me back to stability, and I can’t be more disappointed from these results. At least I can lecture myself through words.

 

Home made meat loaf, I love it. Wine is waiting for me, I need a partner in crime, my partner in crime. I don’t feel like taking a shower. Desire is suffering,  I just read.  What if you don’t like what you see? What about it? Coexist is paramount when lacking resources, specially when you just want to be left alone. It’s a space not everyone can afford. So Time then it’s not the greatest asset but Space as well.  Wednesday.  Wednesday I’m in love. Let’s see for how long.  It’s Thursday now,  both countdowns have started; the first one will reach zero next Sunday.  The election day. A good part of the diaspora remains skeptical, specially those who have made a family abroad already, those no longer work  in factories or production lines. Those ones who are not waiting for an asylum interview or a court hearing anymore. Those ones have moved on, or so we can presume. The hearts have their own reason, so nothing is settled yet, but what I do presume is that the skeptical ones are not the majority.  The majority is waiting, expecting,  and basing their next moves upon election’s results. My heart is beating harder every time I think about it. We have one month left. That’s the drama of us; the uncertainty of the next encounters. When? Where? How? And ‘if’, especially if…  If and Why with a bunch of becauses; becauses with no solid reasons. I only followed my heart, and my heart likes to play. I don’t.  Not when it comes to feelings. So I guess that either you play or be played.  I need more wine. Not really, I’m just tired, and I will never get when people drown themselves inside the phone. I’m tired of being this way alone. Something is broken. I don’t know what. I’m just tired and tiredness makes you make up things to keep yourself uncomfortable.  I am uncomfortable, and tomorrow I have to work.  The future is a foreign land. What a title, Ghost! You really got me. Sadness needs space and time; two assets in this life. Two assets not everyone can afford, so being sad can be kind of a luxury sometimes, this time at least, and even more than being happy. Happiness can be found sometimes,  sadness needs a momentum to acknowledge it. I’m not in the mood to acknowledge.  I want to have Sex and forget, but even sex needs time, space, and an interested partner: interesting,  indeed. 

 

I would like your opinion, but you wouldn’t dare. Maybe I wouldn’t dare. I just want to get the hell out and move on with all my complexes. The air conditioning is off. The bill was extremely high. Poor happenings, as usual. When will this stop? I don’t know. Bearing: a verb for the poor. I hate this sort of poverty.  Maybe I hate the company,  who knows! I don’t even know myself anymore.  I just want to keep on drinking. I’m getting  close… despite of the routine, despite of all these disappointments. Disappointment is not for poor either. We have to keep going. Our survival depends on that. So why do we want to survive? That’s a good question, as a matter of fact. How do we say in English when a fruit is not ripe? I don’t know  in Spanish we say verde, yes, green, and maduro, or madura, when it's ripe. In Spanish fruits have gender, the mongo is male, for example, the banana (in Venezuela; cambur, and only in Venezuela) is male too.  The strawberry is female, and we use it when it comes to pretty girls. Again, only in Venezuela,  as far as I know. 

Twelfth page IV

 

A glass was broken. That’s always an impact. Like a gun shot. Everyone stops, freezes.  Are you ok? I’m not but I’m not talking about that. See you later. I wonder if you’re going to be into rocket ships when you get to this lines. I love when you say blast off. I love the spaceships you build with your tiles. It’s a beautiful hobby. Outer space. Inner being. The floor is lava. Countdown. Countdown to cheer me up. Boobs on TV. I’m sitting on the floor.  Temperature is fine now. It was terrible yesterday. Procrustean Syndrome, or our intolerance against all these statements. My idea is the one that must prevail. I have seen it a lot, including on myself. I think I’ve said it; we want an audience,  we want to be flattered,  we don’t want consensus or debate… not really though. We’re developing somewhat intolerance to the curiosity born out by getting to the bottom of something. Some of us call it overthinking,  or include it to the habit to overthink. So, it is conceived as a flaw: not trendy one, therefore it can’t be used on Instagram. Financial aid: here I am. Don’t be afraid to come. I’ll be grateful.  I am always grateful.  Let me welcome you to my world, to my outer, to my inner and to my most. Join me in my quest to uniqueness. It has been a lonely road. We must find the path to stability; we are in the right time and at the right age. Give me a chance, I don’t want anymore breaks.

 

Until the end of the world in my ears, yes, in both, why not? I’m in the bathroom alone and nobody needs me right now. A Friday Wednesday, a third third indeed. La parole lontane or the words from the distance. Most of our Spanish is distant now, mostly enclosed by technology, and all the subjective burden it carries with it. Temper tantrum, carried within only. If I could just be back a few steps… who knows!

 

Monday morning. I need coffee. Not a good holyday to celebrate, au contraire, it would have been better to come to work. No music, faster breathing, feeling desperate, let’s just wish for a happy day! Be more in my ear now, and we were more indeed. Now, parenting time.  Tuesday morning.  One of those video answers from a potential second job. I keep applying hoping to get something I don’t have time for. Need pushes in so many different ways. It’s kind of like a damaged feature of the car for which you’re forced to change the way you drive entirely.  There’s no money for a new car, for a new life. We’ll see. Hope has power indeed. Here I’m still standing.  Saturday morning.  Several days have gone by. Geometry,  the Geometry of things. Understanding the shapes to get a sense of limitations of one thing from another.  The spiral and the feeling of living everything again from some distance. How is the shape of the map? Our map, our distance. Layers and planes: platforms; what shape should it be? It’s fascinating seeing such developments, I read it helps understand our place where we get to be. Perhaps I wasn’t that good with geometry, I’m not sure I understand my place here, and I’m kind of sure you aren’t either. Yet, here we are, figuring out. Sunday morning. Air conditioning at its maximum due to this summer heat. We can’t rest like we think we should under such circumstances.  Motor town: Motown, I’m getting it. I started getting it: thirty minutes drive to take us to the pool and thirty minutes to get back home to pick what we missed, then thirty more minutes to go back to the pool but not before stopping by and get some chips to finally chill two ours and a half later, and only for a couple of hours to go back home again. Just a day of during summer. I’m not complaining.  It could be worse. We can always add a sudden event and spoil the whole plan. At least we could chill for a couple of hours. So it was a good Saturday after all. Not for everyone,  of course. The poor, when trying to please, they have to let someone down. I guess this is because of money and time equation in life. Poverty is about struggling more for having a little of both. I failed.  My plans failed. My heart failed. It was so full of hope, so full of faith but it turned out an impossible. It was just a delay. I borrow money to buy some time. The poor don’t get to buy time. The poor can barely buy brands, TV brands,  social media brands, and live under the illusion that self realization will emerge from money spent on things that don’t worth time.  Eighteen years on Alprazolam and I can’t just get a prescription in this town. It seems that I have to get along with my anxiety like it were some sort of hot chick horny for myself with all my overweight included. My belly grows as big as my disappointment. I guess I have to keep on failing…. Until I stop. If I ever stop. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m just thinking about In the end: I tried so hard…

 

Wednesday night. A flat tire during the day and some money I don’t  have just spent. What the hell! By the way, what are you doing in Hong Kong? It is Hong Kong, right? How about Israel? Best regards for you both. I appreciate you. I try to hold you both with my words. Not everything has to be grief.  I try not to, and I know it looks like I don’t, but I do. I do. I do wish, I do desire. I do hope and expect, and I’m still waiting. I got this scar on one of my finger toes but it’s healing now. I’m looking at some places of Belgrade; some images before a Rammstein concert I’m about to watch. I think it’s not a good quality sound but the images were worth it. I can see they are coming down from some sort of elevator on stage. Belgrade gave me hope. Good night now. Tomorrow will be another battle. One battle per day. I have lost today’s but I can listen to rock music now, and I’m drinking my wine as usual. Hopelessness here tastes better. That’s perhaps one of the differences between both countries. 

Twelfth page III

 

Some people: not lawyers ones, tend to make these jokes about lawyers,  about how greedy they are and things like that. It sounds funny among lawyers with jobs and money, for those who remain poor and working on something else, it doesn’t make any sense.  I would like that greed for myself but I stand on the side of the ones with no money. So, jokes about lawyers, not on me. Sunday afternoon.  Soccer game: fútbol,  the way we call it. A beer in my hand, not now, of course. I a writing.  I have some headache and the pain in my ear is coming back again. I’m worried. I can’t help feeling worried. Let’s make a pause.

 

To please. How hard is to please! Perhaps it’s not hard, it’s more like subjective, changing. Pleasing has a lot to do with mood, and mood has some to do with money. We will end up complaining about lack of money in every single idea of this text. I’m trying to avoid it, but this comes from the heart, what can I do? I’m trying to keep it as organic as it can be, but organic is mostly monotonous, and truth is often boring rather than uncomfortable. We want it to be exciting,  outrageous,  but life is more a constant phase. Constancy is what we seek, even when thinking about adventures. We wish a place to find shelter in storming times. Safe scenarios to make opinions. We want our life to be a theme park, with unlimited time and turns for every attraction.

 

Life. How I remember it, Gabo, how am I telling everyone about it? My wife’s uncle said: every poor has a story to tell, only no one cares. So, here I am, serving this nonsense as an interesting story. I can’t hold my impulse back. I just put words as some sort of necessity.  Monday morning.  A little behind, from what I see. Enrollment blast. Blast off indeed. Problems are making me lose focus on my job. I need to drink. I need to drink to avoid this overthinking.  I’m nervous and the day hasn’t come yet. What if it does? It will come, what I don’t know is how soon. I need enlightenment,  enlightenment for the extra money that doesn’t come. Too much adrenaline for a quiet life. Oh son! I hope we can laugh together by the time you get to read these words. I hope to much. I’m a hamster in a cage; showing my desperation for others’ amusement.  Like a circus freak show. Sorrows to entertain. Sick time. Tim off. I have to cry this out. I need a moment alone. See you later!

 

Confessions from a toilet.  That should be the name of this text. Afternoon is going by. It’s still sunny and it’s quiet too. The noise lies within my head like wearing headphones. Nobody else can tell what I’m up to. I am just contemplating, thinking about women perfume and women skin. How my tongue wants to take a walk over your body. Caracas again. Tense news. What an English to describe things, right! I wonder how you guys will get this. We meet halfway, as at work. I say something and they take one part and discard the rest. Which rest, sometimes I wonder. I laugh. Let’s just take a bath.

 

Cancel culture,  not on Maduro. I mean,  who has accepted him as a legitimate president? According to the public opinion and particularly  on social media, he has no popularity at all. We have to remember that the only thing that made him a candidate was when Chávez said on that December, that if something happened to him (he died a few days later and was declared dead three month after that) followers should support  Maduro, and just like that, the man has been ruling the country for ten years so far.

 

Why the internet service is this expensive? Are those messages for me? I’m not sure if we’re changing platforms,  if we meet in another reality. I’m only conscious of this one; where La Vinotinto made it to quaters of final of this Copa América. It’s good to share this joy. It’s our symbol nowadays.  Who knows! Maybe we’ll see Venezuela on the next world cup. I mean, why not, right?  Thursday night. A night before getting paid. Let’s project something good. Faith is powerful,  Faith is beautiful, I just watch; contemplate. There’s nothing else but focus. Debate night. I don’t know. I’m still hungry. Let’s just get some rest. 

 

Sunday afternoon. Pasticho de berenjena for lunch. Home made meals gets me. That’s how I know I’m old. I was trying to come back and start correcting this and I couldn’t.  At first I felt bored since I realized that it’s too much work, and I have no choice but doing it. You might get lost or tired just trying to understand me. It’s not fair. Then I got scared. Scared of going back again to those words, to that world. The world of the back and forth, of the push and pull, of the in and out.

 

By the way.  I believe I got my answer.  I’m not sure if that’s fine with you. My generation became adults following the propaganda of the uniqueness and originality. I’m not sure how good was that to the market, but it seems it worked out for the governments and political movements. Social media has been used to turn such conception back down, and they succeeded.  Nobody wants to be unique anymore. Nobody wants to set a path to go somewhere anymore. Everyone is eager for results. All my Venezuelans are hopeful thanks to La Vinotinto,  especially those who usually don’t watch the games. The sense of victory is more important than watching and believing a process of development.  If the team had lost, the comments would have been like: the same shit, the same disappointment,  but in none of the cases the support came from the beginning.  I’m fine with it. I’m not despising it. Popularity has a lot to do with it. What I want to say is that the concept of uniqueness is now shaped by social media insights (Some could claim TV used to be just like it). We talk about sports only if it’s trendy. We talk about jobs only if it’s happening on social media. The people don’t want to read but have read it already. That means, the process has lost its charm. Siddhartha might have no point in this era. Not even Coelho’s Alchemist. It seems there is no time for any attempt of a journey. Even advertisements aren’t as they were. Branding. We all want brand ourselves and become assets for how we look, or what we say, even for what we ignore, and we believe we might get paid for it since this wave of influencers all over. I don’t know any of them yet. I won’t change my mind until then. I guess if it's happens, I will have to rewrite this. So be it! But for now this is what it is. The kids aren’t alright in my ear. Simulation theory, go for it! Let’s get physical is Dua Lipa singing now. I agree, by the way. 

Twelfth page II

 

But there has to be a momentum when the idea can be embraced. That momentum may arrive when understanding the texture of the music; when we learn how to touch with words. The power, the political power, that power has imposed its way of recreation. There are people in Venezuela who still believe this is not Chávez fault. It wasn’t only his fault, but the political class of the country understood the extend of the then technological progress, and combined it with the complexity of the human mind, thus recreating a nonexistent stereotype that many took as pose and want-to-be-like, and by doing it so upset  the fact of our  history,  and putting personal views of the happenings, and unfortunately many people bought it. Some bought it for a while, some others still believe it. The thing is that it was done, and it was done because it could be done, and it could be done because power has always understood how malleable convictions are, to the point of adjusting them at will. Recreating from music, or poetry, or whatever source of inspiration,  equals our tiny little personal version of it. Let’s all agree on that.

 

Sex can’t be recreated by simple imagination.  We need the actual texture. I need the actual texture. Crisis affects sex as well. Sex is my favorite guests in my gatherings but in order to gather one must be a good host. Hosting became impossible in the Venezuela I left. New culture, new life. Hosting has changed. It has turned into something else. Sex is more like a roommate than a guest now. It has its moments.  Moments of glory, and I think of Scorpions. Night time.  Bed time. TV off.

 

A day before the holiday. A holiday with no money works out for getting  some  rest, instead of going out. A mind with no money can’t afford it.  Rest seems like a luxury for the wealthy. The poor are always thinking, and that’s the irony. That’s time being time: abstract, cynical, controller. Let’s call it Cronos, like the Greeks. Cronos imposes you that your portion of time will be attached to your thoughts, and life imposes you to attach such thoughts to your wallet. That’s why, when you get somewhat lucky, like, let’s say supposing you get a bonus at your job, for example. You don’t know what to do. You go out, eat in a restaurant,  buy some clothes, take a short trip. The money is gone in a single bit. You knew you could have done better, but your thoughts,  used to poverty, went crazy at the fact that you got some money you were not expecting.  We had such a feeling when we first came here. All those brands, milks, bread, coffee, eggs by size, eggs by color. Ham, cheese, meat, salmon; oh boy; salmon. Shrimps, not for me, I’m allergic but, the access, the access we stopped being used to. It was overwhelming.  It felt like going back when it was better then, when it was better there. That feeling stays inside you for a while, a long a while sometimes. Even when having an exhausting poorly paid job. The feeling is there, inside you, putting everything in perspective: I would be worse, or dead, if I had stayed.  It becomes a mantra eventually, the mantra you need to keep going everyday,  every morning. So we start talking to God, or end up an atheist. I chose God. Fuck existentialism.  I don’t care. God manifests through action your mind is so far able to understand.  The more, the better. Obviously,  the less, the more fictional. So, be careful thinking your atheism is knowledge.  It could be a variation of your ignorance.  Make sure you cynicism is based on  your own research and not on social media… please!

 

Grill time. It was good. Tasty.  Now it’s time to remember and wonder but I should take a shower first. Duty calls. Let’s hope for a better tomorrow meanwhile. Purpose. Is this a purpose? I was thinking about it. I heard someone claim that there are people who still choose to stay in Venezuela as it is now, even after traveling outside.  The claim surges after a statement of a person who said in an interview, that those who remain in Venezuela don’t know anything else, and that’s why they hold on to it. Maybe, they are both right. I think that people who have chosen to leave, did it because of personal (and life-threatening) reasons. Only politicians want to make us believe there are other reasons such as better quality of life,  or things like that. We have broken this down more than once already during this journey.  Financial blessing: yeah! That’s what we are hoping for. I’m trying to figure out if the need to deserve it obeys to the way we were raised. I mean, as children, we believed that studying hard, and get some good grades, had to be somehow rewarded. Whose idea was that, whose ideal was that? Now we are almost eight million people around the world, thinking we should get more, because of all that effort we put in the past. Past is gone. Gone we will be someday.

 

Thursday to throw but I need to work. It’s Friday now. Not a word from yesterday,  from yesterdays. Rosy retrospection, idyllic retrospection. I wonder now how much of that is written in history, news and printed in our memories, to come up here and  spit it out, cray for it, yell because of it and even laugh at it. We gather to enhance it, to selectively agree and state, and even feel the illusion of belonging, by what I think it may be a fictional narrative: mostly professionals, let’s be proud of… and great jobs still not found.  I found one. Yeah! But it won’t get me out of my situation. Why? Because that’s the way it is. Let’s think about those who made it, what do they all have in common? Help. Financial blessings. I’m having financial curses. I will never forget all this budget full of hope and expectations I based it on an extra work that – oh, boy! – it was taken away for almost two years. Two years falling down expecting to climb up.  I’m older and tired now. I had to reject the second job I found. What am I going to do? I’m your private dancer in my ear. Testosterone levels fighting to survive. Let’s get back to work.

 

Saturday morning. Dirty clothes all over the floor. It’s laundry time. Seven days left to get paid. Days to suffer. To pray for nothing bad to happen, for nothing unexpected.  Let’s see. We survived it. It’s Sunday now. La Vinotinto won yesterday. I checked on some pictures of myself; I’m not only fat, estoy pure también.  Financial blessing,  please come now! I have to do some work on the computer, obviously,  unpaid. Wealthy people get money from anything they do, sometimes even from spending.  We have to spend money even by trying to save it. What a system! Revenue is the wrong word for such offices.

 

Today is The Day of the Lawyer in Venezuela.  We are a lot, as a matter of fact. We are so many that even in our less worse time, there never were enough jobs for all of us. Many lawyers in Venezuela ended up working in a different field and that was then, now it’s even worse. Laws have been subjected to change as dictator’s desires. It’s actually ironic that he has passed a lot of bills that he has to change later because in time, the laws don’t work out for his plans. I have said more than once that we were raised convinced that self realization passes through the academy, which is why a day like today glorifies the effort – despite the crossed feelings I may have for it – of getting a college degree. In a population of almost eight million Venezuelans spread all over the world, probably half of them have a degree, and probably the majority of those have gone to law school.  So, happy lawyers day, I guess! 

Twelfth Page

 

Back to el Silsa; the Silse in my made up English, and the Golphiliah, also in my made up English. Nothing else to add, really. It’s just that I felt like I wanted to talk more about them, since I’m in good mood now, but mood plays tricks with words, and I got left with nothing as I was trying here. Let’s take a mental trip to another memory from another time.

 

Back again where I can serve a few words. I have music with me. I don’t know why but since I started trying – mostly unsuccessfully – to do fasting, I’ve been coming to the restroom more. We can’t afford such a privilege in most of the jobs here. I’m lucky and blessed in that specific matter. Far behind in my ear.  Sarcasm. I think it only works when you have a strong base of what you’re talking about, otherwise it is just a charlatan bringing up a sort of untreated narcissism, mostly derived from some resentment caught up during teen years. I saw it a lot in chavistas and their pointless persistence of looking clever, specially with those empty speeches and low quality verbiage. Like atheists, which, by the way, in order to deny, you must have questioned the arguments that accept, and you get there by reading a lot,  by studying at lot. Not by asshole-like poses. Lago en el cielo once again. What a song! I praise my silence and all that I’ve been shut in of.  Not a promising weekend for what I see.  Voy enarbolar un poco en mi idioma: Trajimos la esperanza de equipaje, creyendo que el adverbio era de lugar y no de tiempo. Los nunca y los siempre se vistieron de desespeadamente, y desesperadamente llegamos, seguimos, aun sin poder desempacar  e instalarnos como quisiéramos. Querer es un verbo duro, diverso, trae mucho consigo y a veces hace combustión con facilidad. Nos encendemos de tanto quedar queriendo, y ya yo queriendo no quiero seguir más.  It’s time to leave. It’s time to welcome the weekend. Let’s see.

 

Wine is gone too early. Sun will be outside at least for one more hour. There’s no work tomorrow.  I got paid today. And we just stayed home. Animal is in my ear now but I’m not relaxed. I have this feeling I’m not going to bed in good terms. What the hell! As humans, as member of a society, we take too little part in sharing, and I’m not talking about myself only. Nobody wants to share, but everyone wants to be heard. So we want audience, that’s it. Sharing has been deconstructed.  I believe I have already talked about this. At some point of these words. I better not going into details again. Let’s just say that we love new sharing, we’re addicted to the new sharing. To be honest, I’m kind of sleepy too. I don’t know how am I going to accept a second job with this lack of energy and this overtime with the phone. Addiction is depressive. The spiral trap: short pleasures to procure sadness, or  anger more time in our body. We spend about two or three seconds on each video on Instagram. May be more. Let’s say 10 seconds each. Every video has either a dialog, or a song, or a sound in general. In a period of addiction; an hour, for example, we might watch more than a hundred short videos. Our brain does not get that, we’re just damaging it by an immediate sense of satisfaction. The price is high but, who cares? I guess it’s better to be distracted than sorry for not having any money. At least the phone rent is paid, and the phone is in good conditions as well. Crying is the other option, or take it on the spouse, which is what usually happens in most families. That could be why people don’t want to hang out. It’s better to keep that bitterness indoors.

 

I should gran a book if I’m not going to sleep early. I guess I’ll see you later. By the way, five days in a row having wine. At least I can drink everyday. That’s something.  In Venezuela not even that.  Saturday morning. Air conditioning at its best. Sunny day from our windows. We can see how the wind is gently touching the branches of the trees. Tomorrow is father’s day.  Día del G, like my dad likes to call it. One of my dreams is to celebrate it together by next year.  We haven’t had a mutual father’s day yet. Let’s smile. Hope has been around despite of the news. Today it will be beers day, and we’re going to start early. I actually spent a lo and it’s not even the food for the week. It will be funny. Let’s see. Why do we have to ask for sex, I wonder. Sex should be more natural than it actually is. Having a son is the best. Chimay, oh boy! I forgot how strong it was. Sun is at its best. I need more money.  Was Michael misunderstood? I want to think that way. Don’t stop ‘till get enough indeed. Proud. Pride sometimes makes you stand for, and against, on situations worthless for a fight, and yet we insist, we persist, because at some point it becomes more important an argument to win than a reality to face. My brothers, my friends, people I care about and still remains in Venezuela,  they can even stop writing to me, stop talking to me, out of pride, just because they would never admit that they are having a bad time. This is happening in many families.  The spoils of a pride, a pride only to deny a present, a present that forced almost the third part of the population to leave, to find a new home, to start over, to move their own misery elsewhere. 

 

I understand them, but I can’t share their thoughts of it. I decided what I decided, so them. We must find a ground of mutual acceptance,  and start to bring up respect. It is not easy, I know, but as years go by I just wish them well and hope someday we can all meet again… but in the meantime,  this is what we have. This is what we have to work on and out. Sunday. I had too much to drink yesterday. It went pretty well so far. A good soup and good beers to make company.  Let’s go back where we started. Back to the airport, back in time. Let’s rewind our life from there, up to 2010. We started out as some sort of yuppies, Caribbean yuppies. That meant then: young,  professional,  allegedly middle class – which turned out to be an illusion, but you all must know that by now – and no rules. Well, it’s a way to put it. It wasn’t exactly like, hey, no rules. It’s just that it seemed so when compared to this system.  I mean we drink while driving. Just be careful not get any drunk and don’t break anything. If you could that you were fine enjoying your glass of vodka while driving to the beach.  We go to the beach to drink. Drink and listen to good music. If you invited a girl then, you went prepared to stop by a hotel and have Sex. She was aware of that the moment she accepted the invitation to the beach. Those were the days. Sex was implicit in every attempt and we used to have the means to get it done.

 

Lack of money then started compromising such endeavors.  We began to stay at home for not having enough. As time went on, the chances decreased. The basic commenced becoming unaffordable.  So we had to prioritize; change habits, stay home, do nothing, get angry, remain horny, sad, tired, desperate. Until we finally understood we had to go.

 

That wasn’t then. That came later. Like six or seven years later. 2010 was still promising. The first hit was in 2009. I believe it was our break point. From there, everything fell apart.  Bu it didn’t happen fast enough to realize it was happening indeed. From 2010 to 2013 many of us saw it normal. Then the second hit 2014. 2013 was the year when Chávez died. The year of the disappointment. Some of us still have some on our pockets.  It would have been a great moment to run away, but we were too proud, to naïve seeing ourselves as skeptical. We never were skeptical,  we were fooled by a promise, a promise from politicians… until we lost it all. Time played an important role then. I see everything  clearer now. I didn’t feel it that way back in those days. We were inside a bubble that prevented us from understanding the circumstances on timely matter. We saw it as setbacks that were going to improve. We were ripped out of perspective.  We learned by becoming poor and miserable. Now I think about it and I still try to find if things could have been different but I get lost in my thoughts, and my thoughts have lost track of time over many events. There is no correlation thereinafter, so I just get delusional and cynical by trying to bring answers I need to serve for clarification. 

 

I can hear the blender in the kitchen. It’s like a punk rock band giving it all on garage festival. I amuse myself sometimes imagining what kind of bands the noises of our routines would be. I have already said it on the blender, and now that it’s off, it is the air conditioning’s turn. This one is more industrial, kind of like this cover of Blue Monday from Orgy. The darkness in the room has its own sound. If it were a band, it would be playing Time from Pink Floyd. The light coming from the bathroom could be In The Court of The Crimson King.  I just burped.  I’m not sure if I just got more weight or it’s that I’m just gassy of too much drinking. Either way, it’s Monday.  Time to get ready for work. 

 

The drum filling provides any music song with texture. You feel like you can touch the melody by understanding its drum beat. Your mind actually helps you get in context if you try. The mimicking on drums works different from the guitar or keyboard’s. The bass provides you with width. When a person understands the base line and the drum beat by hearing, that person has been enabled to walk through the music, and thus get the idea that perhaps,  and only perhaps, this life could be actually a simulation performed by someone else, and we might be those avatars to live such a life, since they don’t have bodies to inhabit, so they have to do it through us. The sole idea sounds ridiculous on closed minds, but once understood that the perception is subjective, and subjectivity is a multiple way road, we start assimilating that we all can recreate, and there might be a point in which our recreations get to merge, in a way  that what I see may not be entirely mine… yours as well.  

Eleventh page VII

 

The quietness of the window.  How the sky looks from here. The clouds touching the trees. Green and blue and white. Are those trees near or far? Why am I curious about the space and dimensions, where I can’t even take my wife to a simple concert? Why do I have to keep prioritizing needs, I mean, aren’t they ever going to be fulfilled for once and for all? How long does it take?  Second day with wine. I need it more than yesterday.  The bitterness has to be tamed somehow. I don’t know what to talk about to avoid the discomfort.  What the hell! This is what we are living now.  I guess our choices brought us here, and despite I hate it with all my heart, I have to face it and accept it.

 

Let the music play inside my head. I was thinking about Prayer, from Disturbed.  It’s kind of accurate for this part of the tale. I think it’s time to confess that this is not about myself but about my best friend.  I have three best friend as a matter of fact.  Three brothers I chose to love. One of them is the main character of this story, or perhaps this is about the four of us. I haven’t decided yet. One of them went through this very moment around twenty years ago. The same bitterness,  but we all were in Venezuela then,  now we are spread in four different countries, and we haven’t met since more or less five years ago. Our children don’t know each other. In another present, in our beloved Venezuela, our kids would have been raised as cousins. This what makes me sad above other things; that we were forced to part and start new lives away from one another. In addition to it, the poverty, the judgmental daily basis. We look like savages here, like primitives from the third world.  Columbus found us first, by the way, and certainly on his third trip, but no one should ever refer to us as third world. Caracas is older than half of this country. Miranda and Hamilton were friends. There are letters that prove it. I think Paez died in United Stated but I’m not really sure of that.

 

One more glass. Sorrows must be put to sleep. We need alcohol for such an endeavor. The silent husband syndrome: could it be that? Could all this be just a testosterone dropping? I can accept it if it is so, but what about the pushing; the pushing man has to bear. I don’t think it's solely about testosterone,  it’s actually more than that. So we’re back again where we started complaining,  where we wanted these words to be served. Let’s just get one last glass for the night; this night. El del estribo, like we say in Caracas.

 

Purse ups: I heard they are good. I've just done some, just a little but. I’m too fat to work out on a regular basis. I was thinking about some expressions we used to say and, given the features of the language, they didn’t need any explanation as they were used. For example, ístico; ístico is a suffix that, when added to an adjective, it indicates relation or belonging. Arte, artístico. So it belongs to art. We used to say  cuchillo as an adjective,  not subject,  when referring to danger; dangerous,  insecure, like walking on the street at night in Caracas. We added the suffix, and it became one of our words: cuchillístico. Something, somewhere was cuchillístico when it wasn’t safe. I remember it. I just remember it like something my head needs as distraction. Some memories remain here only for this purpose: when my mind needs a break from the worries. You’ll see, being worried is exhausting. I’m tired. Estoy pure, si, but I’m also tired. Whoever wanted me beaten, I salute you, you’ve made it. I am beaten. Thanks for the fight, fir the challenge. I don’t want to keep with the fight. That’s it. I lost. I give up. Get another one, this one is done.

 

Wednesday night. Wine night. This week, the whole week. Failure is here beside me watching TV.  I should go to the bathroom and get ready for bed. See you tomorrow! Car waiting.  It looks like a quiet morning. Wine was fine last night. Belly is still growing.  No soundtrack for the moment.  I haven’t turned on the radio yet. I love the fact that there are actually a couple of rock music radio stations here. By the time I left Venezuela, everything was about Reggaeton,  or reguetón, I’m not really interested in writing it well, so I guess I don’t care how is it written. I believe we may use this type of music to get an idea of our society nowadays.  There are a couple of says I would like to bring on for context. The first one goes as You are what you eat, and the other one if translated; as you talk, you think. I want to merge them like this: the music you listen determines, along with your words, and the food you have, the way you think and who you are…  Who are you then? Well let’s see.

 

Thursday night. Everything is dark. I got a nice picture of the moon. Taking a look at the moon is always a good thing to do. It sort of gets you in the mood. Now I’m going to bed with a smile on my face. I was also remembering those characters I used to make out at my friends’ expenses: Sebulba: taken from Star Wars. Los Popumbos: Le Grand Popumbo and Le Petit Popumbo. El Silsa, Golfilia el Innajatse. These are like some sort of characters from my own version of Dungeons and Dragons, but Caribbean, and with all that comes with it. Maracaibo, which is an actual city in Venezuela,  is often taken (by myself, of course) as the battlefield of any of the adventures I can come up with. I used to think about the alliance between el Innajatse and el Silsa, against Los Popumbos, who later took separate ways, then Sebulba came in and joined Silsa and Golfilia, and ended up trying a garage band in an apartment in Caracas. Le Grand Popumbo opted the exile, an imaginary exile, of course, not like me, I took a real one. Le Petit Popumbo inherited all the weapons left behind by Le Grand Popumbo.  All that vibe  and joke was left along with books and other belongings in my old bedroom; they are more like old toys from a childish era. I kind of miss that era but the lack of money has a lot to do with melancholy. So I’m not really sure if it’s that I miss those days or it’s just my mind taking me there as a defense mechanism.  I don’t know. A Friday morning away from smiles. I have to take a second job. I really do. I’m getting closer. 

Eleventh page VI

 

We have this say in Venezuela that goes as those who drink on Mondays, will drink the whole week. So here I am, with my glass of wine to start my week and avoid and procrastinate. Watching a children show and singing those songs now that I know them by heart. Still daytime, I’m hungry.  Chuleta Ahumada, for dinner. We lived to fight another day, let’s worry tomorrow.  Wine is gone and we’re having this warm sense that makes us think and talk like wisdom we’re sone sort of totem we are holding by the hand just now.  Alcohol does that. It does that to at least. Now I feel like I have words to offer, a metaphor to build with letters, letters taking the place of bricks and make a division:

There you are,

Writing me

Not knowing I’m reading you

I’m taking your words just for myself

And myself only. 

Because you read my silence

And I imagine your verb

I imagine your verb in my flesh

Like Cerati,

Like my morning desire

Desire it is

Desire it will be

Here it is

There you are…

 

Now it’s time to take a shower.  Words are coming in. It is the mixed up between what I want and what I have, and how to keep going with it since they are excluding each other.  Today I laugh at the things I haven’t achieved.  The sun hasn’t left the day as hope hasn’t left me despite everything.  Caracas of my heart. Oh Caracas! Twenty years ago I was 25, starting a new job with a new spirit, all fallen into the music, into the Japanese anime, with a cigarette and a beer, and having sex as much as I could stand. I met with my limits, in my ways. Worries had then nothing to do with money, or time. It was more about what I felt, how I felt, what I wanted then and the path I took for it. It seems like another life now, like another person. I feel like I can’t join both times, not even in my head. Not even for a narrative. How far have we changed? How big has the government changed our lives? The present is something different.  All memories poured into a phone app, into pictures that don’t store enough. I can’t find what I felt there, not always,  not today. I’m afraid not anymore.  The oblivion is full of memories, someone said…  The noises of the duty are knocking on my day, my night; good night then!  The tell-tale heart, by Soda, not Edgar Allan Poe. Los vestigios de una hoguera,  again, this morning, why not! It’s my life’s soundtrack, anyway…

 

A cup of coffee. Tuesday morning. Am I ready? I am. It’s just this way I am that makes me nervous.  Duty calls. See you later! Panic attack, was it though? I don’t think so but it felt pretty close. I couldn’t breath and I felt like I was dying. It lasted less than minute. The good thing is that I know it when it comes, so I’m not actually afraid. I jut learned how to live with it. Why didn’t she get the chance to prove herself? There must be a way out where judgment is not only by first look. What if my potential isn’t up front? Will I be condemned to rejection at every interview? To shine, we need a chance. If only we could, and if only I weren’t this poor…  Well. I can’t be lamenting all the time. You already know it’s there, and I know it’s here. I’m going to try to move on with it. Afternoon is here. Almost time to go. Everything worked out this morning. I actually want some more. It's time. I’m hungry for it. Three Doors Down in my ear. Good pictures to remember the day.  Replication crisis, or how we tend to get lose trying to prove a point. Has this text provided a solid statement? I don’t think so, but we have to try, try, and keep trying.  Despite the dissatisfaction. Despite being unable to put smiles on their faces. I don’t want to keep feeling sorry for myself. I need to think this is temporal. My hand hurts, my thumb hurts. I don’t know.  Perhaps my body has found other parts to manifest, but I can help it. I can’t help the bear of the disappointment.  Over and over. Over and over. Please, please! 

Eleventh page V

 

My ear, my other ear. A little discomfort started this morning.  Nothing to worry I guess. Nevertheless my ears itch when I’m preoccupied, when I can’t stop thinking about something.  This is one of the manifestations of my body, telling me that I’m unable to take anything else, or I will get sick. It’s Saturday.  Morning time. A great big arepa for breakfast. It was just delicious. Thanks, mom for it! I should play more the ambassador role for our arepas, my workmates are waiting for it. It’s just this lack of money that turned everything into nothing, since I have to think about problems first. I’m tired to put it in words. It’s boring. I wish I could wipe them out as I’m about to do with my ass. See you later!

 

I’m back where I stopped it. Back in place, back in moment. There has to be some way. I don’t feel like writing.  I guess I’m just going to play some music. My ears are not bothering and everyone is taking a nap. I need chocolate.  I spent all I had and didn’t get any treat for myself.  Let’s go back to the music. Let’s get away from this white noise. Saturday night. We had a great time. The pause from concerns that we need so bad. Fortunately,  we had it. Fortunately we can go to bed no thinking about the problems for once. There will be time tomorrow.  Tomorrow we’ll get back to it, to the problems,  our perpetual invaders. Good night!

 

I love the way toddlers make you get time. When the naughtiness is taking place, the perception of time is critical, worrying,  sometimes even desperate. It's kind like an imminent danger to face and be always ready for it. After it passes, we remember it as something to laugh about, and smile at it in further occasions when bringing it up as a story to tell. I want to call it The dual face time on toddlers. A face time indeed.  I think about time a lot. It’s kind of a mystery itself. The way we sometimes talk about it: I don’t have time, I spend some time. We get this sense through words – and therefore thoughts – that time is something we control or we can have. I have heard people claiming they are the owners of their own time. I wonder if there is some sort of vessel where some time can be saved for later, for a special occasion. Like a PTO in life: I have saved a week in my life this far so I can go to Venezuela and spend it with my loved ones there. We all know there is no such a thing, but we insist in treating time as an asset we can trade with. An asset it is, for sure. But it’s not for us to dispose. It is just going by, and we go by with it. What about fate? Does it just go by like time or it is actually something we work on? I have heard too that we are the owners of our own destiny. It is worth to wonder. After several moves, fate seems to me like square one back again. Like an 8 bit video game. All over once more. How many times we’ll be back to the same point? As many as time allows,  so this is a fate-time equation, and we are the dash that relate both terms, I guess.

 

We are prone to confuse vulnerability with weakness and use our sensitivity at will. Sometimes it is not what bothers us but how we use such discomfort and what for. There’s always something derived from a previous incident. I would like to say I have taken advantage of it but I have this tendency to be at the other side and that’s how I know it. I have no hard feelings at it. It is what it is. I have to prioritize.  My mind can’t store that much. I let many things go because of it. At the end it might be a good thing.

 

The fallacy of the sacrifice. Interesting to think about. So central rain on TV. I’m not sorry, really, but I wanted to leave it written: this is no chance. Again, sensitivity at will.  The reward. The fact that we need to make up rewards to do what we do is hard. I’m not sure if it is necessary but we do. Up to certain point we need to believe that all of this happen for a better tomorrow; otherwise we become cynical, and cynical doesn’t work for future endeavors. Those with kids can’t afford cynicism.  We must believe,  whether rewarded or not, but we have to believe. We have to believe and pass it through as a life lesson.  Despite the disappointments, despite the things we bear, despite the patience tested to its limits; we must believe. This very text is a confession,  a confession of faith, a confession to God. The journey has a lot of stops, a lot of hard moments,  a lot crying in silence, but it has a lot of hope as well. I don’t know. I’m delusional. Perhaps I’m just used to being mocked and humiliated. Perhaps these words don’t make any sense at all. Sometimes we just want a piece of chocolate, or a glass of wine, and we start saying a bunch of nonsense just because we have not yet satisfied our appetite. 

 

Unsatisfied appetite moves a lot, as much as a country in crisis. About crisis. How is Venezuela on this day? It’s hard to understand it from a simple  angle and each one of us is suffering on their own way. Who isn’t,  anyway? Monday afternoon. Wordless. Wordless too often to my taste. I was waiting for my soundtrack to let me know what’s next and what would it tell me of my feelings. Square Hammer. I don’t even know what it means but I love the beat of the song. Perhaps my constant worries are somehow drained by the music I listen to. Perhaps listening to music and dreaming about playing, keep me standing against this wave of failures and lack of money.  I don’t have ghosts, I have debts, and they can be thoughts  consuming. Maybe that’s why I’m getting dumber and not because of the Instagram. I don’t know.  Should I get another coffee? Why not! It is actually one of the fewest thing that I still can chose by myself. That and imagine myself in better scenarios. Scenarios where I can make it, where I can dispose and send away; where I shut mouths and enjoy my own silence. When will it happen? Will it be in this life? I’m not as young as I used to feel.  Perhaps that’s what happens to overweight.  Since people feel they are not going to make it at whatever they’re working for, the brain takes the only attribute the body can provide: food. A lot of food to fulfill the lack of satisfaction, and a lot sugar to mitigate the envy on those who actually made it. I’m getting heavier and I think I know why. Fuck it!