Denial

Shall I get you another one? No. Maybe yes, but for me too. I can sit with you for a while, there are no more customers. Well, if you’re fine with it. Sure. What are you writing about? I’m just putting these thoughts on paper just not to forget them, you see, I’m always thinking of how things may be connected among each other, I believe there’s some kind of thread joining events for interpretation. Whose interpretations, ours, for example? Perhaps but I think events are more like: served for feelings; it’s like sensing. Don’t you think it might be just chance? Sure, but chance doesn’t work all the time for everyone; some people’s chances could be some other’s facts or logic consequences. For instance? You open this café everyday and expect customers, you are not leaving at least until I’m gone, I came here for a coffee and now we’re talking; you see, for me this is chance, but for you it’s a logic consequence: this is the first time I’m having a conversation with you but sure it’s not the first time you have a word with a customer. Well, it’s getting more common every time, few people are coming. Let’s hope it won’t get any worse. Please.

Tell me more about your thoughts, how they’re served? Most of them are built because of a feeling, so let’s say you’re not thinking until you put a feeling on it. I’m not following. You are indeed, what you are is unsure how to feel about it. It sounds weird to you, I may be even weirder but you’re not certain and there’s a part of you kind of interested, so you’re not thinking about it, you’re processing it and only after that you’re going to put a feeling on it, and that will be when you think: either I’m a waste of time or this is perhaps more interesting than it looks. It is more complex for sure. Of course, but it’s amusing to realize that almost every information we believe we think it is not so, that it is more the result of a feeling embracing such information and, base on that, we take part of something like: going or not to vote next elections, so we are not going to choose really, especially those who are not going to vote. In the time of our parents youth most of the info used to be gathered by newspapers; there were these sections that actually separated the news and in many cases, people then not always processed it along with a feeling, at least not like we do now. It could be so, but I also think (yes, think) that feelings could come up because of the anxiety the current situation has been pushing us all though. True, and anxiety is also, or least in my perspective, a feeling. Let me tell you something crazy, so you can actually think about it that way: you asked me what I was writing about. I think (based on a feeling) that the actual staff of the high government want to resign, they just don’t want to do it with the actual opposition, so that’s why we’re having these candidates and yes, the guy who used to stand for them will win, and a transition will start by the end of the year. What about the constituent assembly? Their job is to write a new constitution; a new one that allows them enjoy what they’ve made so far. I think you’re crazy. I know, but I really wanted to write it and now I’m posting it. Thanks for the coffee.

don’t you remember?

A sleepy morning. Slow movements for daily things; drinking water included. Some thoughts come around and wondering begins… 

We used to speak of human behavior, we used to amuse ourselves with the argument of self-multiplicity: the one that implies there are several us we carry within, and those us: any day; anyhow, can do some kind of reckoning and establish positions. So one day we may wake up feeling peaceful even in our worst moment, and we may feel right by feeling wrong at it. We may not accept it, there could be a new reckoning, or not, or yes and it will happen again and again until we lose our minds (and ourselves) and become crazier… or wiser. The thing is, I long for those talks. We became busy and not because of our jobs, we still do the same we started about ten years ago; boring, yes, and it never got better, but we had time, time for talking, imagining, wondering ourselves (like I said) and each other (like you used to) 

It was about five years ago. I stored some articles for a later reading. We chatted about them a while. I remember it was about five years ago because I was just, let’s say, cleaning the drawer I’m now selling (and hoping to sell it soon) when I’ve found the articles. I remember I was going to buy Harina PAN that day; it was something new, lots of opinions facing each other: people in the city could buy only two packs per week and depending on the last number of your cédula, Thursdays in my case. Some people saw it as the entrance of communism here, but it’s always a debate. There are those who think this began with Chávez, others claim it began even before him and many others point Maduro as the big responsible, but the thing is either who it was it to blame, the situation became worse for almost everyone. 

I waited on a line for almost four hours. I saw two women fighting because (let’s see if I can make myself understood) one of them tried unsuccessfully to usurp the other one’s place in the line by doing one of the many tricks there are for, which was in this case: I was already here, don’t you remember? [I think it’s important to understand that when I write usurp I don’t mean that the woman already in the line were removed, not. When I say usurp it means that the other woman deceived the rest of the people already there by lying about her presence in it]And of course that made the other woman angry, but not always a person is willing to fight a usurper for that, some people just get numb at the fact there can be someone getting inside the line by doing such a thing (we have a verb for expressing this an action and it is called colearse, but colearse might be confusing if the Spanish interpreter is not a Venezuelan one, this is the problem with our beautiful language, so I just hope you get the picture of what I’m telling here) I for example get very angry but I won’t start a fight for it, and it always happens. It gets more maddening with the waiting and if this waiting is outdoors, people get heat… which means angrier. It could also rain, but at last I got my two packs of our classical corn flour. 

Lines have spread throughout the city, the country. There were few things one could buy without waiting hours on them. It got worse when the riots started and everything we´ve said to each other was about that. I remember we started arguing because we kind of liked to foresee what it could happen next and we both wanted our argument to prevail. 

We both got wrong, short, next never stopped being now and, as now, it’s been cruel. There came a time in which we couldn’t buy us a drink like we used to. We changed it for coffee and sooner than we thought it got unaffordable too. We’ve been texting ever since. You´ve always sent me drugstores where I can find some pills and I’ve tried always sending you supermarkets where some products could be found. Now we just take one another for insulting, to then ask for an apology, to then laugh, to then remember… like I am doing now. I’m getting rid of all these papers, these articles, they’re making me sneeze too much and I still have to clean the drawer…