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.