“There’s not enough time”, the typing is fast, stressed, a point aching to get across, “So much to do and so few do it”, these are not at all new revelations, not sudden realizations, but sometimes the awareness of the facts stated manifests itself more forcefully. “Measured time, you know?” A limited number of heartbeats, only so many breaths. You’re all I have to remind me of who I have been, and following that, you remind me who I have wanted to be and what I no longer want. It’s about drinking, most of the time. Sometimes games, and sometimes shivering, but in my memory, always laughing until we choke. “You have to go out and do something. Now. Go!” I want to say how I dreamt we robbed a bank and even in the dream it was all about guilt. “Take advantage of whatever you can! - Claim insanity, claim instability, claim illness, grab the hands reached out and don’t let go!” And I tell you how you’re not really people, and you say you are and I know it, and I say yes, but it more time before I have to close a door between us, you know that, and I know what I am to you because it’s what I have always been. “I know you’re too proud.” I think of hitchhiking, of just stepping out of the house and see where the wind takes me. I think of moving across continents, of all the impulses, all the things I have ever dreamt of, I dream of foreign legions and far-away shelters, I dream of disconnection and new grounds. I admit to luxury habits, I admit to lingering fear of discomfort. “There’s no time to be afraid.” I hear eighties cartoon themesongs crashing in my head. “You see? You have to get out. No time.” I try to forget the guilt. I try to reshape the pride. I even try to stop counting the hideous heartbeat.
Cherry blossoms in January. In this corner of the world. Geography doesn’t rhyme; seasons skip a beat; thirteen days into a new year and thirteen different impulses tugging at the fresh green behind the eyes.
“Every fictional character I ever looked up to was hot-headed and spontaneous”, one of us say, it doesn’t really matter who. There is agreement anyway. “Thunder and roses”, I read. “Soothes my mind and burns my soul. Why can’t I have both?”, I read. I’d make a vague footnote about what kind of a word soul is and why not to bring it into conversation; it’s why it rests in writing and headphones. “We think too much”, it is said. “Thunder and roses for people who use words like soul without embarrasment”, I consider saying. “Thirteen is a meaningless number for the voices in our heads.”
And I don’t know if the two people in this conversation are a rare coincidence or simply two more surfers on one violent wave of insecurity and high hopes. In writing this I’m briefly concerned, even, to be offending those I do not engage in conversation with, by documenting that I haven’t lost my voice. Tough cookie. I can’t take the big words and the big scenes make me angry. It’s on the wrong channel; played at the wrong speed; the spectacular sizes belong to the headphones and bookshelves, causing shivers and fires. Eye to eye, it’s only so many dead leaves. “Why can’t I have both”, hiding in the headphones.
It is the pub, not the castle: it is the band of ragged young boys, not the shining armor. It is - and I know this - a long string of concepts to which I offer no explanation or reference. It is a series of choices being made from thirteenth to thirteenth. It is a series of dreams repeated and collected:
Light blue sheets of paper listing clumsily written names of places; the smell of waffles and guns. “The lights”, explained in a classroom, a laugh and a sigh. Walking up streets with replacements #3 to #13: Pointing out the houses of our heroes, listing names, this time, not of states, but of library shelves and second hand book shops. Throwing the paperback Jack Kerouac out the window. “Of course I want to go”, it is said. “We’ll have to dress up as beatniks. Listen to sixties music.” Pause. “Wear berets.”