man-made lakes in man-made rooms
When the ceiling caved in on me at 3 a.m. Friday, I could only tell a housemate’s friend that it had, indeed, been a “weird week.”
Well, to be fair, I did have a nice little waterfall pouring in through the one lightbulb in my ceiling an hour before the whole thing gave in. Call it god’s plan. I had watched “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” that afternoon and so when I woke to the soothing sounds of The Annex Waterfalls in my room, I must admit I thought the movie had sunk deeply into my psyche.
“Why the chingada madre is it raining in my room?” Surely the Bailey’s from earlier that day wasn’t that expired.
Either god was blessing the rains down in Annexland or the guy above me was trying to create a new biosphere in his room, both equally viable at 1 a.m. in the gray and beige building where we live. Like we’ve said before, we’re convinced the Annex used to be a mental asylum back in the day - the building has been through some shit an even long after it’s demolished the spirits will continue roaming its grounds.
I grabbed two buckets and placed them under the waterfall as humid varicose veins and spiderwebs started manifesting themselves in the ceiling. I don’t know if I was too lazy or too tired to care but I figured that moving my bed next to the sink, strategically placed containers, and a nice and polite “what the fuck are you doing” knock on my neighbor-above-me’s door would be enough work to let me return to the wet dream I had just started to enjoy.
To my surprise it wasn’t. And so when the ceiling finally decided it couldn’t sustain the newly formed lake above me anymore and I saw the plaster joining the waterfall, my last words would have been recorded as a frightened “puta madre!” as I pictured my upstairs neighbor joining me in my room and my legs buried under 1950s rubble.
Later, a housemate would say he thought I had hosted an impromptu party, another said he thought someone was working out and throwing weights on the floor and yet another slept soundly through the night like a fat baby. Meanwhile my room looked like as if someone had exploded a bomb full of new york cheesecake - the plaster was all over the damn place with breadcrumb looking material on every possible surface.
Again, I wasn’t sure how to describe this so when the confused evening porter asked my wtf I was bothering him at 3 a.m. I only showed him pictures of my room. A day later and the place looks like the crack den from Trainspotting though I’m sure some Brooklyn hipster would find the new aesthetics somewhat appealing.
I’ll never get that dream back.
Quiet forest nights
For some reason, as soon as I walked into the bonfire and saw the 60+ year-old man with the Hagrid beard and long frizzled hair, I knew I was in for a fucking time.
Or it might have been the person who, for god knows what reason, decided to strip off their clothing and feed the fire that was very clearly not dying out. Who knows, they might have been hot that warm Oxford night at 5 degrees celsius. I still wonder how they got home later that morning. As far as I know, I haven’t read any pieces in the local tabloids about naked people wandering the streets with Doc Martens boots as their only defense against the brutal cold.
Could have also been the guy with the axe and the strapped headlight who was chopping down trees, an American Paul Bunyan keeping the family warm and the spirits flowing. Honestly, if someone had just stumbled into this scene they would have thought it was something out of The Witch but if that lovely Protestant family and the goat devil had been on acid and other substances.
Trying to make conversation with some of the more spaced out individuals was a bit of an experience. When a friend asked this random dude what he did for a living, he looked us straight in the eyes for 10 seconds before responding “I do MDMA” and then deciding to go on a little stroll in the forest. So many questions, one succinct answer.
Trying to make sense of things was a futile task so I opened the bottle of gin I had brought with me and proceeded to guzzle enough booze to make neither of my parents proud. This ended up being a minor mistake by the time I fell helmetless off my bike unto the street, fucking up my shoulder enough not to be able to swim. The thing about nearing 30 years of life is that you start losing that Wolverine-like ability to heal quickly you had back when you were in high school. Torn ACL? Walk it off. Broken rib? Grow a pair.
The multiple bonfires I have had the honor to attend have all meshed into one at this point. I mean, the formula is pretty simple: unique, eye-catching individuals, mix with dead trees and flames. What could possibly go wrong?
However, I just wanted to hear from him. To absorb some of that wisdom that so surely must exist between his ears, to hear tales of old, fantastical myths of youth remained vibrant. So when I took my chance and bumbled a sorry ass “hello” to the wizard himself, his youthful, Oakenshield force of a voice fell upon my ears I fell silent.
What did I say or ask? i have no fucking clue. Really, I also don’t know what he told me. I was more captivated by the fucking comfort his voice provided me. It was like the gin had worn off or he had cast some spell on me that made me forget the debauchery unraveling behind us and made only his voice present. There was a gentle power to his tone, a wise old figure that still had the spring of youth in his very sinews, in his very beating heart. I thanked him, to which he gave me the subtlest quizzical look before making his way out.
When I rejoined my group of friends and everyone asked what The Wise One had to say, I had nothing. I had a newfound warmth within me, a secret I could only attempt to write about. I still think about it every now and then, wondering if I’ll ever get another chance to hear his words again.
Consciousness
You’re one of the most nostalgic persons I’ve ever met
she whispered as we stood atop the mountains, the shrub-covered trees listening in
I used to get overly attached to little things, like the toy R2-D2 my mother bought me, the wooden boat from the Kinder Egg my abuelita gifted me,
that if I were to lose these (and I did) they would cease to exist, an imprint of an existence unfulfilled
I remember things all too well; the first time I meet strangers, what they wore, what they said and didn’t try to say, if they blink a lot, how they responded to intrusive questions
I bathe in nostalgia, more then than now - does your memory cup keep growing? does it overflow? do spilled memories stay together, mesh, break apart? If you spill it on carpet, does the carpet become sentient?
I cannot do that anymore, I’d be stuck in a cesspool of imagined and fictional lives
like trying to relive a life in a certain place where you know you once breathed in, only to find that everyone has left.
Surely - and you’re absolutely fucking convinced of it - there’s a trace
a carving, a print, a cut, a signature, an indication, a skeleton, a key, a s o m e t h i n g that proves your memory right
but following it means tugging along a blood carrying string to the right ventricle. They haven’t found a way to sow that back on if you decide to tear it off
Hints of Persiana Americana would trigger the ducts along my eyes, petrichor sent me back to cross country Texas days when the floodlights were just turning on, when us centipedes stampeded through the grassy blades
Chapman’s damn voice always grounds me, on Cornwall roads, Connecticut highways, Mexico City lights - play that shit when I’m 2.6 bottles of wine deep and the memory cup explodes in my hand, the shards lodge themselves in the skin
there’s gotta be a german word somewhere for a memory made before it’s lived, if ever