clinging to the wreckage

You took a piss on those Spanish streets whilst I waved down a taxi. I had to wave at everything that moved because I was too drunk to differentiate between taxis and cars. We’d been drinking with the Spanish punks again and it was just you and I trying to make our way home, a Frenchman and an Englishman. All the while I thought of the lovely French lady who’d been helping me to settle in Spain. She was helping me to do more than settle… she was making me fear leaving. Anxiously I spent my time counting down to that dreaded moment… and I’d only just arrived.   By the first or second day of the second week of my stay she haunted my every thought. We exchanged music, I gave her some English and American punk and acoustic rock, she gave me a variety of Spanish pop and rock… she was so excited and spent the day at work listening to what I’d given her. I spent large parts of the weekend listening to what she’d given to me. My heart beat so fast as I listened and th...

Two weeks in and I’m in love. Another hopeless case. Another married woman who is merely trying to be my friend. But, oh, how majestic she is. You know the feeling you get when you walk along with someone and feel so proud to be next to them? You feel so hopeful that people think this person is your partner. And it’s pathetic. She’s just trying to be helpful and kind… and, after two weeks, I feel like I want to suggest that we run away together and never resurface. The truth is I am lost. I’ve been thinking of dramatic escapes and endings. I’ve been wondering if Madrid should be the final chapter. I have nothing to go back to. I have nothing to stay for. I have nothing to go anywhere for or do anything for. I have had a good time and I have travelled. But I have suffered tremendous heartache and emotional anguish. I have struggled to belong from the moment I first went to nursery school, and we all made cardboard dinosaurs, right through to my life in South Africa...

Yesterday the city of Madrid dazzled and shone and impressed me endlessly with its character and culture. There was beauty in excess and I felt as if I was skipping from café to café, and at each I would rest to cool down with beer. There I’d drink in the sights and sounds of the alleyways and streets whilst imagining fantastical events. Then, today, having spoken to my parents for one hour through which my mother cried, I went back into the city and it seemed dull and empty. The people seemed slow and ugly and rude. I felt they were staring at my flip flops and were repulsed by the very sight of me. Yesterday I felt athletic and handsome. Today I felt fat, ugly, and old. I started to lose my voice again… it must be an anxiety thing. Wherever it is that I may roam on this planet it seems that I am not quite able to join in on a comfortable scale. I feel like the outsider everywhere and I feel like I am lost. Forever alone and uncomfortable in my own skin...

I read The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus and never could quite get into it. Then I travelled to Madrid and met a French woman of the same name and it made me want to read everything that Camus had ever written. When she walks into the office in the morning it is as if someone turns on all the lights and the sun comes out for the first time. She walks by with relaxed confidence and it is impossible not to watch her as she elegantly and gracefully glides to her desk looking more beautiful with every step that she takes. I want to scream out her name and beg her for kisses. I want to talk to her all day long. We went for lunch and I could not help but smile all the way through. Every word she says is funny, she is a natural entertainer. She tries to teach me Spanish but I want her to teach me other things… like how to love again.

Their photos and the photos of their friends resemble a model shoot for the army of Christianity. They are like sex symbols of the censorship board. They do not question anything, they do not challenge anything, they simply accept tradition and dogma and subscribe to all of the passed on and passed on values… still clinging to those 1950s housewife dreams of happy shining colourful (but only one skin colour) families and homes. Husband goes out and makes a fortune. Wife stays home to cook, clean and tend to the children. They pray to god to give thanks for their wealth. Wife doesn’t know how many people husband exploits during the day nor the number of women he fucks from the office. Husband doesn’t know how many men wife fantasises about fucking while she’s at home all day. None of it really matters as long as the public image, the glowing family portraits, the visible exterior shell says ‘we’re rich, successful, happy, and we love our god, our country, our home,...

In Spain and, as one might expect, the emptiness that never leaves my side has followed me. Along with emptiness is the fresh pain from the recent handing over of my beloved cats and I start to ask myself what I am doing. I start to question the selfishness of us all as human beings. Animals depend on us and we simply treat them like commodities. Our own ambitions and desires push us on always and what, ultimately, is the point of it all? The beauty of our animals is the fact that they do not seek change or progress. Their only ambition is to eat and sleep. They do not ask questions, they do not judge, they simply love. And, their reward? Rejection. Human beings are not advanced creatures… we are flawed in our selfish ambitions. There is so much that we could learn from the peace and calm and silence of animals.  

Yesterday I handed my cats over for adoption. I did so in the utter belief and conviction that it was what was best for them. Little did I realise the heart-wrenching agony that was to follow. I left the protection league retching and sobbing. I came close to crashing my car a number of times and even started to wonder if crashing my car might be for the best… the only way to escape the intense pain and sorrow. Separation and divorce were minor trivialities in comparison to yesterday. And, today, to awake to this empty home where for the last eight years they greeted me each morning with a little sound and a hug and then played excitedly once I’d fed them before lazing and sleeping most of their day away, was sheer agony and emptiness. They were my companions. Unconditional was their love. No matter what, they were there beside me… loyal and true… and I gave them away. I feel like a guy who accidentally murdered his family. In fact, it is worse than murder. More like a guy who let his...