clinging to the wreckage

  I found a postcard that I had written 8 years ago, but, of course, I had never sent or delivered it. It was to a girl I worked with in Madrid. She was from Romania but was, essentially, Spanish. She had lived there for many years. I was enamoured, desirous… she was an absolutely spectacular being. The postcard captured some of the beautiful moments that we had shared; breakfast in a tiny kitchen in a quiet corner of the office, sharing cake that her mother had baked, talking at the bus stop, a long romantic walk, arm in arm, a cocktail in the shade under the Madrid sun whilst I touched the skin that showed through a fashionable tear in her jeans. She was magnetic. Absolutely irresistible. Yet, she was also wonderfully helpful and friendly. She helped me to cross-reference and validate the bibliography of my Master’s thesis, a task that I dreaded, and I was eternally grateful for that. Then I left Spain and moved to the USA. I visited her twice after that, but she seemed elusive a...

Everyone simply rushes back to the office… and it is chaos. Everything is chaos. The roads are full, the elevators are full, the toilets are full. It’s a mess and no one is happy. It’s a tragedy that so many live a life of misery because they need money to pay for bills.                     The past dies. During the pandemic in 2020, we grasped for the past and longed to return to 2019. However, by 2021’s end we were forging a new life, a better life. We were returning, more grateful, and we were changing our way of life to match our own goals and desires. We were striving for a balance that would allow us to work and contribute whilst also traveling or spending time with family or doing household chores that would free up more time in the evenings and the weekends. Companies were just as productive, if not more so, and people were happier.           ...

You say ‘I miss you’ or ‘I love you’, but you don’t… you want to feel forgiven for the wrongs you have done. You claim to help people… you simply want to know about their lives, their salaries, their hopes and dreams, and, in the end, you want them to feel that they owe you something. You try to control everyone and everything. You pretend to be calm, charming, and funny, but inside you are burning with rage. It fills you with rage when someone lives differently to how you feel life should be lived. You think that everyone is lazy and immature and incapable of doing the work that you do. But what do you do? It seems your goal is only to control, to seek power, to break up friendships, to kill anything that motivates, inspires, and engages people. I understand now why you voted the way that you did. Selfish people vote for selfish people. Narcissists vote for people who remind them of themselves.                 ...

  03:33am and sleep is merely a vision, a wish, a dream. A day of work lies ahead and yet, here in bed, there is no rest. There was a reconnection, a revival of a love long lost, but it was brief and flickering and, as usual, something popped up suddenly to sever the connection as rapidly as it was regained. The ship sails on, silent and alone in the night. Who would have thought that a fuck in the French night could rekindle so many feelings… from love to despair. And a forgotten one: the feeling of becoming less significant when one’s lover finds someone more interesting via a chance encounter.  

A page, a palimpsest, a text written again and again over the previous text. The story is old and grows out of context as the author ages. It’s one of disappearance. Disappearance of youth and of love. I spend my minutes watching videos of how to configure a thermostat. The rest is all about the end… how every country is ending, the world is ending, how we will all die in chains in a dystopian nightmare. This is what they tell us.   In the meantime, old photos are like a haunting portrait from the Picture of Dorian Gray but, in real life, it is in reverse, of course, the portrait remains the same as we grow older, lose our youth and, if we ever had it, beauty.                     I took a bus out to the Natural History Museum at the foot of the mountains in Salt Lake City, Utah. I accidentally got off the bus too early and had a fair distance to walk in the heat and direct sun. Nevertheless, ...

  The ghost of love lingers in the halls. It was once a living, breathing thing that brought excitement, anticipation, company, and passion, but it is long since dead. Its emaciated ghost haunts me in the dead of night. I rise from my pit of insomnia and take a short walk outside to see if the cat is around, and I find it stretched out on top of a car the same colour as its fur. We stare at each other for a short while and then she stretches out once more as if declaring ‘I am bored now’ and attempts to go back to sleep. Back inside, wide awake, I begin to ruminate on the change of feelings over time and how, now, I don’t even feel the desire to make an effort to try to chat or date or get involved in any way. And yet, I still pine for certain people from the past.  

  10pm, Saturday night. I’m sitting outside with the cat. The cat dislikes people, and I fail to understand them. 10pm Saturday night… why are you driving? Shouldn’t you be having fun at a party? Shouldn’t you be too drunk to drive? If not, if you don’t drink, shouldn’t you be at home? Why is there an endless flow of cars pulling into our parking garage at 10pm on Saturday night? We are not a nightclub. We are not a disco. Why are you in your car? I simply cannot fathom it.                     Giving up on peace, I return to my apartment and hide inside. Saturday night and so many people are out there looking to fulfil their needs. Many looking for sex, many using it in the hope of finding more. Most simply there because they cannot bear to be alone, the way that I am every night. After a few hours out in the afternoon, I am satiated.           ...