Cama

Hoje acordei e não era eu. Era a minha cama

Não sei quem é eu por mim agora mas o meu corpo continua a levantar-se por si próprio e ir à sua vida.

Veste-se, vê televisão, come, dorme.

Não sei mesmo quem pretende ser mas não me faz o mínimo caso, sou só uma cama, para ele.

Pensando bem nunca prestei muita atenção à minha cama, excepto quando tocava as lençóis.

Como aconteceu isto?

Será que troquei de consciência com a minha cama? Desde quando é que camas têm consciência?

Ou então o meu espírito foi expulso do meu corpo para fazer lugar a uma nova versão de mim. Ou talvez eu seja a réplica.

Mas isso também não explica porque é que agora sou uma cama.

Talvez perguntas inúteis já que nunca vou saber, nem tenho maneira de comunicar.

E não há mudança nenhuma no mundo que indique que mudou alguma coisa.

The most shameful onanism

In the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind there is a scene where the main character, Joel, is trying to hide in his most humiliating thoughts, and finds himself transported in a placetime in the past where he is in his bed as a teenager masturbating to crude drawings of feline humanoids with breasts. Which reminded me, haven't we all? As men, there are points is our lives, particularly in adolescence when our instilled social shame has yet to fully accommodate with what we come to call "our Personality", where we find ourselves working toward an orgasm via stimuli of things, images or thoughts, that later in time seem simply outworldly. Did I really do that? Was I really that sad? Over time an unconcious burrowing of those sickening but overall minor memories make us easily forget about those situations possibly to never resurface all the way to the grave. And yet, they've happened, we forgot them, we wanted to forget them, we didn't try to forget them, but they're gone. Perhaps it's for the best, perhaps there's a safety mechanism in the human brain that makes it simpler to exude these, not really painful but disconcerting parts of our history, these crude rooves on our Starry Night, these typos in the notes of our Lusiads, these out of tune violins on the edge of our ensemble playing the Canon in D, so that in the unlikely event that someone picks truth in a Truth or Dare game (no one picks truth) and ask "What was the most messed up think you jerked off to?" you can guiltlessly say "I don't know" ("I don't remember").

The double Saturday

 "It was Saturday yesterday an it will be Saturday again tomorrow."
The week end is a myth, at first it may seem you have three whole days to (blanket term) "rest", from Friday night to Sunday night, but Friday isn't a rest day, or a rest night, it's a day when you feel the entire weight of the week on you, on Thursday you say it's almost over but by the end of Friday when you can finally put down your bag of rocks and lie down, but you can't, for long, you'll have to go out, they come get you, they see the reluctance in your eyelids, and that's something to ignore easily while dangling the promise guarantied reward of a "good time". Sunday, despite beginning as the original week's end is nowadays the farthest thing from that, it is a gloomy day, a day when it should rain, a day about worrying about the impeding Monday, about doing whatever you were supposed to do Saturday, about waiting, about reluctantly shifting gears back to the useful days. The only true day of the weekend is called Saturday in English, there is nothing better than a Saturday morning, waking up, and having a choice if you want to wake up, and if you chose to, doing nothing for the rest of the day. The most rewarding thing to do is indeed to do nothing, sit or walk around and passively contemplate the bliss of inactivity with the knowledge that tomorrow there's another free day. The next day you wake up again and before the grey Sunday mood begins to creep up to your bed sheets you recall that Monday is a Holyday and that you are, in fact, about to experience another, back to back, Saturday of loafing all over again before a postponed Sunday in the mask of a Monday. That's the defining moment of the second Saturday, the first bite of your almond and chocolate Magnum on a hot Summer afternoon, the first dry headfirst dive into a neighbor's pool, that instant when you realize your favorite song is playing as background music at a loud and crowded mall. You can't help but smile and thank the world for letting you live in it.

Movitation

 

If you feel you've got something to say and you can't get it out.
You stop and write it down, okay?

Let it go

 Have you ever dropped a piece of what you were eating, something small like a tiny piece of tuna, while you were lying down on a sofa watching television, and without averting your eyes from the screen fondled around with your hand until you found it, a smallish thing, like a piece of sweet corn, and popped it into your mouth only to realize on the first bite that you've just munched on a piece of something disgusting that was lying around which you're scared to even imagine what it is, certainly not a solitary grain of rice, and straining your eyes you keep it in your mouth for little over a second before swallowing it in a cavernous fashion trying to avoid at all costs contact with the papilla of the tongue, you're not going to spit it out on your floor, even if it was just a harmless section of a meatball, and it's not dreadful enough to call for a mad dash to the nearest window or sink, exclamation point.
Next time something falls off your plate or hand, something like a stray pea or something, let it go, no, take it and chug it behind you. Now you're safe.

Void Town Saga - The Flamingo Chapter

"Turtle, my friend, I'm in dire straits, as they call it."
What in the world could he possibly be talking about this time. He looks the same and acts the same as he did from yesterday to since the moment I met him. When was that actually? I feels like it might have been yesterday but also months before. I stare at him. It always seems to me as if he acts, or rather exists as if the Future is a foreign concept for him, the past too somewhat, for Gill there is only the Now and a tiny bit of the Yesterday.
"Oh?" I was trying to go for an unpreocupied half-sarcastic tone, but I put so much thought into it that I don't know what ended up coming out, but it wasn't what I'd envisioned... ensounded?
"Oh yes yes." Silence, he stares at the sooty pavement. Do I detect a slight annoyment at me for not blurting out reflexively "Bro! You got nothing to worry about. I got money for the both of us for years to come. Chill." But no, I won't say that, I will not be the one who begins to turn this... is it friendship?... into a relationship of dependence.
"It's no biggie." No trace of dissapointment in Gill's face, maybe it's all in my head. "Just have to make some money and I know just the place, maybe you want to come with? Though you don't need it?" Innocent to the point of rhetorical. Could it be that he doesn't realize that we've been together almost every second since we met. Could he have an inkling that I am terrified of being left alone without him? Well if I'm so thankful I should share my bounty with him. No. I did that mistake in the other world, I won't do it in this one.
"Sure. I've got nothing better to do." That couldn't be more true.
We walk to the place, how he knows exactly where he's going is a mystery to me, all these streets look the same, maybe in the future, if there is one, I'll know these streets like the back of my hand and I won't be afraid of being left behind like now. No dogs today, and few wanderers, I spot one from the other side of the street, an old lady, a rare sight, everyone else I've seen so far have been on the young side, but I guess one can lose themselves at any age, right?
"Here it is." Unsurprisingly it looks the exact same as every other building. How does he know? I'm already annoying myself with my repetitiveness though I'm the only one who can hear my thoughts. Just give in, stop asking questions.
Across the door there is a corridor and what seems to be a guest book. Gill goes over and signs his name, bites the butt of the pen as he thinks for a second, clearly not a germophone and writes down a "2" next to his name.
"Wanna work?"
Uh. "Put me down for... two."
"Alright!" he does "It's always cool to experience new things."
There is a cardboard box with some rectangular papers next to the guestbook, he picks some up for himself and hands some to me. "Just hold one up and wait for them to take it from you." They.
We traverse some curtains to a dark room but the top is lit, if I didn't know any better I'd say it was night and that the room has no roof, but the truth is as usual beyond grasp. Plus it's hard to dwell on that 'ceiling' with the sillouettes of giant flamingo heads jutting out from somewhere in front of the sky. That's what I would call them, flamingoes, big necks coming from somewhere beyond the top of the walls of the room ending in long beaked head with pairs of shiny white unfeeling eyes.
I'm jolted by my paralysis by Gill.
"Hey!" I turn my head to him, torso still frozen. "Heyy! Hold it up! Hold it up!" He's standing with his papers under one and the other stretched up holding a single one up high.
I don't understand anything, I forgot how to speak, I just look at him. Hold it up? Suddenly something whizzes down and yanks the paper out of his hand. I follow it, one of the flamingo heads holds it in his beak, eyes still unfeeling, still shinty, then slowly, in elephant rhythm turns away and walks back to wherever giant flamingo heads live. More are drawn to the room, peeking in from above, like pigeons drawn to an elderly person with bag of breadcrusts on a park bench. One by one they take Gill's papers. "Come on man, hold'em up." He says, with less hope in me. I look at the ream of papers under my arm and take one out and try to read it, the usual giberish. Tentatively I outstretch my arm upwards and wait. Wait. They won't take it? Why won't they... and then one takes it, it violently slips away from my hand. I'm not hurt but am scared as if I was. Reminds me of when someone would take a broken empty lighter and zap you with the flint. I recoil my hand.
Gill's extatic. "Good good." as another paper is yanked from his hand. Good, good, by I can't do it. I walk over to the wall and sit down.
"What's wrong, man?"
"I can't do it."
"You just did, man!"
"I can't."
"I got you down for two more hours, man."
"I can't."
His frustration doesn't last more than a second. Nothing to worry about in his mind, consequences are in the Future. I worry, what will I do, wll I just won't get paid, whatever. No way I'm going to stick my hand out there and feel that sickening feeling again, the force of the beak yanking the thing from my hand, and that breath, no. I'll stay right here. I sit right here.
I spend the rest of the two hours watching Gill relaxedly walk around the room giving more papers, I guess this is his 9 to 5, you can get used to anything, butchering meat, torturing people, I remember that, not for me anymore though. As he finishes his ream and his two hours he walks over to me and whispers "Just put yours down in the corner there where no one will see it." So I won't have to confess, I go over and do what he says wondering if I'm doing something wrong. As we head to the curtains I see the heads pecking at the spot and then I turn away.
We pass the curtains and go over to a metal plate on the wall, Gill presses a button and out come some coins. "Ah! Another day another dollar!" He smiles, moves away and motions me over. I press the button, and out comes the same amount of coins.
"Heyy! Look at you!"
I look at the coins in my hand, then stretch it over to him.
"Take it, dude. I don't need it."
He shakes his head no and pushes my hand softly away. "Keep it, man. You've earned it."

Void Town Saga - Warehouse Chapter

Gill guided me to a street with a big door. It had a big valve in the middle instead of a doorhandle. He pushed it open. Inside the lights were very dim. There was nothing else besides a huge pile of stuff. What kind of stuff was too dark to see. "Take one," he says. "What," I think. I walk closer to the stuff. Him too, he picks up some of it and shoves it into his jacket pocket. I looked at it more closely, bending down a bit. They're cigarette lighters, mostly, but here or there some TV remote controls. I looked around, half-confunsed. "Here." He hands me one. It has some kind of drawings on it but it's too dark to the them. "Do you want another one?" "Yes..." I say instead of "What for?" I stared at the lighter and put them in my pocket. I froze and took another look around. Then I asked "What is this place?" "This place? It's the warehouse." I stared at him. "Why did you bring me here?" He was slightly surprised. "I thought I'd show you around. Thought you'd like to know where some places were, some spots..." Would I? The matter-of-factly way he answered made me feel stupid for asking. "...Thanks, I'm... grateful," "Don't mention it." Should I ask the obvious? "...Where did all this come from?" "No idea." "Do you come here often?" " When I'm in the area." A bit of silence. "Maybe take one more, you never know how full they are." I looked at him lost. He seemed to know what he was talking about. I thought for a second, then bent down wordlessly and put another lighter in my pocket, a blue one. He started to turn around towards the door. I followed him.