Sobriety checkpoint

Walking along the pavement, I zig-zagged across a couple of quiet lanes, leading away from the otherwise buzzing market place to the cozy little wine bar along a block of boring bank outlets. Bankers were clocking off and locking up for the day. Each were setting off towards different directions. They looked up, only for a moment, gestured a quick goodbye and hurried off in their vehicles. Not unlike most evenings, the bar was already feeling jazzy as I made my entry. And like most evenings, I was greeted by familiar faces, mostly of regulars who stopped by to chill out before heading home.

It’s seven and I was winding down. With the stirrings of complex tannin of oak and berries, the sting of inebriety, I was detached from the laughters and intense conversations beleaguering me. It was an alluring moment, the swinging between soberness and drunkenness, which is enough to keep me from regretting my existence.

I twirled the glass and inhaled. Then I pictured Joe. I have never known anyone by that name. Joe, after an intense session of love making, is lying on his partner’s bed. He is visualizing each of his partner’s movement in the shower as he listened in to the sound of changing rhythm of water rushing down onto the bathroom floor after coming in contact with the body. He could feel the erectile strength returning to his penis. He savored his thoughts. From the outset, it was the secrecy of the relationship that was appealing to him, as if it was the only truth he could live by. Joe had met his partner months ago when he was having martini at the hotel lounge. It was then, when the prostitute approached him that he suddenly felt the strength to be weak.

Back in the room, Joe suddenly thinks of his wife, who is like him, also lying on a bed alone. He throws on his clothes, left some money on the bed and headed for the door. It’s almost 4 in the morning. But he knew very well that he will come back again.

Another bottle of boujalaise would be just fine. Then it’s time for me to go, though it’s still way before midnight. Looking over to a mirror across the table, I examined my face and I began to wonder how long more before I should start with some facial work to keep the lines from being visible to others. I looked beyond the reddened epidermis which wraps over the essence of me, a superficial representation of me, beneath which a soul rests. That surface which I have come to be recognized, that which is constantly rejuvenated and maintained at its best, for all to see. And I thought about how much my face reveals the real me? It’s a thought that is intoxicating in itself. It was this thought that has aroused a sense of suspicion in me, and this suspicion was what gave birth to the character of Joe.

Filed under: polaroids

Memory and Fiction

 

It’s like one of those nights. I’d go for a beer after work and head home for my dinner, then go right off to sleep. You know, it could be one of those days when you probably are just feeling tired and you hope that all things will be okay when you wake up to a new day. Okay, old script. Oh, but I am not thinking of a mystical kind of grace that dawns in the morning sun which takes away the heaviness. Not like that. But perhaps a kind of unattainable grace, unforeseeable, beyond deconstruction. I called my friend and put off our appointment. What do you do when you feel that the world has continously walked out on you anyway?

Sometimes you want to tell the world that you intend to walk out on it. It feels good, for a while.

I stripped and stepped into the showers. The water was cold. A sensation I don’t really enjoy. But the change of temperature was helpful. I’ve ordered pizza and left it on the table. Outside, the TV was on, with the local news beaming.

I sat down on my couch. Gotham city is frantically seeking out a savior. The decadence of the city has reached its peak. Even law enforcers has become a B aN e to its people. The hero fell. Law and morality was indeed upheld by a lie. The white knight has re-emerged. But is this a knight the city needs or one which it deserves?

I don’t even remember how many times I dozed off on the couch. I got up. And found myself a new script. I need to help save Gotham City.

Filed under: polaroids