Home from a quiet Sunday close, a night like any other, unremarkable, routine, dull. In my room now listening to chillhop, my room a tiny speck of blazing light on the shores of the vast dark cosmos, my computer monitor bleeding coruscating light, the lo-fi vibes drifting gently, my desk cluttered, my clothes scattered, the darkest dark waves outside the window. One planet alone, winking into nothing. Are there other souls out there on other planets, in other realities, sat mushed against rainslicked windows, gazing out, dreaming of more?
This is the kind of evening that used to be made for whisky. Thick rimmed tumbler, scolding pleasure, the biting amber flames warming all the way down. The romance, the nostalgia, the promise of more than could ever be delivered. And it never was delivered, that sadness when you felt you had peaked and the wave had crashed back and you had never quite got there. But in that moment, with the spirit flowing, the bottle still weighty, the edges softly rounded, you could have sworn there, just for an instant, that you were close, that for a heartbeat you'd been running parallel, that your stream was beside the universal, that you could have reached out your hand and touched eternity. But now it was over and you were still corporeal and your goopy human bones were aching with the beginnings of hangover, and there was nothing to be felt but soil and matter and silt. And on, to the next time.
None of that tonight. Mug of black tea and posting on my blog (though I don't feel like it, though the words aren't alive like I want them to be), and then sober sleep ready for the next day. No making a beast of myself to forget the pain of being a man. Just working solemnly, quietly, to make being a man a touch less painful.
By the smallest of degrees I think it is working.
No comments:
Post a Comment