(no subject)
In which a sunrise is watched and things surprisingly don't fall apart; they just fade away.
I am sitting on the balcony of our apartment. It's five in the morning, and the rooster down the street has been crowing for the past three hours, either because he's inflicted with a deadly case of Macho Syndrome and believes that the sun will not rise without his call, or he's preparing for the apocolypse and the day the sun jumps into the sky two hours early with a cartoonish grin and large black shades.
I am sitting on the balcony of our apartment, and there is a cigarette in my hands and I should have gone to sleep hours ago. But tonight once again resonates with the pop of beer cans and I've spent too much time watching myself slowly die to go to sleep now. So I say just that, I say,
"I wish I could eliminate the need for sleep. I wish I could just make a drug that would get rid of sleep. I've wasted so much of my life just sleeping, wasting it away. All the books I could have read. Languages I could have learned. Conversations I could have had," but I only mean it on a slightly superficial level because I've given up on the time I've wasted. It won't come flying through the window any more than my former pet goldfish will come back from the dead, grow legs, and take me out to dinner and a movie.
"Cocaine," he says, pointing out the obvious, "Heroin. Methamphetamines,"
"I meant something that wouldn't kill you in that "War Against Drugs" pamphlet sort of way. Jerk," I say, but I'm laughing because I knew he would say that, I was waiting for him to mention illegal drugs, and I still want to hit him for being so damn pretentious.
"Yeah, there were times there where I didn't sleep for three straight days."
"That's insane," I say quietly, "I like sleep. I just wish I didn't need it."
"You don't need sleep," he says, perfectly certain that a person does not need sleep.
"Yes, I do. I've tried living without it. I start seeing things. I can't function on less than four hours a night," In saying this, I realize that I am so desperately glad that it's true, just so I can prove him wrong. I feel so little next to him, and then I realize that I don't care, I don't care at all, and I love this ambivalence, this feeling like a novice at my own life, so I put my feet up and sink back into the oblivion that comes from living in one single moment.
The sky is starting to lighten, becoming discontinued Crayola shades of pink and periwinkle. "We should watch the sunrise," he says.
"Really? Do you really want to? Because I am so down for that. I love the sunrise. Oh man, I love my life."
And it's true, I do love the sunrise --- and my life. The sunrise is for those suffocating hiccups of nostalgia and long conversations that last from midnight until the surreal hours before and after dawn; for those moments where nothing has to be said because everything is understood. And for falling in love and those things that you later wish you hadn't said because in the dim light before dawn, everything is illuminated by these perfect soft pastels until five minutes later, when the sun comes out and bleaches it all into the same sad cliche reflected on every face after an hour of living.
He is twenty-three but looks thirty, and his eyes are this piercing shade of blue and so intense that I can't look at them for longer than three seconds without feeling as if I'm either staring or intruding. But I can't decide what I think of him, and I'm staring anyway. I think I like him. I think he's the most intelligent, arrogant person I have ever come across in my life; confidence like that makes me nauseous. How can anyone be so right so often? How can anyone be so certain that they will be so right so often? Confidence like that makes me turn shades of green with envy. He gives the impression of living slightly outside the realm of predictable human action, and I'm playing this pointless tug-of-war battle in which I try to balance his stance with the appropriate action on my part.
But the more we drink, the more he talks, and I have decided to throw away every first impression and reservation because he really isn't just conceited, and he definitely isn't boring. I am wondering if I should trust him or not, but I notice that for the first time in months, I am not revoltingly bored with simple conversation.
"Really," I say, "Well, I'm offended that you think my life has any less meaning because of my lack of belief in god."
"Life is horrible," he says, "Life is absolutely horrible. And as bad as my life has been, there are people out there who have had it so much worse. How could you not believe in god? Why would you even be alive?"
"Why would the belief in some higher power make you want to live any more? Life is strange. You stay alive because, in being alive, you know that there is hope for the next day. I mean, existence is better than non-existence; at least then you have a chance for something."
He tells me that I am still young, that I still have a "light behind my eyes."
"No," I tell him. I must think I'm fifteen again, "I don't. Not more than anyone else."
"Yes you do. And it's beautiful. You haven't yet been beaten down by life." And for some reason, this is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
"What makes you think that's going to change?"
"Oh, it will. You'll end up dragged down by life, little by little, and then that light will go out."
"Why can't I just always love my life?"
"No," he says, after a second, and he has this way of making everything he says become an absolute truth. So when he tells me this, I'll believe him. And when he tells me his stories, I'll believe them. And when he tells me that he'll fly kites with me, I'll believe that. And I'll believe that he's a good person, that he doesn't do anything halfway, that he'll write books and be a fabulously conceited English professor.
But really, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what we said, or what we did, or what I believe or don't believe because there is no point to this story anymore.
It's always the ones that "got away" that you'll wonder about. The kids you never called. The friends you let fade into another good memory. Those distorted yearbook faces that disappeared into a "KIT" and "Have a Great Summer!" and the last memory you had of them, asking you for an extra pencil. And I hate endings almost as much as I hate mediocrity, but the sun is up now, and time has reached that ten second period between the beginning of the day and the end of the night: the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the A and the Z. And there is nothing left; nothing that is multiplied by more nothing, and I'm gone, and he's gone, and we're gone and all that is left is the memory of this one time that I met someone real.
I am sitting on the balcony of our apartment. It's five in the morning, and the rooster down the street has been crowing for the past three hours, either because he's inflicted with a deadly case of Macho Syndrome and believes that the sun will not rise without his call, or he's preparing for the apocolypse and the day the sun jumps into the sky two hours early with a cartoonish grin and large black shades.
I am sitting on the balcony of our apartment, and there is a cigarette in my hands and I should have gone to sleep hours ago. But tonight once again resonates with the pop of beer cans and I've spent too much time watching myself slowly die to go to sleep now. So I say just that, I say,
"I wish I could eliminate the need for sleep. I wish I could just make a drug that would get rid of sleep. I've wasted so much of my life just sleeping, wasting it away. All the books I could have read. Languages I could have learned. Conversations I could have had," but I only mean it on a slightly superficial level because I've given up on the time I've wasted. It won't come flying through the window any more than my former pet goldfish will come back from the dead, grow legs, and take me out to dinner and a movie.
"Cocaine," he says, pointing out the obvious, "Heroin. Methamphetamines,"
"I meant something that wouldn't kill you in that "War Against Drugs" pamphlet sort of way. Jerk," I say, but I'm laughing because I knew he would say that, I was waiting for him to mention illegal drugs, and I still want to hit him for being so damn pretentious.
"Yeah, there were times there where I didn't sleep for three straight days."
"That's insane," I say quietly, "I like sleep. I just wish I didn't need it."
"You don't need sleep," he says, perfectly certain that a person does not need sleep.
"Yes, I do. I've tried living without it. I start seeing things. I can't function on less than four hours a night," In saying this, I realize that I am so desperately glad that it's true, just so I can prove him wrong. I feel so little next to him, and then I realize that I don't care, I don't care at all, and I love this ambivalence, this feeling like a novice at my own life, so I put my feet up and sink back into the oblivion that comes from living in one single moment.
The sky is starting to lighten, becoming discontinued Crayola shades of pink and periwinkle. "We should watch the sunrise," he says.
"Really? Do you really want to? Because I am so down for that. I love the sunrise. Oh man, I love my life."
And it's true, I do love the sunrise --- and my life. The sunrise is for those suffocating hiccups of nostalgia and long conversations that last from midnight until the surreal hours before and after dawn; for those moments where nothing has to be said because everything is understood. And for falling in love and those things that you later wish you hadn't said because in the dim light before dawn, everything is illuminated by these perfect soft pastels until five minutes later, when the sun comes out and bleaches it all into the same sad cliche reflected on every face after an hour of living.
He is twenty-three but looks thirty, and his eyes are this piercing shade of blue and so intense that I can't look at them for longer than three seconds without feeling as if I'm either staring or intruding. But I can't decide what I think of him, and I'm staring anyway. I think I like him. I think he's the most intelligent, arrogant person I have ever come across in my life; confidence like that makes me nauseous. How can anyone be so right so often? How can anyone be so certain that they will be so right so often? Confidence like that makes me turn shades of green with envy. He gives the impression of living slightly outside the realm of predictable human action, and I'm playing this pointless tug-of-war battle in which I try to balance his stance with the appropriate action on my part.
But the more we drink, the more he talks, and I have decided to throw away every first impression and reservation because he really isn't just conceited, and he definitely isn't boring. I am wondering if I should trust him or not, but I notice that for the first time in months, I am not revoltingly bored with simple conversation.
"Really," I say, "Well, I'm offended that you think my life has any less meaning because of my lack of belief in god."
"Life is horrible," he says, "Life is absolutely horrible. And as bad as my life has been, there are people out there who have had it so much worse. How could you not believe in god? Why would you even be alive?"
"Why would the belief in some higher power make you want to live any more? Life is strange. You stay alive because, in being alive, you know that there is hope for the next day. I mean, existence is better than non-existence; at least then you have a chance for something."
He tells me that I am still young, that I still have a "light behind my eyes."
"No," I tell him. I must think I'm fifteen again, "I don't. Not more than anyone else."
"Yes you do. And it's beautiful. You haven't yet been beaten down by life." And for some reason, this is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
"What makes you think that's going to change?"
"Oh, it will. You'll end up dragged down by life, little by little, and then that light will go out."
"Why can't I just always love my life?"
"No," he says, after a second, and he has this way of making everything he says become an absolute truth. So when he tells me this, I'll believe him. And when he tells me his stories, I'll believe them. And when he tells me that he'll fly kites with me, I'll believe that. And I'll believe that he's a good person, that he doesn't do anything halfway, that he'll write books and be a fabulously conceited English professor.
But really, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what we said, or what we did, or what I believe or don't believe because there is no point to this story anymore.
It's always the ones that "got away" that you'll wonder about. The kids you never called. The friends you let fade into another good memory. Those distorted yearbook faces that disappeared into a "KIT" and "Have a Great Summer!" and the last memory you had of them, asking you for an extra pencil. And I hate endings almost as much as I hate mediocrity, but the sun is up now, and time has reached that ten second period between the beginning of the day and the end of the night: the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the A and the Z. And there is nothing left; nothing that is multiplied by more nothing, and I'm gone, and he's gone, and we're gone and all that is left is the memory of this one time that I met someone real.