June 26, 2012

• Reflections

  "I'm telling you Ben, this guy doesn't know what in the fuck he's doing or he's trying to shaft us." Ze says angrily, loud enough for the person to hear.

  "Do you even know where in the fuck you're going man? You're taking us in the opposite direction and charging us for it, I'm telling you where to fucking go, why don't you just listen?" He continues. 

  "Ummm.... Yes.... Well.... At this point if we turn back it's even longer... So we might as well just continue in this direction until we hit the bridge and then we can continue on." mumbles the taxi driver quietly. 

  Ze lets out an exasperated sigh and then throws up both of his huge arms in the air and says "Fine man, just go." and immediately afterwards leans over to me and mutters about how the driver is playing possum with us. 

  At that moment, I find it strange that right now, I am looking at this giant 6'7 African-American music producer who happens to be my random roommate laughing with so much energy, talking to me while swinging around his hands to emphasize his gestures with a half-empty Red Bull can in hand, but only 30 minutes ago, Ze was collapsed out on the floor completely unconscious in a warehouse concert, lost in a k-hole, requiring 4 grown men to drag him up and seat him on a bench in a panic to revive him before the authorities noticed and got involved. 

  I remember that moment before his collapse too, he grabbed my shoulder and smiled, then muttered something which I couldn't hear over the music. I leaned in closer asking him to say it again, only instead of reiterating his previous statement, he slowly fell forward on me like a falling tree and damn near crushed me with his weight because I wasn't expecting him to fall. Prior to that, I remember wandering around the party lost in my own daze, running into Frank an innumerable amount of times, always asking him what he was on because I was always forgetting.

  I grab him at the shoulder as we're passing by and give him a smile and nod when we make eye contact.

  Frank stares at me dazedly, unable to recognize me right away with the darkness, flashing lights, blasting music, and substance induced hypnosis.

  He slowly grins and brings me in for a hug and then yells through the music, "Hey Ben, how are you?"

  Instead I respond back to him, "Hahaha, what are you on man?"

  He shrugs his shoulders and says, "Everything... Probably coke...." as if it's not a big deal. As if it's a regular thing for us. As if he even knows anymore. 

  But it doesn't seem like he's on coke... He seems too sluggish... Probably K...  

  Nowadays, everything gets passed as everything. Speed for molly, ketamine for cocaine, pipes for ecstasy, bad acid for good acid, portobello mushrooms for magical ones, and the list goes on... In this world of chaos, things have gotten even more chaotic and out of control with hidden paths you used to travel now leading to different destinations, corridors you've never seen feeling eerily familiar, like some sort of twisted deja vu. Filth, betrayal, and desolation now overwhelm the companionship and beauty that used to make up this underground world, not that most of the inhabitants even care anyway because none of them witness it for long once they take the door that goes to somewhere else. Where that somewhere is, remains unknown.

  "Fuck it eh, anywhere is better than here."

  Suddenly I'm brought back to reality, I see Ze screaming at the driver again over the driver's expressed concern on whether or not we, two bum-looking, tweeked out guys that just crawled out of an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn at the crack of dawn, have the money to pay for the ride back to Queens. 

  "What the hell man! You want to see money? I got better than money! Look at this!" says Ze, and he pulls out a massive, filthy roll of bills. 

  "HAHAHAHA! THAT'S RIGHT MAN! I got CASH, baby! Cash is better than money, you know that? Fucking cash is always better than money. You know what I mean man?" And he grabs the driver's shoulder from behind and pats him hard and the driver nervously shakes his head and says he agrees in his rich Spanish accent. 

  Suddenly, my eyes focus and there are two red lights approaching me fast.

  I quickly hit the breaks and come to a skidding halt as the traffic I'm in has just jammed up. I look out into the open window and read the billboard signs off the freeway... I cannot recall the last time I've seen an effective advertisement that inspired me to buy a product....

  Traffic crawls forward slowly in this blazing southern cali heat and I remind myself that I shouldn't be such a distracted driver getting lost in my thoughts, though it is so easy to do with this miserable weather engulfing me inside of this shitty car without AC.

  "That's how people get into accidents and die you know. You've really got to pay attention..."

  I still wonder sometimes how Ze is doing. I wonder how everyone that I met back on the east coast during my brief stay is doing and I wonder sometimes if they wonder how I'm doing. How the fuck did I unintentionally end up in California again? 

  It always fascinates me how lives can become so closely and strongly interconnected for brief moments of time before they release from each other and fire in opposite directions, never to see each other again... Though the encounters may be brief, the powerful experience carries with each person for a lifetime. 

  As I reach my exit, I see a shoddy liquor store on the side and I remember that yesterday I finished the last of my alcohol and play with the idea of buying more... Perhaps another 2 bottles... But no, instead of stopping, I continue to drive past and head towards my apartment, for today at least... And only because the thought of alcohol leaves a bad taste in my mouth... Though I suspect that later on at night, I will probably head back out and make the purchase once my taste buds have had a change of heart.

  "You're a really inefficient person sometimes, you know that Ben? Sometimes the shit you do just isn't cost effective."

  Indeed... I am always running on impulse. Half of what I do in life is determined by a cosmic coin flip. What I eat is a matter of what taste my mind places on my tongue when I imagine the dish laid out in front of me. Vodka... Disgusting.... Hamburgers ... Mediocre.... Peanut butter protein shake.... Acceptable...

  My taste buds just aren't particularly inclined to have anything right now, so I decide to just eat something disgusting and healthy since it will all taste the same anyway, but it wasn't always like that. Things just aren't how they used to be for me a couple of years ago, and I'm still not sure whether or not I miss it. 

  Thoughts of the past leave a nostalgic and bitter taste in my mouth... Much like MDMA... Though the latter provides a mind-numbing and heart-filling experience that allows me to enter the void of my mind to blindly explore around without fear of being eaten alive by the darkness... Almost similar to the taste and feeling one gets on acid, but while molly dissolves my ego, acid enlarges it to the point that I forget what a small, meaningless part of the universe I am... For a few moments in time, I am a god. I can bend time, construct and deconstruct reality at my will... My control over everything is limitless...

  Or is it? Fuck? Are those security guards that are following me? Why do I feel like people are following me? Why is everyone talking on their phone and looking at me out of the corner of their eye? Or is it all in my head? Are they all trying to give cops my location so they can pinpoint me down and take me to jail? Yea, that must be it. I'm not going to jail. Fuck this shit, I'm out of here. 

  I walk and walk and walk. I weave through the energetic crowds like a car that's trying to run from police weaves through the traffic, and soon enough, I'm lost. With this, I'm satisfied. If I don't know where I am, how can they? 

  Immersed in a crowd of strangers dancing to the thumping music, I feel safe, but slowly it feels like everyone is edging away from me, talking and pointing at me, like there is something wrong.

  "What's wrong?" I begin to wonder.

  At that moment, I start to get lost in thoughts and wonder where I am going in life, what I am doing with my life, why am I even here right now at this place? 

  I wander around aimlessly and then suddenly I feel a grab at my shoulder, I turn around and I see my friend... My friend? Really? I suppose.... The definition of that word has certainly changed these last few years.... He's flustered and asking me, "Where the fuck have you been? We've all been looking for you?" 

  Where have I been? I don't remember anymore. Not at will anyway.

   

  My mind picks at the small things in my life, the minor irrelevant details and drives itself into a frenzy second guessing all things previously absolute in my universe. I acknowledge in my brain the substance induced state that I am in and the questionable reality of the thoughts I consider, but in my heart I still feel like it is all real. Perhaps these hallucinations I am undergoing are the actual reality and my normal state is the delusion. I always feel that others are lost in their own fantasies, who is to say I am not as well? 

  No. I stop right there. I do not allow myself to go any further down this thought path. I've been down it before and it leads nowhere, at least nowhere good and in the end, life is life. It doesn't matter if you live it aware of the truth of completely oblivious to it because in the end, after death, all accomplishments, all realizations, all experiences disappear and become lost without a trace like a single drop of water falling into the vast ocean. 

  What really matters is how you feel about yourself, how you feel about life, and how you view it. So regardless of whether you live in fiction or reality, the main point of focus should be to stay positive, to stay optimistic, to brush away your negative thoughts as delusions even if they are not, to embrace your positive thoughts as reality even if they are not because nothing you do in life matters anyway, so the best you can do for yourself is try to be happy with it. 

  • 10:53 pm
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