That cloud looks like an upside-down cone over south-city. At its edges are sheets of rain that say that while it's not raining here, it's raining like a waterfall just over there. And we're in for it. This one looks like a global warming kind of storm the likes of which we have only recently become familiar with. This is a storm I'm going to have to beat home so as to not get into a car accident amidst thousands of motorists who all have on their mind that this might be Armageddon and it's all our fault. If I can just make it home this last time, I swear I'll never drive my car again. And the urgency makes it seem unbelievable that we can ever walk around as if the world weren't coming to an immediate end. That's God in the clouds, and he's hanging out with the Devil. They worked together before and have been planning a one-day reunion for the rapture. On this day they're doing the same job. One wears a steadfast and righteously dutiful expression on his face. The other's expression's the same, 'cept he's kinda showing off. Fifteen minutes later I'm home and the local weatherman's graphic shows a shining sun behind a few small clouds and droplets of lingering rain. Underneath the fear of total apocalypse is a hope that something is going to change without our having to make it happen. Humanity makes a collective wish for all that revelation stuff to finally happen.
I'm weaving through potholes and we're discussing the effects of living in a world full of stupid people who like stupid things. If you don't believe this is how it is, you've never seen a show called The Real World. On this show are some people who live in a house. There's a room in this house marked only with the word “Invite.” This room is reserved for whoever has gotten lucky on any given night. To be fair, these people are chosen to be on this show because they are stupid, and therefore do not represent an accurate sample of our population. But then, the show has been on and been popular for how many years? If life imitates art (and here art means any fucking show on Mtv) then there are millions of people out there who think it's okay to say things like “Don't take it personal,” and to address strangers as “Sexy ass girl!” The effect that this has on me is of no concern to anyone. To say how this makes me feel would be self-indulgent. Nothing is more important to people than to say how they feel – even when no one cares and no one is listening. Caring and listening are not required of an audience for a personal rant. I'm weaving through potholes and saying that it makes me sad and angry. And god help me if I have to live like this for the rest of my life. It's a bad dream. I'll wake up and Fergie won't have set the bar for emotional depth. But then maybe it's all real and the last place of refuge will be in one or two circles scattered around the planet where people still think Jack Kerouac was kind of full of shit. Maybe it's a matter of getting used to it all. And maybe I'll designate one room in my new apartment as the “Invite” room.
It was on this word-processor that I wrote five five-paragraph essays the summer before my Junior year of high school for the upcoming fall-term's geology class. There are snapshots from that time and they all smell like this room with red carpet and like the keys whose clicking has probably gotten louder in the eleven years that have passed since I stapled those twenty-five sheets together: Cutting grass in long-sleeves, retreating to the dark and cold basement and dying with a can of Pepsi on the fold out sofa. Sitting in class admiring my new Doc Martens with one foot propped on my knee and feeling like this was the most freedom I'd ever been allowed in school or in any setting up 'til this point. Waking up at two in the afternoon, horrified that the leaves on the ground seemed to match the life-cycle of this Saturday and of my shortening time. Smelling those books in the library and sensing their heft. Wishing I had gotten an earlier start. Snapshots are nuisances and they are a curse. I've gotten better at not remembering those things. Those words that people say when they think it won't matter have much better places to hang out than in my brain.
No comments:
Post a Comment