I

Her whole demeanour is spooky, uncanny. She haunts the streets of this cold, gray, lightless valley; wandering, lost, drinking tall cans of strong, cold beer talking to invisible people. She wears a thick leather jacket over a dirty pullover; moth eaten purple tights, and tattered army boots. Her filthy dreads are held together by cheap-looking pink and fuschia ribbons, exposing unattractive oblongs on her skull. Her skin looks old, brown; saggy and full of wrinkles, like something left out for too long. A nauseating waft of putrid air hangs around her. The eyes are bloodshot and irritated, gazing aimlessly as she dances drunkenly in the subways, hips moving, knees bending, arms jerking awkwardly as remote music inside her head plays. Civilized passengers on the subway carriages look her over in awkward discomfort, embarrased of her existence–as if they had some fault in it–yet she is elsewhere and always has been.

II

We walked along the streets of another city, far away from her, speaking of things which friends speak of; enjoying. Someone turned around, said goodbye, and lit a cigarette as we headed towards the concert; footsteps clickety-clacking on cobblestones, amid ambient sounds of a city night. We do not see our friends very often, but when we do, things are lovely. You remember what a friend is, and realize how horrible war and money are to deprive one of such things as simple as friendship. We hug, we kiss fondly, we shake hands, we eat toghether; we leave, we look for jobs, for something else; we tire of filling out so many forms and applications, of being turned down, of watching others’ whine of the troubles of triumph and fame. He then turns around and walks towards other friends, other handshakes, someone else’s laughter; drinks at another bar with stories much different than ours; sees places and events which we ignore. He lights a cigarette, cocks his head, and turns around, his shoes clack-clack on the stones, which are older than the city itself.

III

A television screen glitters in the lobby of the hotel; teams of armoured gladiators play a game with too many rules and too much paraphernalia; but they like that kind of thing here, it shows they are wealthier than the romans ever were. The taxi drivers in this city are mainly hispanic (although sometimes they are black; they are never, ever white), they speak an english very similar to natives: a blunt, sing-songey lilt. They charge a lot, the taxi drivers, but the distances here are inmense: it is definitely not a place for walking. Someone asks if I smoke ‘just’ cigarattes. I fail to see the inference, and ask “as opposed to what?”. She laughs.

Their yachts rest like unused toys on the dull, man-made lagoons and canals; the shapes of the vessels are futuristic and vaguely outdated at same time, in the way designs for futuristic machinery in films look ten years later. The yachts have strange antennae and engines, yet no sails. The ships themselves seem to be parked forever, as if they really were appendages planted on the water; they move only occasionally with tideless waves. There is a girl I find very attractive; a beatiful jewish sophisticate; she even refers to the city as if it were a tropical version of The City. I remind her politely that it isn’t. She laughs and returns my credit card telling me she has put my receipt in the bag.

This entry was posted on Miércoles, Enero 6th, 2010 at 20:21 and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.