THE DISARONNO

THE NIGHT WAS nice. It was lightly raining outside and not too cold inside. Does everybody like that at night? I think the air smells fresher. So, I decided not to kill myself tonight and maybe do it in the morning instead. I might as well ride out the good times and deal with the bad when they come to pass. They come to pass every morning. Waking up is a terrible thing, sometimes.

I decided that to the next person I meet, I’m going to be the best version of myself for them. I missed people. I’ve had groups of friends but they’ve never lasted because I’m essentially a bastard at parties and I retreat into isolation frequently, which I assume makes people infer the wrong things about me in general. It’s not that I don’t like any of the people, I just don’t like listening to them; or being around them. The people themselves though are quite fine – let them be I say.

I went to an Italian bar and ordered a Disaronno; nice and sweet while the rain fell outside. I drank it at the bar and the bar staff seemed to pay attention to that but not confronted by it. The thing is, apparently it’s weird to be at a venue by yourself just enjoying THINGS. It’s probably a crime to be at a bar NOT enjoying things but that’s not where I was. The bartender started speaking to me, probably out of general boredom

“Ya like Italian drinks?”

“I do now” I replied.

She laughed and kept pouring for someone else.

The rain kept falling and I thought about THINGS. Anything anybody could write about may have been touched upon by some other lonely soul out there over the years. Was the crap I write of any use to anyone? I didn’t know, but I hoped it was; I know reading a book or two from the same authors over and over again brought me a sense of peace I couldn’t find elsewhere. There’s something about passing it through your brain that you can’t find anywhere else – the senses are different – if it goes through the brain it has a different impact.

I kept sipping at my drink and ordered another

“You DO like them, yeah?”

“yes, I do”

She poured it really nicely. She made a dance of it under the dim lights of the bar. Behind her were statues and paintings of bullfighters and a whole lot of bottles with labels on them in all kinds of languages I could read but not entirely interpret.

A lot of people aim to learn as much as they can from as many books they can read and I think that’s a terrible aim. To be honest I think it’s absolutely crazy, and I’ve been called crazy on the odd occasion. Those odd occasions are quite frequent by the way.

Two drinks at this bar was enough and I paid my way and made for the door. I stood out on the curb and lit up a cigarette and puffed it out into the sky. The rain caught it and forced it to the ground and then when I ashed the cigarette the ashes became grey ink in the gutter and floated off to somewhere else. I put the butt in the bin and walked up the street with no real purpose or thing to gain. I didn’t want anything. I never wanted anything; and maybe that’s something. But a problem? I don’t know, I think of it not so much as a solution but as a meaningless to a meaningless that both didn’t exist.

There’s inconsistencies in everyone and every thing. People can understand you better if you present yourself like a straight line but people just aren’t like that. We’re a confusion of multiple lines and, while we know where they all lead; we have no idea how far the lines can stretch in any direction. This is the fear principle. The unknown.

So anyways, I was thinking about these things and I thought I’d be a good citizen in the world and, considering it wasn't late, I'd send someone a message who might possibly be more miserable than I to ask if they were ok. There was no reply. When you’re down and out, which in my opinion is most of the time, you don’t want to burden people with your troubles. It’s a whole thing. You say something to them about your life, their eyes glaze over, and then they start telling you about the troubles of their life. Successful conversation is the ability to keep your mouth shut for as long as you can.

Most of the time nods and gestures or simple inquisitive questions following on from the last proposition will do, and then you’re some kind of magic yogi, an all aware person of the world at peace with the animals and the trees – but the reality is that you’re fucking confused and wondering about your own next step in life.

Either everything matters or you feel that nothing matters (which carries with it the reality that it matters to someone else which inherently comes back to you) so ya damned if ya do and ya damned if ya don’t, so to speak. Do or don’t, the wheel will keep spinning and if you like to think there’s a correlation between someone’s ascent compared to your decent then good for you but I like to think you should pull the pebble out of your shoe rather than throw the shoe away.

Is there any wisdom in this? Of course not. Wisdom comes from those without liabilities. Which means it doesn’t exist. There’s just stuff that happens.

I walked home and sat inside. The rain kept falling. The possums weren’t out tonight and neither were the cats. It’s too much for me to get ahead of myself thinking about these things. They pass the time and that’s about it.