Heading west...

I saw the snow begin to fade and the waters begin to move. The white spots that had glistened upon the rocks like stars on a clear night became scars and valleys of barren earth. The pine needles browned, as if as January was replacing Christmas and life became sober and parched. I had left the Rocky Mountains, crossed the Great Divide and headed west.

My fellow pilgrims and I filed into a narrow bus, where a short, squat driver conducted an orchestra of sneezes and coughs through a ten-hour performance, stopping only to allow you to squeeze out a piss when you didn’t need one and undergoing a never-ending quest when you were desperate.

Finally, the coach pulled into the station. There were plenty of people milling around that had nowhere to go, as is the case with all places that are supposed to get you somewhere. But the night was warm, and the blue lights of the closed office towers provided a dim comfort.

I jumped in a taxi and slumped, exhausted in the back. The driver glanced once in the rear view, adjusted the volume on the radio a couple notches and spent the rest of the journey eyes fixed on the empty streets.

The following morning’s wander round the unfamiliar city provided a rude awakening from the hip parade I had dreamt about the previous night. Completely ignorant to my surroundings, I headed east and soon came upon an area ripped straight from an apocalyptical future. For two miles straight, I paced through all kinds of homeless and hopeless. Most lay slumped against desolate shells of closed shops, whilst those that aimlessly zig zagged past me muttered frantic sounds against a howl of distant sirens.

For 25 minutes straight the film looped, each individual character and story merging into an endless set of litter and needles. No one bothered me; I’m ashamed to say that I’d never been more aware of the money in my wallet, the phone outline in my front pocket, or the suspicion throbbing in my temples. Barely a mile away such needles would be replaced with the green, coniferous alternative the region portrayed on countless postcards, magnets and screen savers but I now realised that was only one side of the coin that I had decided to give to whichever vagrant that most tugged on my heartstrings.

I guess it’s impossible to know where to start when wishing you could do some good. Bad news looping on a 24-hour reel can end up streaming free like a busted cassette, until you can’t be fucked to reach for a pencil and throw the whole damn mess in the boot of your car. It’s easy to notice one person displaced from the world as you experience it, but two miles of them? You find yourself pig headedly rushing through like a crooked policeman in a traffic jam.

Any hope I had for happiness in the city evaporated. The promise of a beautiful life, forever brushing against my fingertips via the screen of my phone alluded my day-to-day existence of bus passengers, busy passers-by and unimpressed boss men. The knowledge that escape had left me trapped once more ferociously ate away at me.

She left. The worm rotted the apple, leaving the core unable to hold everything together, dropping the decaying fruit to stay rooted to the city’s tree, supported by other branches from other households. Soon the homeless parade I had guiltily rushed through on my second day would seem the only option for the husk of my existence. Without the life I had previously built I was a slug, forced to crawl out in the rain and forever banished from direct sunlight. The slime I left behind serving as nothing but a blot on the carpets of those I loved but no longer loved me.