How do you write something that was never written before? It’s ridiculous when the best of authors have left you with only shit (I mean literally shit) to write about.
I guess I felt somehow inspirational this afternoon and so I wrote a short story titled Ranita. It was nothing like the depressing things I’ve been writing about lately. Sure it was somehow depressing but not to me. It was about this beautiful, careless and free spirited girl I fabricated. She lived in Buzios a small resort beach town two hours from the lively Rio De Janeiro and had just finished high school. Her character was in fact a cheap metaphor of my wilder years that allowed me to let my imagination meet my experiences. In my short story I made use of lengthy description of the positive and negative effects she had on me during my travel and I delicately placed fictional conversations we had. Everything from the words to the places we visited or travelled to were inspired by the many colours and sounds I witnessed to the hundreds of exceptional experiences I collected while in South America. I mentioned the “maconha” smell that followed us, the copious amount of “cerveja” we had to wash down the spicy and salty chicken hearts and the nights we regretted kissing boys with cigarette breaths.
I had an ending too you know. I guess like every other stories I had to have an ending. I needed to have one! As my wild years were slowly fading throughout this trip, my detachment from Ranita became more and more prominent. Our views started to clash, and the chemistry we felt that night we met in Buenos Aires, listening to La Bomba de Tiempo, was diluting into a pool of hate. So Ranita had to die. I suppose I always knew that she (my wild years) would die some day but I thought we would at least have a clear cut goodbye. We didn’t. In my story, my last chapter described how one morning, after the night Ranita told me about her unknown disease, she simply disappeared into the streets of Rio. That same day I made my 24 hour journey back home and a few weeks later, my hair in a bun and my suit well pressed I looked in the mirror to notice my first wrinkle. It was the start of a new life. Ranita was gone, perhaps forever, but she left an immortal trace to remind me of a time when I lived for the experiences that were to shape my years to come.Ranita was probably the best short story I’ve ever written but alas I accidentally deleted it (or did I?). Either way Ranita was never for the public.
It was a Friday night when I met him. His callous face and his grumpy eyes were hardly irresistible. Hazarding through the crowd, he walked towards me as if on a mission. We were face to face, toe to toe within a minute. I was tired and hungry and perhaps profusely ridiculed, standing there waiting on my blind date to make an appearance. And let me tell you that entrance was not the most impressive. Without apologising he said with a stern voice: “Joan I believe?”. We exchanged greetings and the normal polite blablabla of first meetings, except that there was nothing polite about it. His whole demeanour and extreme arrogance made me gasp. In terror.
We entered the restaurant from the kitchen. I glanced at him in silence and thought that perhaps he is in a foul mood because he had to cut short some random sexual intercourse to make it on time for this stupid dinner. That would explain his hair. I could have faked an illness on the spot but I was semi broke and had only milk in the fridge. It was all two minute noodles and water after Rome. But I don’t want to think about Italy right now. I don’t want to remember Fernando. Oh Fernando, what a fucking stupid name. Italy is not big enough for me to find a non typical Italian name. Fernando was just a fling. A fling that got me pregnant and made me endure an abortion on my own with only embarrassment and religious guilt for company. Except I was never religious.
Here I was back in the dating game. But why on earth did I trust a set up from Lilly and Driz for first attempt. What a bunch of morons those two! I love them to bits but they are the most boring and annoying couple I know; heck they are the most boring and annoying couple everyone knows. This situation right now is the exact picture of the outcome of saying yea to “would you like a pair of fucking fucks to hook you up with a weird arrogant imbecile fuck?”. I mean I love them, but they really suck at life. Not their lives just everyone else’s.
The man walking beside me was the most horrible gentleman of all non gentleman. I wonder if perhaps there was a secret society that moulds them. Surely people cannot be born with such fucked up personality. And i was only judging from the silence. i dint dare think of how worst it will get once he starts opening his mouth to me. We were taken to this back area. Dark and quiet. I thought for a split second that I was going to get fucked (I mean literally). Great my vagina had to take one for the team because of my never ending poor financial planning. Still he surprised me that moron. We entered this room made for us. Frankly at that stage I wondered whether I would have preferred getting fucked than having to be endlessly thankful for the effort that was put on this room, just for me.
In the middle under a dimmed chandelier was a round table with a glorious white linen on which two flutes and sumptuous cutlery were delicately placed. It was divine, so refined that I wondered if that hobo was a drug dealer. I guess I should have been mote attentive when Lilly was giving me a full account of this moron’s life, but at that time i didn’t think i would allow her to set me up and also my liver had soaked too much wine to care about what was coming out of her mouth.
I went to see The Perks of being a Wallflower today. Being a big fan of the book, which I read on a bus from San Francisco to Los Angeles this August, I couldn’t wait to get back to my old indie cinema for it. I have missed the real popcorn that smells of butter and the sound of coffee beans resounding as you locate the cinema room. After the emotional movie and half of a large oyster pizza shared with Chris, I remembered that my bookshop man from the corner bookstore had called me while on holidays to inform me of the arrival of my order; ” Shoplifting in American Apparel”. I have to admit that I have heard so much about Tao Lin in the past years and had yet to read one of his work.
I was in no hurry to read it since I just purchased 6 books on sale on Boxing Day and I already chosen “Hollywood” by Charles Bukowski as my first book of 2013. Before hugging Chris goodbye I stopped at the shops grabbed this French butter that reminds me of my childhood, some raisins, bananas, carrots and fresh orange juice; and drove back home with the air conditioner on full blast. I was set for a quiet Sunday night alone. I was wise not to stay any longer since I was meeting with Chris again tomorrow to check out this new sushi train place. I didn’t want to spend the last dollars I had. While driving I was already imagining getting comfortable in front of the tv and watch Archer with some toast and butter and a hot chocolate until I pass out.
You know how they say things never turn out the way you plan it? Well yes I had one of those moments again. While waiting for my bread in the toaster I felt like I was being watched. I turned around and on the kitchen bench was my bag half open with my new purchase peeking out. A new decision was made and an hour and a bit later I felt that I came back to reality after reading the last line of Lin’s novella. I don’t know what it is about books or movies that completely remove me from my environment. I suppose it’s quite normal when you focus on something. But isn’t it weird? Isn’t it weird how your mind can get stuck on something and transcend to another world almost? How in that moment you are lost in something, you are almost unconscious, as in you lose yourself? Does that happen to you or am I just getting insane? Perhaps I black out when I like something, I don’t know…
