2) Numb

Who will have the time

To read more than a poem

With three simple lines

Well you probably aren’t any good at haikus, but at least you’re still alive. The water sways up and down, the lake’s cymbals drowning out any thought. Thank god there isn’t more than this. More than the infinite particles of smoothened rocks caressing your toes; more than the invisible strings of extra-terrestrial bodies plucking up the tiniest of tides; more than the incessant dancing of luminous beams on your eyelids; more than life.

A month ago, you found yourself by the roadside, one thumb in the air with burnt ochre stains styling your last white shirt. Your Tuesday morning adventures had metamorphosed into a comfortable numbness, and an immediate call to action had appeared in the rusty contents of the toilet bowl. Now called by the light, you’re compelled to form a shaky list in your head. It doesn’t matter if you forget things; all that matters is that you can reclaim your centre of gravity, find a bag, salvage a few items of clothing, and leave with the decaying remnants of your piggy bank. You can’t find any socks so flip-flops will suffice. Still struggling for balance you use your body weight to push the front door open, stumbling out bent in half, almost catching your chin on the warming pavement. Your hands intercede and you bounce back up, finally catching a glimpse of the roasting midday sun. Conceivably too soon, as your stomach beckons for another cleanse. This is surely what shades were invented for, and thankfully for you they’re clasped to the cotton collar securing the head on your shoulders. The light dims to a manageable spectrum and you can continue to follow it. It leads you to the chaotic city road where automobiles, bicycles and pedestrians jostle arrogantly for precious seconds of their own time. Too much action going on, best to walk one foot in front of the other towards calmer streets. Shades of grey, sparkling in the congested hue of daytime, accompany your ears away from the brouhaha of civilisation as an hour passes and the city mutates into a pleasing murmur.

There’s nowhere in particular to go, as long as it’s far away from everyone and the sun can be felt melting unprotected skin — the edge of the world, that’s where you need to be. The coastline is west; that’s the compass you follow. Arriving at a roundabout you see the signs marking the distance and direction to the ocean. Setting aside your backpack, to the satisfaction of your hunched shoulders, you stick out your thumb and wait. Each passing car brings with it a cool flow of air on your dirty fingertips. You’re in no rush to get there now that you know you’ve left. A fading volkswagen kombi minivan approaches from the south, its bug-eyed headlights indicating your exit, and this seems like your chance. It could be the gentle teal tone or maybe the rattling surfboards strapped to its head, but you feel this vehicle will take you to your destination. You venture a foot onto the asphalt, your arm extended across the white lines. The van is slowing and you can perceive the pilot; an older man with a surprising set of flowing amber hair somehow clinging on to his wrinkling skull. He smiles and you’re in.

“Hey there! Where you headed?”

“The ocean, anywhere is fine.”

“Perfect, I’m on my way to visit my husband. He’s been catching some killer waves. Big swell this week so good timing. Would you like some water? The sun’s hitting hard today. It’s always nice to have company on these longer drives. I would’ve been up there already, but needed to finish putting some affairs in order, you know. The ol’ vw needed some doing up too. Her engine isn’t really running as cleanly as she used to. But that’s what happens when you get old, eh. Mine’s certainly not running as smoothly either.”

He laughs at his own joke, remembering to pass you the bottle of water. You would thank him, but he seems to be thoroughly enjoying talking to someone so you let him ramble on. You were in no mood to have a conversation, so the ideal road companion seems to have picked you up. Sometimes things just work out. You look out the window, watching the scenes change as the movie unfolds around you. Mild oranges and deep purples paint the summer fields with van Gogh-esque strokes, as sunflowers twist their heads to follow you while you follow the sun west. The man has quieted down, and granted your permission, has put in a cassette labeled “Beach Tapes, ’69.” Soon you find yourself dozing off to the sweet soul of Otis, the waves flowing in Brian Wilson’s mind, as early McCartney-Lennon words of wisdom are punctuated by the power of Clapton’s creamy tones. The afternoon strikes four to the rhythm of the rattling surfs and, as your forehead vibrates softly on the glass pane, your unconsciousness takes over. When your eyes reopen, the scenery is darker. The colours of the day have subsidised into black and white. You notice the van has come to a slow stop — the change in pace surely having alerted your body to wake. You have arrived. The man points out the assembly of petite white houses, sporadically arranged in some sort of town on the hill across from the beach. You thank him, wish him a good stay, grab your bag and make your way. As you climb the slope, you reach for your phone. It must’ve been at least 8 hours since your last cigarette and your blood demands you find a nicotine supply. Also, it’s definitely time to wash away the end of a happy hour. Your right hand rummages in its respective pocket, then makes its way across to the other. No luck. You swing your bag off your shoulders and pause to inspect its contents: two black underwear, grey shorts, one black and one maroon t-shirt, some cash, a credit card and no phone. Interesting. You’re really going to have to commit this time. The plan is now simple. You’re going to find alcohol, cigarettes, and as a last resort people, to procure the former two.

Approaching the main road, lights slap on in the dusk and you make out a few sparsely populated bars. The first one to your right is playing host to some older locals, their scaly skin reddened by a lifetime without sunscreen. They’re deeply engaged in their dialect, with the occasional word completely escaping your vocabulary. The scene seems quiet and you need a place to crash tonight, so it might be worth a few more steps up the cobblestone path towards a slightly louder terrace on the left. You haven’t eaten anything today, but although your haphazard journey should’ve taken its toll on your legs, the fatigue is only felt in your burnt-out mind. You grab an empty steel chair by a round pearl table for two, pulling the second chair around to drop your bag. The salty air is picked up vigorously by the wind as a reminder that your lungs need some refreshing. A waitress comes over to take your order: a pint of whatever’s on the singular tap and a packet of camels. She smiles politely and moves to the adjacent table, spaced out by a tan parasol. The kids at the table couldn’t have been born before the turn of the millennium. Between innocent eyes and sheepish laughs, the pink-cheeked boys begin learning that the mascaraed girls are just as insecure. You study the table for a few moments and silence strikes while they all pause to absorb themselves in their pocket screens, necks bent down in anguish. They’re a little too young; onto the next table. A group of twelve adults with well-kept homeless beachside looks are hard at work recounting the day’s events, casually swigging their gin and beer. The laissez-faire attitude, complemented by baggy shirts and shorts, and folds by the side of their eyes — only made noticeable by days spent squinting on shiny saltwater — tell you that this group is a prime find. Before you can begin planning your appearance, the waitress is back with the long-awaited goods. Immediately, instincts kick-in: plastic ripped off the pack, cigarette in mouth, lighter activated. You breathe in, feeling the flow through your trachea, then allow the cool beer to flush down your oesophagus and exhale. Another one, and another. You allow your cigarette to rest on the hip of the ashtray and take four large gulps until three-quarters of the lager is gone. None of this grants you more satisfaction than it did Monday night, but at least it’s still the same sensation.

Picking back up your cancer stick, you lean back and twirl it between your fingers. You’re fairly relaxed. So, what’s the gameplan now? You’re usually spontaneous, but this isn’t spontaneity anymore — this is no tomorrow. Looking back at the table your eyes instantly notice two things: a joint is being rolled and three of the girls have just shot their heads back to swallow some medication. This is definitely the group that will procure your unearthly experience; hopefully more intense than the watered-down ones of the past few weeks. You must’ve been looking rather enviously at them because one of the guys has now swivelled around on the hind legs of his chair.

“Hey, you seem new around here. You waiting for someone?”

“No just got here. Am actually trying to find out what there is to do.”

“Well pull up your chair and come meet the crew.”

You lift yourself up, the lactic acid momentarily triggering a slight pinch in your thighs, but the next sip of beer releases it and you drag your chair across. You’re pleasantly surprised by the group’s friendliness, as you exchange names with the five at your end of the table and the first guy presents you to the rest. A quick cheers with the whole table and the other side resumes their conversation. You don’t want to say much about your story, it’s too long and boring, so you lean into light another cigarette and allow yourself to laugh along with the current gossip on who slept with who last night. The waitress comes around, joining in on the conversation and looks over at you cheekily.

“Be careful with these ones. They go a little crazy.”

The table laughs, and your host responds with an arm patting her shoulder.

“Don’t worry we’ll take good care of this one.”

Another round is ordered. The waitress stops to take a shot on the house with the table. Some sort of passion fruit vodka, too sweet for your taste, but you never say no to free liquor. The joint begins circulating and your mind wonders away from your body. A few more drinks. You’re no longer yourself, you now just are. The conversation comes around to you.

“So, go on, what do you do in life?”

“I’m a professional hypocrite.” That always gets a good chuckle out of the crowd. “Nah, I just conduct research on environmental shit. But kinda left my job yesterday. It all seems a little futile, you know. It’s like the prisoner’s dilemma. If no one’s going to sacrifice their way of life, then why should I? We all profit and we all get the same sentence; easy and done.”

“Ah, someone needs a few more drinks to cheer up!” He waves his arm signalling to the waitress another round. “That sounds like interesting stuff though. We need people to start solving this mess.”

You chuckle. “Yeah, but for now I think we can leave that to someone else. Might as well just enjoy what we’ve got left.”

You feel guilty. You know you’re a hypocrite. Acknowledging it doesn’t make you stop though. If you want to reap the rewards from the system, then you have to contribute to it. But why would you contribute to a system actively undermining your environment? When these conversations come up you get the feeling that everyone is looking at you, “why don’t you start solving it then? It’s the race of our lives, start running for us.” The only rationale response is a middle finger and the words “if you don’t fucking do it either, it doesn’t matter…we’re screwed.” So you revert to your usual distraction of making people laugh, minimising your fear and hiding your shame behind another cigarette.

“It’s not all doom and gloom though, when we live in a world where dogs can learn how to surf.”

The end of the table laughs, a shot is drowned, and the conversation moves onto the waves coming in tomorrow. You’ve never been good a surfing, but the powerlessness you feel when the waves send you crashing down on the reef is one of the rare moments where being sober is digestible. One of the yellow-haired girls next to you, not particularly interested in the intricacies of the timings of the tide, strikes up a conversation with you on what to do next. It’s nearing closing time, and she can tell that you’re definitely joining the afters. She begins describing their place — a shack some five minute drive out of town. Shouldn’t be a huge night, but the whole table’s planning on dancing. She explains that the place is perched in-land on a remote lot with no real walls or roof; a sort of open-aired wooden tent lifted on stilts in the crevice of a sandy dune. They’ve gotten new lights recently and no limits on how loud or late the music pounds. You know that’s exactly where you need to be. She offers you a pill, ecstasy by the look of it — although you can never really tell — which is fine by you. Time to get your dancing shoes on. The waitress comes by with a “we’re closing now” round of shots and the card machine. You reach for your wallet to pay up, but the guy next to you puts his hand firmly on your forearm. You won’t be paying tonight. That’s fine by you too. It’s been your motto since college: free drinks, free drugs, never say no. You all slowly make your way out of your seats, ambling towards the cars parked on the grassy banks opposite the town hall. Obviously no one’s good to drive, but, also obviously, you don’t care. You hop into a dusty five-seater hatchback, squeezed in the backseat with the yellow-haired girl lying across the laps. Only one person above capacity in your ride and two in the other; this is more responsible than what you’re used to. You remember times spent with two people in the trunk, one extra per lap and somehow three fitted on the front passenger seat. This will be a safe drive, not that it matters. The drive is already becoming a blur. You notice the roads are windy and remote. You notice the techno beat matching your heart’s bpm. That’s about it and it’s more than enough.

Arriving at the den, the girl sits up and swings open the door as the car’s still coming to a halt. She jumps out elegantly, placing a cute twirl while she pivots around and grabs your hand. You follow towards firelight; a smaller group already present and swaying in the shadows of the flames. Indeed, the shack seems to have been constructed by hunter-gatherers and a diesel generator provides the only source of energy for the flashing LEDs strung between the tepee-shaped roof and a nearby mangrove. One of the guys in the second car goes inside the shack, reappearing with a disco ball which he promptly hangs on a hook midway across the LEDs. The music is unstoppable at this point. You find yourself swaying unconsciously, toes gently floating in the sand that is now sparkled with flowing dots of purples, yellows, reds and blues. Your mind has long departed and all that you’re left with are your senses. You can’t feel them, but they’re present. A cave-human rendered back to the state of survival.

You don’t remember falling asleep, but your ears start picking up on the hushed tones of broken morning-after voices. You lift an eye open. You’re lying on your belly on a twin-sized mattress with two bodies either side of you. The first guy you met from last night catches your eye. A big grin appears across his face as he makes his way over with an upside-down lighter in his hand. As he approaches, he bends over and removes a small white pouch from his pocket. Crouched down to your level, he lightly taps two bumps on the bottom of the lighter — a nostril’s width apart — proceeding to snort through both nasal cavities in one rehearsed movement. He looks at you and indicates the pouch. You nod and follow suit. There’s a light rush to your head, but nothing too harsh and you get up slowly, rubbing the sand off the corners of your eyes. You go over to a little bench by the fireside, still warmed by the embers, and ask the person sitting there if you could bum a smoke. Conversing softly over some acoustic psychedelic folk songs, you ask to show them a new band they might like. It’s a similar mood; genres don’t really mean anything anymore. As they hand you the phone, you can’t help but laugh when you notice the time. It’s 7 AM and the day’s already well underway.

You find out that the shack is a bit of a free-spirited commune, with no rent and no real legal restrictions. That’s all you need to know. A week or two passes, the rhythm of life flowing indiscriminately from night to day to night without any interactions with responsibility. You still reckon you’re being responsible though. You haven’t taken any substance foreign to you and you haven’t been hungover either. Only half-a-pack to a pack a day. That’s good. Tonight a new batch comes in. They’re a little younger and one of them has some seriously disturbed eyes. Interesting. As the night begins to settle, the easy-going conversations morph into more serious questioning on the role of life. Human nature: good or evil. You used to think about these things, but that was before the bliss of ignorance anchored itself to your fibre. “It’s a wonder that we’ll ever figure some things out” vibrates freely out of the radio.

“I love that line.”

“The coke or the Skegess one.”

Laughter fills the space, but you’ve never found yourself funny and now you don’t feel compelled to hide that insecurity behind a fake chuckle.

“Both, but seriously, it really gets you thinking. Like we probably won’t figure out most things, ever. Just like the good versus bad shit.”

You haven’t tried in weeks, but your body forces out a sudden retort. As if it was making one last stand. One final attempt to drag you back into the realm of rationalisation, of thought. The thought isn’t a rosy one though, and your fate is sealed.

“I don’t know if we will, but I do know what human nature is. Human nature is neither good nor evil. It’s seeking pain. We all seek pain, even when we don’t realise it. Take your athletes, your married couples, your druggos, your alcoholics, your priests, your dead-end office jobs, your social media influencers…whatever it is we do, we spend most of our time seeking pain. We then fill ourselves with guilt, and hope we can fix things before death. But really, it’s just how much discomfort can you absorb. All our systems have artificial, human-invented suffering baked into them. Unnecessary suffering albeit, but it’s a symptom of who we are, not active design.”

“Well in that case let’s crack out the cathinones then and try to rewire that brain.”

You allow a fake laugh and nod a “go on then.” Lately, you’ve almost felt sober and when you’re sober it all hurts. Moving way too fast in the brain, even with the numbing brought on by the booze-weed-coke-md-nicotine that usually had nursed you into a manageable state. Your body’s looking for a new paradigm. Welcome to failing addiction you think to yourself. You take a line. You take a second. It’s cut with something because you’re sent into an immediate spiral. Before the hallucinations can kick in you find yourself lying on the floor. As your eyes roll back, you finally accept your fate. For the first time in your life, you just let it go.