Prosper Mérimée, 1845

Desire is a capricious thing, it plays with the reality, then it fucks you. This is a dual layer problem. You see on the tele the glamorous side of the life that is in the well-to-do Spain, and you imagine how good it would be living like that there with a nice, beautiful sheila. Then you proceed with seeing yourself there. Shortly after that, you actually believe that you're there, and so you're filled with a sensation of euphoria.

But of course, you are well aware that it's thousands of miles away. And the thing is you are happy about where you're at. You found yourself falling in love with this country full of chaos, misery, poverty and state corruption, yet populated by lovable people. O lovable, yes, you met her, and the scouts report that she's without commitment of any kind. Judging from her attitudes and the way she acts you can sense a trace of happiness. You are exhilarated.

Then desire makes its way into your thoughts, bringing along indecision. Experience teaches you that patience is a virtue, yet it also tells you that you are old enough to get serious about it before it's too late. This battle between fantasy and reality takes place every time you are close to felicity, and the result of the conflict is always you licking your wounds by yourself. This time around, however, you've decided to let fantasy controls you no more and set foot on solid ground.

Mercy Corps

You saw the few lines describing the projects you have with other NGOs in Central Asia - somewhere you always wanted to go because it fascinates you - you sat there staring silently and motionlessly at the monitor for a moment, romantically imagining yourself in the steppes, and then your thoughts found themselves back to the present moment, and to the fact that you'll inevitably leave this place before Christmas.

The connections you've made so far will be abandoned - thoughts like these make you wonder what is it you want. You then figured that you're not made for wandering, but staying, for that's what your heart desires. Nevertheless, you're also aware that you've experienced the same kind of feeling before, and not so long ago. You know that you are adaptive, but that doesn't lose the fact that the past stays within you all the time, and you sense the beauty because the beauty of a landscape resides in its melancholy. What's curious is that part of you longs for moving around, yet the other half aspires the contrary, it's as if there's a never-ending struggle happening right inside you and you're constantly bleeding for the wounds they cause.

A Contrast

When you speed past them in your car the question just pop up: am I worthy of all this?

Quite often you see these lower caste of the Eskimo guys on long stretches of the highway pushing their carts just to get someone to buy their ice creams.

There're people bearing the sun standing in the middle of the road cleaning your windscreen, selling you water, fruits, beans, pets, steering wheels, sun glasses, cell phone cases, slingshots and whatever else you can imagine. There's no age limit in this booming industry.

You used to wonder why can't you do something about it, but then you came to realise that by simply buying ice creams from them don't really change the situation and that after a while you just don't see them at all. You knew the world is not fair, but there are times that you just feel more so than ever. You should rejoice at your good fortune. There's a life, you think, and here's mine, two totally different worlds coexisting within such a short distance. At this, you can't detect a trace of smile on your face.

Overlaption

The remembrance of Nuria and the Spanish department transported you back to that place and time, and at that place you would remember - with fond memories - Nicaragua. So, while you're still in Nicaragua, you experienced a sensation of being at the same moment in two places separated in both space and time. This mixture of times confused you for a moment, therefore you were somewhat at a loss, and for a fraction of a second you actually thought you were back there thinking about where you are at right now. But, of course, that only lasted for a fraction of a second. What dawned on you was that you will inevitably miss this place, hence you were happy to be here.

Murmurs

The skeletons of two adults and two children lie curled-up, perhaps to save space. Alongside them are pots: gifts placed in the grave to use in the afterlife.

I wondered what were their stories and what will be mine.

The Analysis

While you were not saying a word or looking at her, you were trying to figure out why you acted in such a way that would accomplish nothing but your own suffering. It's all tangled up and you're too lost in your contradictory desires.

Everything was still quite okay until she turned, headed back to the gate and begged them to take her along. That decisive moment cast a shadow upon your impression of her. Hence the analysis began and you were searching frantically for pieces here and there, doing your best to put the fragments together to form a better picture. However, your, shall we say, doubt, began much earlier. That doubt brought back some bad memories, memories of your being used simply because you were of value at that time, and then discarded away when that usefulness was gone. And so when you saw her asking them, the rich guys, to take her along you instinctively associated the two things together. Comparing to them, you were of no exploitation values, which made her not giving a shit about you at that moment perfectly understandable. She didn't fancy you nor like you in anyway at all, you were merely a thing to entertain her.

You felt that she wasn't as innocent as you'd thought, she was so much more complicated than that first impression of yours, and you felt that she was rather smart, social-wisely, and that you were just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen. The temporary conclusion echos the first judgement which conjured the unpleasant past, and so this reasoning is doubly fortified, and thus your love transformed into hate.

But, alas, the tragedy lies in that you are already in love with her and at this stage the reason has little power here to set your mind straight, to get you out of this fucking mess. The analysis neither offers any comfort to the burning soul. Therefore, in a perplexed state, as a desperate and last measure to save yourself from falling any deeper than you already were, you chose to ignore her. However, here resides the contradiction, for you were also using this strategy to protest against her, to call upon her attention to your feelings, you were doing this because you knew no other ways of expressing your sentiments. You wanted to see her reaction to your attitude, so that you can guess whether you matter or not. You wanted, at the same time, to save and to torture yourself; you wanted her to know, yet you dread to let her know; love and hate just got mixed up once again, and so you are witnessing the latest reincarnation in the perpetual circle of disappointment and frustration.

Fix You... 12 Months Later

You knew instinctively the moment you saw her that this was the beginning of yet another tough period of suffering, and you couldn't be any more unerring than that. Despite the premonition, you are willing to fall head over heels for her, so who is it to blame, eh? Now she's there dancing with him and you're sitting here pitying yourself thinking oh it's happening all over again and having no way of expressing your frustration but writing it on your blog. Super.

But it's too late, you're already in deep water and can't pull yourself out of it. Therefore what we are witnessing here now is the classical case of love turning into hate, and the more you loved, the more you will inevitably hate. At this stage of the process, you don't really care if hate does turn into suffering, it's a force that you can't fight against because deep inside you want to hate, it's also a way of demonstrating your love for her.

Évidemment

Contingency is an interesting thing. The past is easily reawakened by an image, a smell, a song or simply a sensation. This "image, smell, song, sensation" is tagged to that memory by chance. Picture this, you were at home and your flatmate was listening to France Gall's Évidemment. Six years later, in another foreign land, you came across this song in your iTunes library, and so the familiar tune brought you back to the good old times and helped you to reconstruct better this bygone epoch, or simply that living room where the event took place. But note that this past could very well be related to another song, image, smell or sensation, Évidemment is not so evident as it might have seem.

Nevertheless, you did were transported back to that place and time, and along with this you remembered other things as well. A tour back to the past is always welcome, however, like what we'd said the other day, it brings both joy and melancholy. And as you are remembering the past with a mixture of feelings, you realize that the present will inevitably be memory in a future time, and that you will remember one of these days with "both happiness and pain" or of this particular morning in Managua in which you came across the song that made you remember Salamanca, and so in an attempt to pass that memory forward and to include her in it, you sent it to Ka.

Strangers in the Night

19:30 05.10.2008

It was good to get the hell out of the boot camp, even just for the duration of the day light. Kelly picked me up at the train station at around 0930 and we went for a coffee before lunch. As soon as we entered the establishment I noticed her immediately, she was sitting there by herself, but with more than one cup on her table, she'd also perceived my presence. The place was pretty full, only about 3 tables were left unoccupied and Kelly happened to pick the one right next to her, and then I happened to sit in a direction that offered an open vista of her. The only way I could be any luckier was for me to be sharing the same table with her, but of course, silly me, it was wishful thinking. However, it might not be as all that wishful as it might seem for I caught her constantly casting furtive glances at me!

The first feature that caught my attention were her bright, beautiful, shy, firm and elusive eyes, they expressed the kind of yearning that inspired heartfelt admiration and begged you for gentle caresses. After I overcame, momentarily, the spell her eyes had casted on me, I was able to continue with my observation: her hair was short, about level with her chin which gave her a cute appearance that went just about perfect with her eyes and face. She wasn't exactly the kind of slim and shapely sheila, she was a bit chubby which was reflected on her white t-shirt. If we follow the force of gravity, our sights would be met with a flaring, multi-levelled, light green coloured skirt with a length of about 15 centre metres below the knees which was quite popular on the streets. Further down we see a pair of gardening shoes which didn't count as sexy as the bracelet around her right ankle.

All of a sudden my cell started to ring so I excused myself and made for the door, and upon my return Kelly was at the counter thus leaving me alone with her. It was my chance. I then sat down, looked around, and at last at her, and she at me, elusively. My eyes searched again for Kelly, she was still at the counter. I stood up, out of courtesy, thinking I should help her with it instead of just sitting there so anxiously trying to get the phone number of a stranger, but I stopped midway, my head told me to do one thing, but the desire aspired otherwise.

At this moment of indecision her solitude was broken and was joined by a middle-aged woman and a kid, they seem to be a family. I was relieved and overjoyed to see them instead of a guy joining her. By then Kelly also returned to the table. Despite the changes to the situation I managed to spy on her from time to time, and a while later, thanks to the boy attracting Kelly's attention and affection, I was able to openly direct my intention at her, then as if answering my call she responded likewise. So for the duration of a few seconds that felt more like an eternity we indulged ourselves in a world constructed by the glances of two strangers.

The Wandering Man

I'm on my way again, but this time not for pleasure, but duty. It's like the kind of posts that people covet because you get to fly to another country free of charge. Contrary to public opinions, I'm a bit reluctant to go this time around, I suppose I'm tired of moving around without having a place or person to call my own. I've spent a good chunk of my time moving from one place to another. Well, it's not that I don't like it, I do, I like the sense of freedom and the ability to see the world with my own eyes, but I guess I'm somewhat weary of doing it by myself, I reckon that I want some company.

But the reality sometimes shows no mercy, and you don't get to see your wishes realised, at least not for anytime soon. I'm on the move now, and I've forseen some more years on the road before I should, if fate will, settle down. Settling down might not sound like the thing a young man of my age would say (or am I wrong and that this thought is actually quite commonplace?), but for someone suffering so constantly from loneliness I suppose it's quite normal, and that loneliness is made worse because you don't look like one that has this kind of problems, on top of that you find it difficult to express it anywhere but here.