Monday, May 24, 2010

The art of running in a monsoon



Up above, Sky is in emotional turmoil; he faces an evening comparable to the sort of week I just went through. One second slipping; the next, awake and ready to live.
How to account for the psychological patterns of Sky? Shall we give him a Xanax, or some Prozac, or just let him sit it out in his own due course and let him explode with the anger that he’s allowed to build up over these past weeks? He’s weak; long ago he lost control over his mind, and it’s not as though we can take him to the psych unit any time soon. The waitlist is just too long and we don’t have the time to wait. We spend the time worrying – and pondering – over what he’ll do next.

His words have been few in recent days. He’s allowed his emotions to smog over and darken; musky. Inner nimbus clouds of angst, unaccounted for, like covering an exhaust pipe with a solid object – these pores are ready to burst white, gooey, puss. White blood cells of ingrained, unspoken thoughts and ponderings that splatter and smudge the mirror.

Kate and I, we ignore him the best we can, sort of in the way one suffering from a wounded heart tries to ignore the fact that they suffer a great deal. We are stoic. We are warriors. We give off that impression, anyway. Sky – forget him, the moody artist who contradicts our thought patterns. Though forgetting him, we try to forget that we feel him oh so well. He knows what we feel though we can and cannot feel him – sort of like feeling in an unfeeling way.

He winks at me with an evening eye, then gazes longingly at Kate. I try not to let my heart give in to the pang of jealousy I feel at that moment. Two-timer, three-timer … how many-timer. He senses my feelings and responds with a rumble. Not now, Sky.
Let’s get going. Fuck the weather. Take that, Sky.

We start off, slow and sure, and – practically alone in this jungle at the center of this jungle-city. One mile down, 9 to go…boom boom boom, my heart bumps in my breast, oh…

The big sauna breeze sets in, not cooling us down but – blowing hot air around in the way like –sitting in an oven with a fan on. We get lost in our Serengeti of sweat; faces turn not red but pink – the blood coming up to kiss the surface of our cheeks. Kiss me again. Sky starts up a storm of guilty feelings and wrings out the crumpled tissue of tears that land in the trees and a rough flower hits me with the heavy breeze. I’m whacked on the head with a – leaf? It’s slimy, and Kate gets something, too. Sky, he doesn’t like to be defied.

Mile 2, and we’re on the move, certifiably the only ones in the course now, (certifiably insane? – have you ever run through a monsoon hurricane?) Plop! Plop! Ploploplop PLONK! Heavy bursts of feeling come down from Sky – now is the feeling time. What I didn’t feel from you before, I sure do now, in fact I’m drenched with your feeling, and so is Kate, and so is…

…splatters on the ground.

Let’s go let’s go, pick up the pace! Mile…3…I’ve never felt so alive, not since our last wild night (but at least then I didn’t have to share you with the world). This mad rush – running away from you – I am the rebel wearing a green camouflage hat that’s soaked with your tears.

The pavement we tread on, it’s – disappearing in the eggs you’ve cracked together, in your lame attempt to make an omelet from fear. We really should consider a prescription for these panic attacks of yours. In the meantime, however, we’ve been through boot camp; we know how to survive in the desert and we can crawl through a storm. But – crack! BOOM crack BOOM – you are quite the DJ, you – spin the table tonight.

I guess I didn’t realize that you could go for hours without tiring. You exhaust me, Sky. Emotionally, physically – putting me to the test. Kate and I, we both wear white t-shirts tonight. You did this on purpose. You can see through us but – oh, you dirty man! Sicko. We’re soaked to the bone – may as well be naked, swimming in your thoughts.

Squelchy shoes and wrinkly toes and dripping, gooey, we are. We place a stake in the saturated grass, a white flag on top, instantly wet. We give up. We surrender. For today. We seek shelter under a burrow at the guard’s hut. We powwow and gossip about nothing while our words about you are ever-present, hidden, but there.

Downtrodden, sodden, we hail a cab home. The taxi driver loves our wet-dog smell. In the tropics I am freezing under your silent spell. The air conditioning is left off while we eat our lentil soup in silence. Sort of like sitting by the heat of the fire while cozy in a cottage in the high mountains. You Twitter in the background and play Monopoly while I switch on Radiohead and block you out.

Goodnight, Sky. Get out of your monsoon mood already. It’s only the end of May and you are just starting – warning me early that you’ll be around to haunt me for the next 3 months.

You text me in the morning as I’m waking up. Sorry for lst nite.
Catch me tomorrow night, Sky. It’ll be another stoic faceoff in your turf.

No comments:

Post a Comment