XX – A Walking Time Bomb

Here in Pinel, the days are almost always the same, despite the fact of having virtually every possible and impossible lunacy gathered in the same place all at once. Normally I wake up on my mattress on the floor to avoid those terrible back pains. I look up and sitting there beside me is either the melancholic Valéria or the ever caring Sandra, companions of mine who alternate between shifts to safeguard my nightly dreams. We hurriedly put my mattress back on the bed before Dr. Lucas can open the door to inspect the dormitory. I sincerely don’t know what harm he sees in putting the mattress on the floor. Does he really think that I’m crazy enough to part with my comfort? Even incarcerated, comfort should have first say. In sequence, a bottle of yogurt and a very specific chocolate bar are served only by her, which my mom brings. I won’t eat the food here, who knows what kind of pharmakons could be hidden in it. I leave the asylum’s breakfast for my illustrious guests and friends in incarceration. Every day someone sits within my view and eats that suspicious breakfast to test me, trying to convince me to eat it. I prefer to not eat anything prepared in this place.

Food for the body, food for the soul. I don’t have my books in here. How can one live love in here? Love, the cause and cure of all these troubles. I dared to love too much, I still feel my heart throb when I think of the attractive Sandra,   the pernambucana-carioca that I met in Rio, or of Tatiana, who hardly ever whispers in my ear anymore, of my girlfriend, it hurts so much to think of her, stuck inside of here, she doesn’t come around anymore. But it’s time to live other loves now, other illusions of happiness.

After I dropped her off at her house, during that fateful Carnaval, I continued to feel disorientated, my feelings boiling inside of me, latent paradoxes, anger, sorrow, grief, explosiveness. I could go back home, resolve everything firsthand and violently extirpate all that would brim over in angry tears. But no, that wasn’t the solution. I went to a basketball game, met up with some old buddies, drank a lot of beers while watching the game at time-warp speed. It was a temporary comfort I had.

I had barely left the gym when my phone started to ring nonstop. My mom had heard about the fight and pleaded me to come home, to talk, that everything would be alright. I will not go back, not while that idiot is there, I yelled. Then I cried copiously. I drove around in my car, aimlessly, going from one bar to the next, another beer, another cigarette; the fodder to placate my grief.

Nightfall, I would not answer my cellphone anymore. Not for my mom, not for my girlfriend. It was just me that night… and my inner demons. Then I had an idea, to go up to the Plaza do Papa and contemplate the city from above, loaded with beers and cigarettes. Breathe a little pure air, if that was still possible to find in this town. I accelerated up the avenue; speed seemed to be another way of letting out all the internal paradoxes. Speed, beer, cigarettes, speed of thought, hasty feelings. Intense. The plaza was beautiful, the night wondrous, the moon poised majestically over the metropolis. But it did not ease my grief, my drama. I couldn’t stay there, in contemplation. I needed more velocity, more intensity.

I came screeching down the avenue when suddenly I stopped. One of those sympathetic girls caught my attention, in a short skirt and a flashy top, at a standstill, leaning against a lamppost. That was it, I needed sex! It was the only way for me to explode without causing even greater damage. I needed to explode. I was a walking time-bomb. Pulsating. The girl got into the car with no delay and we went off somewhere more quiet.

After a few touches and stimulus, the solution to my discharge was found. Animality in full bloom. My nerves and the neurosis all discharged in the act, a catharsis. The cellphone kept ringing nonstop. I didn’t mind anymore, I only cared about unloading as much as possible of the weight that I carried in me throughout the act. And that’s how it went. We talked a lot afterward, each of us talked about our woes and heartaches, and then she pulled out a little satchel of coke. She wanted to sell. I didn’t want to pay. We talked a lot more after and she ended up giving me a good dose of it. She was such a nice girl, she’ll never know how much she helped me. Right after she left I snorted a good sized line. Coke. Cocaine. Artificial joy and energy all in one. I snorted up the rest while deciding whether I would go home or not. I waited until I felt lighter, waited for more energy, waited, waited, waited…

I got home and arranged things with my girlfriend, we would leave on a trip the next morning. I stayed up all night, packing my things, thinking about what I would do when I get back from the trip, where I would live, what direction I would take… Suddenly it was six in the morning, time to go. No feelings of guilt, no fatigue, no grief. In the animality of coitus, my dilemmas were resolved, and the bomb would not explode. For now…