Empty shells all bleached
Scattered amongst sandy dunes
Nothing begets nothingness
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Quiet Solitude
Creeps into the morning dew
Always me alone
Being stuck in an apartment in NYC during this pandemic is more difficult than I thought it would be. It has been 60 plus days, and I have only left the apartment three times. Each time leaving the apartment felt like a life or death mission. Walking down the street with double bandanas covering my mouth and nose, I would mentally calculate the distance between me and any fellow New Yorkers who happened to be within a one block radius. A simple walk to the hardware store was now a walk through a mine field. Crossing the street to avoid coming to close to people, scolding non-mask wearers and corner loiterers under my breath. It is all so absurd. A trip to the hardware store or to pick up take-out should not entail life threatening risks.
The inability to run simple errands and the constant stress of the pandemic, takes a mental toll. Quarantine is a grind that slowly chips away at the normalcy of life. It is tortuous.
The first few weeks it was fine. Sort of surreal, but fine. But now sitting at home is just depressing. It saps your motivation. You can feel your body weakening from lack of movement and exercise. Your mind dulls. Simply things like getting groceries, become complex tasks. Cooking starts out being fun and devolves into a chore. The days bleed into one another.
I used to take umbrage at people walking around outside seemingly oblivious of the risk of COVID. But now I understand and bear them no ill will. You can’t quarantine forever. During quarantine your apartment might be a prison of your own making, but it is still a prison. It just takes awhile for you to realize it and feel the mental weight of it.
Reality is such a fucked up thing. It is hard enough trying to parse one’s own thoughts and pick a direction (step right, up folks! any direction will do!), but add an unknown period of time to work within and a rulebook you figure out as you go and you have a recipe for frustration or liberation. Maybe you get my drift and maybe you don’t.
Me? I am looking for liberation. I am looking to undo the chains that bind me. Chains that a younger me (also searching for liberation) unwittingly forged for myself. Acting on limited information at the time, I didn’t do too badly. But having a deeper pool of experience and knowledge to draw upon now, I see the chains for what they are. Things that back then I thought would free me have instead bound me. I have looked within and now must forge a new path. The path less traveled and strangely windy.
What is there to say about Las Vegas? Every time that I come here it’s the same story. The burst of optimism that surges as I disembark from the plane and that slowly dissipates as I stand in the taxi line. All around me a grotesque microcosm of the world’s denizens. College frat boys adventuring into the city of sin. Smiling and laughing, talking about the last time they were here and the hotness of the chicks just ahead of them in line. They dream of alcohol, gambling, strippers and prostitutes. Testosterone is heavy in the air around them. Then the always sweating, obese and overweight couples (who I always assume are American and from one of those middle states) some shuffling and barely able to pick up their feet and some on motorized scooters. Visions of hitting it big at the slots and eating big at the buffets dancing through their heads. Anything to forget the lives that they dreamed of when they were young and the what could have beens. There are the club girls just in from California looking to party. Their bodies, fit and surgically enhanced, scream that they want to get laid and get paid. And then the suits, there are always suits. Bleary eyed and dead-souled with an air of condescension, they look at their watches and and check e-mail on their mobile phones. So busy, always busy, have to keep moving, much to get done. But on the inside they dread the three or four day bullshit conference they are about to attend. They have nightmares about the marketing booths, the give-aways, the panel discussions no one gives a shit about and the incessant kowtowing to each potential client in the hunt for that next deal.
The taxi ride to the casino/resort is always the same. I exchange pleasantries with the driver, and we discuss the Las Vegas economy and the impending water crisis. It is not so much that I care about these topics, but what the fuck else is there to do.
From his window, he watched the people below mill in and out of the art gallery across the street. A new exhibit had just opened. Some well known figurative painter or something. The paintings looked crude to him from what he saw on the gallery’s website. But what did he know? He wasn’t an art critic. The day was gray and rainy, and he was surprised by the number of people who did not have umbrellas. But they seemed happy. Even the old man with glasses and mustache leaning up against the wall looked happy, his swollen arthritic knees making his khakis hang oddly. What a drag it is getting old. He watch the people laughing, hugging, meeting. A whirlwind of activity. He sensed the joy, but could not relate. With a sigh, he went back to his work. And the people below became nothing but ghosts.
He closed his eyes, focused on his breath, and tried to center himself. The nausea came in waves and seem to saturate every fiber of his being. He tried to detach himself from the physical discomfort and become a dispassionate observer. It took four tries and seven different techniques until he became that floating eyeball. He opened his eyes and observed the chaos that was all around him. It was grim. The mission had gone sideways and there would be hell to pay for it.
His life support HUD was blinking yellow. His air filtration system had been compromised. The air in his suit was now a slightly toxic mix. Nothing that would kill him, but it was causing the nausea. His team members were nowhere in sight and there was nothing to do but move forward. He gingerly stood up and began to plunge ahead into the darkened airlock.