when you write (wip)

you write

when you’re angry

When you’re sad

When the sun falls down

Behind the pretty concrete landscape of your horizon

When you’re walking on the street

When you dream.

When you can’t help but gawp in wonder

at every other beautiful stranger that crosses your path,

like you’re stuck in the endless revolving door to paradise

At life.

When you’re eating your lunch

And drinking this afternoon’s second glass of red

When you’re opening a page on Chrome

And realise that this is the site that you’re already on

When you dream

When you’re mean, and kind

When you’re standing on a rooftop, 

Fighting not to faint,

L’appel du vide,

Fearful not of the height

But the more fatal impulsion to measure it in free fall.

When you’re listening to music

When you’re so drunk and whatever that it’s not even you anymore

When you’re talking to your friend in Kyoto about crypto market moves and getting rich

When you’re Integral

When you’re afraid and alone and wish crying was not such a far-fetched possibility

When you scream

When you’re making mistakes

In Manhattan,

And then somewhere else,

Like Salt Point

Or maybe that one came first.

When you dream that the dream just stopped.

When you’re on a plane, train, bus, or motorbike

And you’re crashing.

When you love people but don’t know how to tell them

When you love people and you do know to tell them, but you don’t

And that’s worse

When you say too much and demean yourself

When you’re making money

When you really, really, really don’t give a fuck

When you miss your friends and you know you won’t ever see them again

When you’re beautiful and make people laugh and smile out of the deepest part of their hearts

When you can’t help but hurt yourself

And you’re sorry

When you wish it was…

Or you’d just done that then

Or this.

When you just want to be normal and swap all of this fucking bullshit

For something safe, solid, and uneventful

When you’re proud of yourself

When you are one,

and you have been.

When the lights go out on la rambla and the liceu theatre is lit up all alone in red

When a dog barks

And the smell of frying garlic drifts up from the kitchen of the restaurant on the corner to your balcony

And you remember the dream is this one that you’re having now.

yes, you write all of this down

Your fingers bleed the proof

And, yet, the page is blank

Chapter 14

DC disappeared.

I hadn’t seen him since the explosion that was the night of ket and tears. We had a spoken a lot on the phone after that but he hadn’t wanted to meet up. He said that he needed to spend some time alone. He wanted to go cold turkey; to plot out a new path into the future.

After around a week of getting sent straight to his voicemail, there was a click on the line and I knew that I was being transferred to a different number.

A girl with an English accent answered the phone.

“Can I speak with DC, please?”

“I’m sorry, Señor Caruso is no longer with us. If you give me your name and number, and explain the nature of your call, I’ll make sure that the appropriate person calls you back within the next twenty-four hours.”

“This is a personal call. I’m his friend. Do you have another number that I can get him on?”

“Oh. I’m sorry, could you just bear with me a moment?” The voice asked.

The line became muffled. I heard the dull drone of office life, doors opened and closed, and then the sharp click of heels walking across tile. Another door closed and I knew that she had gone outside. A bird sang.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Sorry about that. Is this Sam?”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

“I could tell by your accent. DC told me about you. I used to live in Manchester.”

“Cool. Where abouts?”

“Sam?”

“Yes.”

“I’m really sorry, but DC has gone. He’s dead, Sam.”

I met Angela, the girl who I had spoken to on the phone, on the terrace of Santa Marta beside the beach in La Barceloneta. It was early September. Summer should have relented but the sun didn’t seem to have been told. Torrents of rain flash flooded the streets, bolts of lightning danced and duelled above Tibidabo, and thunder cracked often and wild through the night, but still the heat refused to leave and follow the course of the season.

Angela had come to explain to me the protocol of DC’s passing; how the old lady who lived in the building on the opposite side of the street to DC had witnessed the whole show that was his final moments.

The lady was an invalid, a housebound old woman, sitting on the edges of the shadows in her apartment, waiting for her daughter to call round and prepare breakfast for her as she did every morning. She had recounted how DC performed some kind of ritual, a final futile protest for the world to see. The old lady told Angela that there had been something beautiful in what he had done; that even when she had understood what it was that he was going to do that she had been unable to turn away from him. She said that his dignity had deserved an audience.

“It was graceful”, she had told the police in her statement. “The poor man was ready and very sure that it was time for him to leave this world.”

He fastened rope around one of the exposed beams of the ceiling and placed a chair in the entrance of the open doors that gave onto his small balcony and the street below. He walked to the table in the centre of the room and neatly wrote out notes and small messages for those he was sorry to be leaving. He laid out the papers and objects that accompanied the notes, and walked back to the chair. He removed all of his clothes, leaving them folded on the black leather sofa, climbed up onto the chair, tightened the noose around his neck, closed his eyes, and smartly kicked the chair out from under him. 

The old lady rose early and the light from the new day was low in the sky. The morning sun was coming up from behind the back of DC’s expensive, open plan apartment, casting his shadow, long and skinny, down onto the street below. The old lady sat vigil over him for an hour before he was noticed by the manager of the bakery on the ground floor of her building.

By the time the police had broken down the door and entered DC’s apartment, a large crowd had assembled in the street. A group of women from the barrio on their way to the church of Santa Maria del Mar scurried off to inform the priest of what had happened. The priest returned with them, mass was delayed, and together they stood, holding hands and with heads bowed, praying for the lost soul of the naked stranger.

Angela reached across to the chair beside her and took out a book from her bag.

“He left this for you.”

A folded piece of plain white paper obscured the Italian title of the book. The author: Bukowski. In fine, black lettering, the only words on the folded piece of paper:

 For Sam

I felt an emptiness in my chest and stomach. A shrill deafening ring pierced my ears. My eyes closed and then moved to the sea and the spume of small breaking waves dissipating on the ugly shore of man-made beach.

I grew up with death in my living room. From upon the mantelpiece above the electric fire I was watched down on by ghosts. Ghosts I had no memories of beyond the photos that held them frozen in time behind dust speckled plastic covers. A black and white wedding day photo, taken from too far away, of a smiling happy couple: he with long dark hair and a scruffy beard; she not much older than a child, stern faced but relaxed, her head resting on his shoulder. A colour photo. A long blonde haired toddler in a blue baby grow stared past the camera. A motorbike helmet in his hands. Behind him a flared white trouser leg and an outstretched black shirted arm holding a cigarette; face and body out of shot. A pretty young lady with black bobbed hair crouched beside the toddler, smiling and clapping, encouraging him to try on the helmet that would soon not be sufficient to prevent her death.

Daily doses of death. No surprises. All part of the morning routine. The ghosts in the photos no different or harder to believe in than the open armed more famous ghost that rested in the centre of the altar in the corner of the living room, and who heard my prayer before school; “Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord.” The cold kiss of holy water marked across my forehead as I went out the door, my protection and promise to not follow them.

This was death to me. Something that happened to the old, the careless, and the mythical. It had surrounded me for all of my life. I accepted its presence and felt no fear under its gaze. It had never whispered in my ear or threatened to take away anybody else who was close to me before their time. We had a mutual respect for each other: an unwritten code.

DC had broken the rules. Death wasn’t handed out on a slip of paper that had been folded into a book of poems in Italian.

Angela paid for our coffees and left for work. I ordered a beer and whisky cola, “Jack Daniels, por favor,” and sat alone on the terrace, screwing up my eyes to find the exact point on the horizon where the sea met the sky.

I wanted to see DC. I wanted to punch him hard in the face and ask him to tell me how he could be so sure that in the place where he was going that he wasn’t going to find an infinite world of pain a million times worse than that of my punch. Before I had finished the thought, I understood what his answer would have been; “I already live there, Sam.”

A girl on rollerblades slinked by backwards, being pulled by a dog. The waves ebbed and flowed some more. A gypsy band tuned up their instruments for the afternoon serenade of tourists on the expensive fish restaurant terraces.

DC had tried to tell me of how he felt; I just hadn’t listened or wanted to understand. He had tried to explain his pain to me. I had seen and heard it, but I had been unable and unwilling to help relieve it.

“Alone at night all I feel is pain and regret. The world is so wrong, but so am I. The bastards I see and hate, I also know as my brothers. Berlusconi, Bush, Blair: murderous criminals covered in the blood of innocents. I hate them with passion. Conspiracy. Destruction. Cruelty. The world is debased and dominated by such men. I know this and what do I do? Niente, Sam. Nada. I do nothing apart from make money and help to keep it all spinning.”

“So, stop complaining and do something. Join a group. Join Al Qaeda, or the FARC,” I told him.

“You’re making fun, but I have joined groups. I read Howard Zinn. I saw Zeitgeist. And que? I got involved and it only helped me to see that I am just a dog chasing the tail of a rabid dog that is chasing the reflection of its own tail in a dirty mirror. There is no end game. There is no point.”

“So just enjoy yourself.”

“Sam, I have danced a million dances with the devil. I get high. And higher. And higher again. In those moments when I fly, I forget. But more and more the fall is too hard, the come down too long. I can’t hide anymore. And in the deepness of it all, my rage gets bigger and I want to hurt somebody. To make it all right. But I can’t hurt anybody. And it’s not going to be right. I’m trapped and I’m fucking tired.”

“Fuck it.”

“There you go, Sam. That is the curse. I’m not like you for that. We are the same but there is a clear and crucial difference: you can easily not care for the world around you. I am too human. You don’t know compassion. You are the devil, an angel, and everything else in between, and it is always the same for you. I see that you are at heart a good man, but you have no conscience, and so nothing can hurt you. You are empty. Empty and perfect. I envy you, Sam.”

“DC, I hear you, but I don’t know what to say. I have to meet Maya. Please, man, just calm down. Take it easy. Let’s get a beer this week, tomorrow if you want”

“Ok, Sam. Sure. Take it easy, hermano.”

i promise

Life choices

I will see you again, one day

Party at the Met

Canal Street, New York

Munch at The Met Breuer

Sick Mood at Sunset, Despair.
Edvard Munch


This painting is a more literal depiction of the event that influenced his most famous painting, The Scream.


“I was walking down the road with two friends – the sun was setting. – I felt a waft of melancholia – Suddenly the sky turned red. I stopped, leant against the railing, tired to death [...] – I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed a great, infinite scream through nature –”

All is Well

FUCK (it all)

Trapped by Julia Blackmon

Times Square

Detachment

Walk the same streets

With eyes anew.

Like the first time

Lost and awed amongst places that never existed before

Locked in the present

(un)Framed by the past.

Dead lives

Afraid of the future.

I am fear.

What is my purpose?

Revelations arise.

The smell of seaweed in the stairwell,

Love,

and Light,

Waiting surely

Behind one of these locked doors,

Eyes closed,

Body shivering in tortured anticipation against the frame.

The minutiae.

An atom, exploded

A ringing never answered

That might say,

Let me in

Come to find me

This time you will be saved.

A dream small enough to exist inside the void of a child’s tear

The space between the lines of miscommunication

greater than any ocean.

Living,

Lying,

Dying.

Tomorrow,

I set sail for a new shore.

Brooklyn Bridge

Sun sets on the city

her name was

her name was

she asked me to remember her

but i was already trying to forget while she plied me with pints of Lagunitas at the bar of the Crazy Horse.

she hoped that the alcohol would make me love her,her name was

or at least act as though I liked her,

for a few moments more of this short escape that was for her so exotic.

i fucked her once

up against her brand new Buick

under thin trails of moonlight at the side of a black country road in the forest close to where i had taken a room for a month.

she was a good, sweet, stupid girl

who probably deserved happiness more than most.

she liked fishing, John Wayne, and sending me photos of her perfectly fake tits that the weed farm had paid for.

i don’t think i will remember her,

but i will save her here

as i fly into a storm

towards a place the limits of her imagination will only let her dream of.

“I’m going to get a passport next year.”

memories cost more than distractions now.

i suppose they always did.

it was just that before the body fooled the mind into thinking the cheques the ego passed would never need to be cashed.

for the irresponsible they never really are anyway.

we brush off our debts

with a heartfelt embrace,

mad tales from the other side,

and an honest smile that sends you back to the bar happy for another stolen round.

the roads that take us away are simply different.

pot holed trails down the centre of nowhere.

in the middle of Rajasthan,

for example.

riding too fast with an Israeli yoga queen on the back,

armour-less and unprotected from anything outside of our bubble that could befall us.

for how will fear ever find you here,

floating almost formless off the map?

it caught up with us later

a lost front tooth, head injuries, tetanus shots, screams (not mine), scars for life, and a violent end to another soirée.

but that was minor

worthy wounds to exchange for those moments of life that you cannot forget,

those which set our cycle apart from the dumb merging into this thing that some call the solid ground of our dominion.

i’ll trade that every day for a motorcycle and something less than a village beside brutal, beautiful farmland in a gypsy desert.

slowing down to high-five naively naked, dirty little children who never saw a white man before.

then tearing back on the throttle,

flying along this path that we that we should never have ever taken

(could only ever have taken)

with just the sun and instinct as a guide and promise

that beyond the shimmering horizon of this place we didn’t plan to see

a slightly more formal reality lies in wait.

arriving anyway, of course.

sun burnt and ridiculous.

flighting not long after in the deep alcoves of the windows in our overly-elaborate, decadent hotel room.

the stubborn scorpion defining his fate once more, 

as he stares into the too weirdly turquoise lake of Bundi that bubbles under the April sun.

or was it still March then?

regardless,

that slow motion fall onto the asphalt is set in motion.

decreed in this awkward needles silence post some argument about sex,

or something else.

25 kms from Pushkar.

a shriek of unnatural collision. 

the flashback of a whole life.

the desecration of joy that was this unhindered roar through just another crazy day in a country that we know will never be tamed.

the one they cannot comprehend will always be so without ever having stood here

bled

cried

fought

laughed

learnt

and loved

here.

and understanding now,

in that eternal moment,

instantly frozen

before teeth meet ground,

that what you prayed would never come to pass was in fact essential and inherent.

a point of payoff.

the entry fee in part reimbursed for your gall to face off against the might of this great beauty which hurts as much as heaven.

the same heaven that is itself the pure light of love and wonder we pirates carry in our open hearts.

a vaunted gift i bow down to in supplication whenever it demands i touch the earth,

and resist a while longer the endless empty call of the Dharma bliss.

i still remember your name, Molly.

maybe not for much longer.

but Always

and Now i apologise for nothing.

No true soul need ever be sullied so.

Get your passport.

Ride the punches.

Dodge the snipers who know not that their bullets are only the bitter ballast of protection that masks the desolation and pain of their own lives’ sorry regret and envy.

Dream with me.

Fly,

Fall,

Forever. 

Financial District, NYC

28/01/16 (For Saphir)

28/01/16 (For Saphir)

You want to take a step back from the monster

but you do not see that this void is all consuming

and that within it there is no such thing as movement.

you, the monster, the void, and I are all the very same thing.

My weakness and failure is that I pretend to let your naivety and ignorance control this deception.

To not explain to you

how the monster is your mother

brother

dead father

sister 

and son.

that the monster is not a scarred result of rape and pillage

but a new born baby filled with as much love, light and hope

as the raging fire of lust and attraction you fight to extract your searing skin away from now

the irony IS

that i too

daily reject the monster you flee

that i too

must believe in witches

mythology

false gurus

fake friends

and the true non-believers

who will turn all that is the best of our monsters

into the very essence of what sane men should fear.

it is normal for you to be running backwards from me.

and sad.

sad

that you will only make it back to where we already were

once i am nothing more than a memory,

or a nightmare that will never disappear.

You treat me like a killer.

A murderer of emotion with no feelings of my own.

You, the distraught bloodied victim

I, the rabid dog

aimlessly infecting the weak

and immature.

In 6 days the world around us was created.

In 3 i rip it up and tear it all to shit.

and how many days will this suffering last out

until sun down?

the next offer of an awkward fuck with a stranger i feel nothing for?

or until we have worn each other down right to the very bone?

there is nothing worse than love

left to die.

love

too fearful to breathe.

LOVE.

within the very centre of all the shared pain that is our love

all i want is to hold you close.

to simply lie still at your side

hold your hand

have your head lay on my chest

and whisper together

the spells of a language we don’t understand.

incantations,

that will undo all of the things that never cease to torment us.

what do we talk about when we talk about love?

Carver wanted to know this

and now

today

i understand.

love is not for life

it is the second where your fingers pulled softly away from my own

and i knew that it would be the last time i ever touch you.

love is not for life

it is the first words that we never even spoke

and the sly smile you tried to hide behind them

love is not for life

it is the provocations i can’t control

that turn us all into monsters

out of fear of being forever alone

and in pain.

love is not for life.

it is for secrets never to be taken back

then held over our heads like weapons of war

forever suspended in the ever nearing knowledge of our brutal end.

love is not a shortcut

that can be reached by the back road of Up Beat Beer

joints

and cocktails of Xanax, Valium, Tramadol, and Klononpin. 

love is not for life.

love is not for the living.

love is not for those who can never grow up

and compromise.

love is certainly not for a beautiful jewel

who belongs only to the universe

and knows nothing of these mortal fools

she has been forced to live amongst

love is not for a man

who fits not in the skin he was given

and takes fright each time a mirror reflects his image.

love is not repetition,

and nor is it soft.

it hurts and burns.

by your own hand

it slices indelible suffering into your skin

which in turn leave its own eternal imprint on my too soft heart

love is boring.

no, it is not.

it is never that.

love can be found

but only at the very edge of insanity.

love can be shared

but only in flashes.

like shooting stars

jumping dolphins

in the silhouetted glide of an eagle across the sky with a snake in its mouth

(and this I did say)

love is the falling sun

that we can never stop from leaving

even when we know that its tomorrow will bring

nothing more than fraud and pale imitation

of this perfect day that went before it.

love is nothing that is not romantic.

it stands alone

beneath the beauty of the stars

under which we are all eternally dying

at the same pace

in the same moment

stranded

grasping at the futile nostalgia for that other light we never even saw.

love is blah blah blah

a joke.

a poem of nothing

sometimes of everything.

a madness that has no cure.

love is the help that those from outside of us

bring to make us strong.

it is my brother who sees me walking only tall like a king

it is your sister who wipes your tears away when you cry and reminds you that you can never be anything but beautiful.

love is long.

yes, it is.

very short sometimes too.

love is a secret place

where i sit with Indians

and think only of you,

hoping that one day,

far away

these words will make you smile,

feel stronger,

and love me back in return a little,

even if only for a second that i will never know existed

love is everything that is lost in communication.

it is schlug.

sheshbesh.

mine-i-mum.

and “translate.”

love,

this love,

will come to an end

it will stab me in the heart

with my own spear

as i pass you on the beach

and turn in the other direction

knowing that where once you wanted only a smile

now you cannot bear to see my face.

love is the darkest part of my mind.

all that is confusion.

every dark spot that covers the light.

and love is a mirror.

one you must be afraid of.

the one which i stand before

but in which you can only truly see yourself.

love is knowing too well

that what hurts one so deeply

will only destroy another even more.

love is something i have never known

but fight to guess at 

and grab for everyday.

love is Sisyphus.

Sisyphus walking his hill,

arms and legs sore

under the terrible weight of his rock.

his love is that which punishment could not take away

and which he continues to carry in his heart.

love is the wife Sisyphus fooled the gods to see just one more time.

it is the colour of the sea.

the sound of his son’s voice.

and your smile.

then the sudden,

momentary enlightenment,

where his arms and legs hurt no more

the rock bears no weight

nor the hill any inclination.

and Sisyphus is still

Sisyphus is…

I don’t know what the fuck Sisyphus is.

On Broadway and Damascus

In this centre of everything, I feel at home.

yet I know I am mostly not welcome.

i am not a functioning part of this machine.

unsustainable,

my presence is only one to be entertained whilst there is currency in my pocket.

but my money is not on tap,

it’s on reserve.

most of it is not even mine.

and for all of the artists, models, fashionistas, pilates teachers, mad men officer managers, CEOs, and fuck if I knows,

i am an aberration.

a blip.

a second thought

pondered, then gone.

banished

and exiled back to the middle of nowhere almost before I even arrived.

but there is no rancour in any of this.

i’m having a good time.

it simply must happen,

and i do not mind.

choices were made,

lines were drawn,

but in this momentary now,

we’re both happy that fate has decreed we be bought together.

you can buy my drinks for a week without resentment.

i’ll engage your mind

make you laugh

kiss you

soothe you

and entice you into believing in a world that will never exist for either of us.

for any of us.

doubt will kick in.

but inside one of those frozen moments that dare to approach perfection,

which two even briefly connected souls cannot help but share,

i see so clearly how all of this could be so different.

that i could stay.

one day.

but you don’t know me.

i don’t know me.

catch me wrong.

find me riding wild with my devil and i might as easily put a blade in you as give you a smile.

or gouge out my eyes with a hot spoon and leave them on your doorstep.

there is no Ma Kali fiery enough to becalm that kind of Shiva.

evil resides within me.

just another facet to the game.

a dark web determined to entangle and engulf my go(o)d

my saint

the king deserving, and deserved, of your majestic queen.

yet all of this grand and scary talk is little more than myth.

stunted exaggeration.

mere mental masturbation.

a monster to hide behind.

an excuse to not be better.

an ill-fitting, disfigured mask that feigns ferociousness as a means to preempt pain.

to stop you from getting too close

and stealing a glance at my true reflection in the eternal mirror.

to deny you a peak at the precious flower of a soul

that is too delicate to survive any interaction that is not all consuming and absolute.

i’m afraid

this battle never stops.

not yet.

how long this never lasts is still undecided,

but it’s definitely outdone today.

tomorrow probably, too.

the sublime already shattered this illusion a million times over,

yet we keep getting lost in the bliss of our release.

pills and potions numb the pain triggered by the inkling of such knowledge.

tattooed philosophies and dreams of romance bridge the gap,

as we rise up and turn to blindly scale the mountain;

bound once more to the karmic conveyor belt that delivers us ceaselessly back

to the vortex of our own discontentment.

Tat Tvam Asi.

and in the sudden truth of that blinding flash,

we free-fall headfirst in wonder as we transcend the flatland of this torrid charade.

and, one fine morning.

one fine morning,

we will once again bask in the glory of our communion.

i etch out this oath to you in the tears of my own blood.

I live here now

welcome.
climb the stairs to my home.
sit down where my soul is bathed in the light that is often too strong for me to bear.
look out through the door to an alien nature that scares me.
laugh at the distractions I use to cover the walls I don't want to look beyond.
notice the places where it all merges together with your references to this side of the other.
walk with me into the garden which is off limits to exploration,
but where the water runs
as cold and soft
for me
as it would for you and your friends.
gaze up from the forest floor to the falling sun that barely touches us.
read words of church that I too would love to emulate,
take as my own,
and shine upon you,
and everybody else beneath this passing light.
touch my hand and lie still beneath the magnificent portent of tomorrow.
for better
or worse.
blessed in the stratum of every single one if its magical possibilities.

Fiction: Early Murmur draft at Unlikely Stories 2.0

3a.
the girl

We smoked a last joint outside the club and got inside as the bands were starting up. Apolo wasn't designed for concerts, but more as a ballroom, and its attractive but inconvenient booths, and railings that separated the dance floor, meant that people were splayed around the room in various positions and poses. We settled behind one of the wooden railings close to the overflowing dance floor, which gave a good vantage point from which to see the stage and also doubled as a leaning post as the beer and hash began to play together.

The Blues Explosion powered into their set and the room filled with the warm damp smell of sweat and smoke. The people in the crowd were all fans and the excitement was tangible in the heat that scoured the room. The band flew intermittently into view through the to-the-beat lighting; flashes of blue, red, white and green throwing blankets over the room, illuminating in silhouettes the band up on the small stage and the bobbing heads in the sea of people all around. I didn't know the band, but the sound, the energy and the atmosphere they produced, pulled me into the show. The whole room moved together in a perfect unison of chaos-music, light, heat and every movement controlled by one collective consciousness. To my right, Joan rocked, eyes closed and Roger gripped me by the shoulders, shouting, "Joder, Sam! Ellos son de puta madre!"

Abandonment, freedom, enjoyment. Life. My hands on the splintered wooden rail in front of me, I rocked more and more to the crushing flow of the wild noise that tore out from the stage. I became fixated on the drummer, afraid he would disappear and the music stop as the lights fell, leaving a black void in their absence, and my head lolled grossly back toward the ceiling. Bang, bang, bang. White, red, white. The drummer pounded the taut skins in front of him as though willing them to come back to life. Afraid, I tried to shift my gaze to the front man, but I was drawn back inexorably to the unremitting punishment being delivered by the drummer. Rocking faster and faster upon my axis on the rail, the heat billowed up in a gust of red light. Bang, bang, bang. The drummer slowed, Joan opened his eyes and I saw his profile in a skeletal x-ray, Roger gripped my shoulders but this time there was no shout. White, white, white. Black.

I didn't hit the floor. My spasmodic rocking had alerted Joan and Roger to my state, and Roger had pulled me back as I dived forward and over the railing toward the floor. I didn't hit the floor but I had gone for a few seconds. For a few beautiful moments all the noise and the heat had been left behind. It came back quickly but at a distance, as though everything was submerged in water.

Joan and Roger had supported me out of the main room, bought me a bottle of water, and gone back in to enjoy the concert, leaving me standing alone at the bar. I could stand, but my eyes refused to open. My mind was back to the madness of reality but my body wanted to stay with the fall. Sips of water felt good and brought some relief to my skin that was tingling like it had been through a bush of nettles. I knew that the bar staff, and people passing to the bathrooms were looking at me and laughing, but I didn't care. I felt amazing inside and my outward appearance was of little importance.

– Éstas bien?

– How do I look?

– Jodido.

– Well, I can't open my eyes to check, but I believe you. "Jodido", that's not very nice language for a lady.

– Qué pedo, wey? A lady? You're English, right?

– Yeah, I think so. Most things are pretty unclear right now though. 5 minutes ago I embraced and dived into oblivion, and now I'm blind at the bar talking to a Mexican.

– How do you know I'm Mexican?

– "Qué pedo, wey?" Only Mexicans say that, wey!

– You're weird.

– Thanks.

– Do you want to take a shot of tequila with me? It will help you to see again.

She smelled good. Her hands were delicate but firm as she held my own to cover the nape between my thumb and forefinger in salt, then place the chunk of lemon between my fingers. My body still shaking, I picked up the shot glass of tequila and she touched my arm to calm me and told me tranquilo or I would spill the good Mexican drink. Ok. Ready. Salt. Tequila. Lemon. Bang.

Inside my throat bile welled up in sickly reaction to the acrid power of the shot. I wanted to throw up, but my disdain for outward appearances didn't stretch that far. I swallowed back the temptation and took another bite of the lemon. My eyes screwed up at its bitterness, which then forced them open rapidly. Eyes flickering open to closed, adjusting themselves back to the impact of the brightly lit bar, the noise from the band and the people redistributed itself around me and I came up from my sea of darkness for a new taste of this dirty air.

– Are you ok?

The girl was looking at me, unconvinced and answering her own question; her right eye brow arched into a sharp V of doubt. She was beautiful. Silk black hair cut a sharp angle across the top of her face (one single strand had fallen loose and over her left eye) and came down tight and harsh behind her left ear, forcing me to follow it down toward her neck- elegant and proud, a small dark freckle halfway down. Small, red, slightly chapped lips. Dead black eyes. Brown but only at second glance. A glance that was hard to take as the eyes didn't invite you in. Eyes that were difficult to meet until she smiled and I didn't have to.

– Otro chupito de tequila?

– Why not.

Joan jumped on me from behind, stinking of alcohol, sweat and smoke, wild with the energy from the show that had just finished. Roger put his arms around us both and we all fell down together on to the dirty floor in front of the bar. As we struggled back up to our feet, Roger whispered to me, "Qué carbon! Quién es ésta chica?"

– Come on, shouted Joan. Let's go on and party at the flat. I'm fucking happy. I love you all.

The party was crazy. The 3 other guys we shared the flat with had also been out and had brought their friends home. As we zigzagged our way back up through the city on foot, we met 4 Russians and added them to our group; 3 girls and a guy who looked exactly like a famous German football goalkeeper. The flat was full of different nationalities and personalities. Joan produced tins of paint from his room and announced that the living room wall needed painting. Drunken people covered in paint, filled the wall with images and messages — SEX and LOVE being spelt out the loudest in metre-high letters in turquoise paint. A video camera captured the whole thing forever and was probably never seen again by anybody.

– Hey Inglés. I'm going to go.

– Inglés! Have you forgotten my name already?

– No, SAM, of course I haven't. I just got used to everybody else here talking about el loco Inglés!

– Ha. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing to be known as.

– I think it's good, it suits you.

– Anyway, why are you trying to run off so quickly?

– There are too many people here. It's too hot, I need some air.

– Air? I know where there's a load of that. Let's go up to the roof. Come on, follow me.

Inside the city nights never fell to black the way they were meant to. Either the sun didn't go far enough away, or the moon got too near, but nights in Barcelona never meant blackness. In place of the dark, there was a dull red glow that bathed the city at night, presenting the people and all the things under the sky as indeterminate copies and hues of the things they represented under the daylight of the sun. Things were beautiful and distant in this light but they needed to be touched twice for you to be sure that they were really there.

– Mira qué bonita es la cuidad. Your home, Pocohantas!

– Cute. Have you already forgotten my name?

– No, but I don't know how to say it properly.

– M-I-X-T-L-I. Think of the word mist in English.

– It's beautiful. Does it mean anything in English?

– In English, no. It's Azteca. I am Azteca. Mixtli is the Goddess of the moon.

– Well, I'm honoured to be in the presence of a Goddess.

– Thank you. I like my name. It's the only positive thing I ever received from my Grandfather. The pendejo who picked it.

– Pendejo?

– Asshole. My Grandfather the great Mexican hero. The general who would be proud to tell you that he once entertained Juan and Eva Peron at our family's summer home. Puto pendejo.

– So you don't get on well with your family.

– Oh, yes. We're the Mexican Brady Bunch. My Grandfather would probably be less wiling to tell you that he told his only son he believes his granddaughter to be a prostitute.

– Shit, that's tough. When were you last back there?

– I ran away from there more than five years ago, when I was sixteen, and I haven't been back since.

The eyes that were so hard to meet at the bar were not so intimidating under the ghoulish light on the roof. Mixtli turned her back on me and looked out over the city she was still a stranger to. She was just a thin wisp of a girl but standing there looking out blindly over the edge of the roof, she gave off a dark, angry strength that joined seamlessly with the strange night that enveloped us both. I stepped forward and placed my hand on her shoulder, unsure how she would react. She softened, let her neck fall slightly back toward my grip and continued to stare out over the city and into the distance.

– Y tu, Inglés. Qué haces aquí? Apart from passing out in public places.

– I don't do a lot. Read, watch films, go out, drink.

– Nice life, but what do you do for money?

– That's boring. Not worth us wasting breath on.

– Oh, ok, so you're too good for work like everybody else?

– Maybe.

– Haha. A thinker, then. A frustrated artist.

– Yes. I'm actually in training to be a clown. I want to grow up to be Henry Miller.

– Ok, so I can be Anaïs Nin.

– Well, you could try.

– But you must need a muse.

– Why, would you like to be mine?

– Maybe.

She turned back to face me and I tried to see through the wall that was the solid mass of those eyes, trying to get some indication as to whether this was real, or just another pretentious dance between two strangers playing their respective roles, showing off to their new expectant crowd of one.

– Would you like to walk me home?

Mixtli lived out of town; a walk and six Metro stations from where I lived. As she went to walk down the steps of the Metro I called her tonta and said that I thought we had only to walk to get to her place. She stopped dead, her face froze over in anger and she unleashed a flurry of Mexican Spanish at me that I couldn't understand, but whose message I could not fail to comprehend. I walked after her down to the track, asking her to explain what it was that she was so upset about.

– I go home now. Vete, ya! It's better if you go back to yours too. You don't call me that, ok. Just because you think you're smart, because you've read a lot of big books and been to University. I don't care, nobody calls me that.

I had understood tonta to translate to silly in English, and was glad I hadn't used the first Spanish word that had come to mind, estupida. I looked at her standing there, after her diatribe. A soft down of sweat had covered her forehead in the small space between her hair and her thin eyebrows. Five minutes behind me there was a party, full of my friends and other pretty girls, and I was standing on the Metro being shouted at for making an innocent remark. I looked her up and down and wondered whether this was really going to be worth the effort. Mixtli stood opposite from me, staring, fighting against her own anger but refusing to back down. The lights of the station flickered overhead, the tunnel behind filled with noise from the impending arrival of the old blue line train, I apologised, wiped the line of sweat from her brow, reached for her hand and walked with her onto the train.

Mixtli's room was small and untidy. Clothes covered the bed and the small amount of available floor space. A little wooden desk covered with drawing pencils and a large closed pad, and an overflowing ashtray, stood on the right hand side of the room against the wall. On the left there was a single bed, the mattress made up but lying on the ground. Three or four shelves on the walls above the desk and bed gave extra storage space, and were filled with photos, a Snoopy doll, CDs and candles. A large Frida Kahlo self-portrait print depicting the artist naked but mangled, her body meshed with the metal a lifetime of operations had left with her with, was hung in an expensive looking frame on the left hand wall. A small window looked onto the interior of the building. Opened up, recurring, retching coughs could be heard and the bitter antiseptic smell of ointments and illness filled the air.

In the morning, in the kitchen before I left, she jumped on me, wrapping her legs around my waist and arms around my neck, burying her head up against my neck, then whispered into my ear.

– Eres mi cocodrilo. That is what you reminded me off last night when you opened your eyes at the bar — a crocodile. When you leave, I'm going to draw you a picture. It'll be the picture of how I saw you at the bar. It is for you, but I will never show it to you.