I wanted nothing more than to have some peace for a few hours. My mom goes on and on about things, and I tire of listening. She doesn’t seem to get that even mentioning a future makes me tense, makes my hands sweat and skin prickle. It’s almost torturous to talk about such things, so…I don’t.
I decided early on that I was going to go out. I could feel the heat trying to penetrate through the windows and black curtains, but the light of it, those rays, was somehow dark. That means a cloudy day. There are some days where I don’t even look out the window or step outside. I wait until night, sometimes never knowing if it was sunny and sweltering, or one of those days where it was black and grey and beautifully bleak. They all blend together, into oblivion. But I can look at the light that manages to filter in and get an idea, if I choose to. I can even walk outside tell you the time by staring at the sun’s position in the sky, the way its beams falls over the house, the shadows it creates from the surrounding trees.
I wanted to go alone, but nearly didn’t get to. Thankfully, my quad decided to be the homicidal bitch it prides itself in being, and stubbornly choked on its gasoline before dying out and blatantly refusing to start. The fuel filter is clogged with something, probably, and it didn’t help that it ended up flooded from all the times we tried to kick start it unsuccessfully. My dad finally decided he wasn’t going to be able to go, and told me to take his quad. I was strangely relieved. There is something so freeing about not having to constantly watch out for another person when you are blindly flying down whatever trail you happen to come across. And shouting over the roar of engines makes one’s throat hoarse anyway. Not that it matters. I just wanted to go as fast as possible without having someone to tell me not to or to holding me up while they gaze at an utterly useless map. I always go by memory.
I think I wanted to run away for awhile. I feel trapped indoors. All there is here is food and computer screens and exercise equipment.
I went down this trail I’ve never been on before. It travelled alongside the railroad, with trees on either side. It should have been the same as any other path, but I saw this one view that made me stop, though it meant breathing in the cloud of dust and engine exhaust.
You can’t quite see it in this one. But it was much darker than the picture makes it seem, and right at the center of the path, where it fades off, there was this almost white patch of light. It made me think, “light at the end of the tunnel”.
That trail went on forever. I almost ended up on the highway. There were abandoned couches everywhere, and even a refrigerator, among other things. Then little flecks of broken glass that reflected in the sun. Bits of garbage all over. I don’t know why, but there is something about being alone that makes me stop and take in and examine what I need to, perhaps because I don’t have to take the time to explain myself to someone else.
I can look through the garbage of civilization, baby toys and wrecked cars spattered with neon paint from paintballs, old mattresses, and clothes, and find more of an explanation of the world from those things than any other. Like I know that if I find baby food and balled-up diapers, used condoms will also be there, and beer, and prescriptions. They go hand in hand, apparently. This is what these people are: this is their garbage. These are their secrets dumped in the middle of the woods where they think no one will ever see them. But I do see. I always see.
I don’t know what I am getting at; perhaps nothing. I just know that the more time I spend thinking, the more I am displeased with all that I see. Sometimes the fact that nothing is perfect is so astoundingly beautiful. Other times, I find myself reflecting, that it is nothing but ugly.
You have to love contrast.
