Traveling. I prefer it to life. I want to go everywhere. There is nowhere else to go. The sky is a ceiling. Mars, then. I seriously want Mars. A red desert. Better than a green one.
The best part is the mishaps. The strange things that don’t fit. The people who pass by and leave a scratch on the mind. I hunt for old bones, old cultures, museums. I sit still in a place until the stillness changes color. Until it becomes real, or as real as things get. No strings. Ready to vanish when the air thickens. Randomness is the only order. Less is more. Nothing is most.
I learn words quickly. A mimic. I am a party animal, so they say. A social butterfly. I could start a party in an empty room, dancing with my own shadow. My door in Istanbul opened at midnight on New Year’s Eve. A belly dancer lived next door. She came in and shook the dust off the room. A brief noise in the dark.
I love people, unfortunately. But the city is too loud with them. I leave for the wild, to find the silence that was there before we arrived. The mountains. When I was small, I thought they were Gods. Giant, unmoving things. Then came Into the Wild. Then came the Lonely Planet books, draining the pockets. I could throw the telephone into a ditch and never look back. Yet, I keep it in my pocket. A habit.
People have opinions. Let them. When I move, I move by the gut. The onlookers call it madness. "Freak." "Nuts." High praise, really. I take the blame for my own steps. No regrets. Or rather, avoid the worst kind. The thing done is done and finished. The thing left undone crawls around the head forever.
A long journey, this life. Looking out, looking in. Double blindness. I am ready to die this afternoon, yet I wouldn’t mind lasting forever. Nations are lines drawn in dirt. I am a citizen of nothing, a nomad, a human specimen. Politics exist, a dull ache I check on now and then. I turned off the television nine years ago. The screen went black and stayed black. No Gods. No creeds. If a hand must be placed on a book to swear an absolute truth, let it be The Origin of Species. At least the mud is accounted for.
