The Coach - UK Series

I have never seen anything more prefect than this moment. Here,on a bus last night's hangover still lingering, good times on my tongue, the night taking day hostage for the longest period all year today. I am caravan for all of the things I need. Warm, tired and moving. The world is looking back at me and having a good laugh.

Outside there is a moon like I have never seen before. A moon I have never seen before.

I have memories that are now apart of me. I now have something to go back to.

Off in Edinburgh. A night with the insane eating stolen shredded cheese, scarfing it down in the winter wind. More lies and false identities, thinking we are speaking when we are just mouthing old passages, pulling at the ropes that tie this bag around my neck.Paid not to sleep. Paid to keep my stuff - and meet you? Was it just for the that one question? Asked in the latest lateness of the longest night I have ever known?

Are you sure you are ready for what that means? 

Yes. I think. As Henry told me to do, I do. So I answer. Yes, yes, yes. 

In my confidence, all this fear. Like a set alarm, ready to protect me from nothing again. 

So be it. 

On the bus.

Edinburgh to London.

Changing pants under my coat.

I think this woman will probably cut someones head off before this is over.

I'm OK.

Further to hither in.

Delirious and hungry I close my eyes and see dehydrated carrots. It's hot, scorching me inside-out inside this coach. Manchester bringing reality back on in full. People coming in for utility, not pleasure. Who are these people? Why are they following me? London of course, but why? My bones hurt. My skin moves slowly and I loose thoughts before they are formed.

Am I communicating effectively? The preally in experience? Feeling as though I am wandering without aim, grabbing hold of meter sticks as they reach out from the shadows to whack me back into place. Sitting in a noon-day sun that appears to have left off at 5 pm and never returned. Its hue is all wrong. Its power decisive and relentless in yet weakened all the same. Today I am scared. Scared of myself and just how far this will go. Maybe not far enough. . . .

isolation.

isolation is the gift,

all others are a test of your

endurance, of

how much you really want to

do it.

and you’ll do it

despite rejection and the worst odds

I am afraid of fate like I used to be afraid of god. Afraid it might just actually exist and is getting enraged at my apathy; at my blatant disregard for its signs, my constant denial of its existence. I am afraid that one day I will just wake up and fate will be there, the ghost of Christmas fuck-you hovering over my bed, pressing its hot ghostly lips to my face and saying:

noooooooooooowwwwwwww.

I can do this, despite hearing glass breaking in my ears and I love you's from far away. These damn voices wake me up while I continue to flight against my tiredness to sleep.

The hosts on the radio are talking zombies. Tall black hoods with gangrenous flesh falling off the bone. This is all happening simultaneously. There is no here and there. Now and then. Me and you. The earthquake last night was me, landing heavily after the big jump. I still smell vegetables. The woman behind me is a drug dealer. The English prioritize the strangest things. You know what I should have done? Entered into a different Schengen country and crossed over.

Finally off my caboose I settle into the thirty minutes it takes me to wander around Victoria Station, find enough money to use the toilette and remember that I was supposed to call somebody I don't know. All I need is a shower. I look at the signs for hostels and the disdain behind the counter. All I would have to do is ask. One hostel please. No translation. No issues. Just a shower and a busy place to sleep. Possibly. Finally. Maybe? Or. . .

Monia – 0207341401 Gabreilla Monica's Mum - 0787623449

Victoria Line North Bound to Oxford Circus – Eastbound Central Line to Woodford

I make the call. Its cliched, but is really is now or never. No ones going to push you. No ones going to catch you either. There really is just your ideas and the faith you place in the unknown to see them through. Or not. It probably doesn't matter anyways.

She pulled on the attic pull chord and drew the stairs down. Monica lives up there? Is this a joke? I pull my pack off. Its heavy with strangeness I have rolled in along the way to this. Breathless, I enter the dormitory of my soul. It is as perfect as I imagined. An attic made of bricks and books and an artfical fireplace. It stirs and sits simotaneously as I pass my fingers over everything in the room, trying to devine some sense of who my host was. An hour later, showed in warmth and mincemeat pies she arrives, a lemur. She pops, bobs and weaves and woes her way up and immediately into me. Instantly all is known: Kaourac and the weight of thoughts, string theory, travel and biking South America. We steal the night for ourselves on unknown trains to unsure places, talking and walking, running, inviting it in with smiles. No fear. No fear.

She sips our cocktail from the fishbowl.

There is Amy Winehouse.

There is Brick Lane. I think.

There is me and there is you but there is a non-dual in between and it swells. Its so impossible to call it love, so we called it nothing and just laugh. Finally the self comes back to me. I had to travel far but no one can ever say - that it was all for naught- if she felt it too. We flew. Coo-Coo.

Birds of a feather.

But alas, it is always only to continue on to our destinations. 

Passing remaining days as a tourist. Photo-hogging each moment in desperation, but not mine. 

I only fit the picture.

And filled the mind.