2024-01-16

It's already starting, "better smoke that last cigar before you actually believe you need it," he says. "Then you won't be tempted during hard times." Though this is already a hard time in the mind, because it knows what's coming next, and the daggers of thoughts are soon to poke at my every pattern and drive me to incoherence.

Is the voice inside my head a “he”?

Ali took me for another walk tonight. He must have known that something is coming, that I've planned some time where I won't be "at my best," though I don't believe there is such a thing, nor is a thing to aim for. Tonight his patter was so noticeable, heavy slaps from oversized paws on the sidewalk.

Am I only noticing his fa-wump because my Mom mentioned his meaty feet, or is this some other lesson from an animal that could choose to be silent.

Ali snaked between gardens and pathways and neighbors yards and cars, ducking behind low decorative walls or driveway cars when headlights got too close. Cats get to decide if they are seen or not, and know exactly how to hide from prying eyes.

I wish I had that skill.

A dull hum of a heavy freeway roared too nearby. It would be easy to tune out if not for the unpredictable but all too obvious intentionally loud anti-mufflers that idiots love to strap to their poorly "improved" aftermarket noise makers. Somehow, the world continues to add more lights and sounds and smoke to an already saturated planet. Nights should be filled with stillness and silence and nocturnal predators. Here, cats meander down sidewalks more than humans. At least those cats are allowed outside. Humans seem to have forgotten how to do such a simple thing, most of them snuggled up in front of screens or racing to some unnecessary destination on sleepless streets.

Maybe some of us were built to accelerate our demise.

We pass a trees adorned with their own special spotlights to highlight someone having planted extra trees in their yard. Someone had cared long ago to know that a yard is better full of knotted bendy trunks and unbelievably heavy balanced branches rather than plastic blades and rubber pellets. I regard the foliage as beautiful despite the unnecessary accent.

Beauty shines brighter without undue attention.

I'd been walking for an hour already, though I wouldn't know that until returning home, having left my phone there so I could forget that I "needed" to respond or check in or any other form of interaction which draws my attention back into a tinier world that I despise.

When we've forgotten what needs are, we start needing more things.

I return home, Ali playfully in tow. He's always happy to return. We're alike that way too: adventure always calling outward, even in the briefest of ways, but still so happy to be back in familiar lands. As much as I wished I could set loose his adventurous soul, I know he, like me, is too far gone, domesticated in the land of the "free." I wish we both were more wild, and could return to the days when we hunkered inside a frosty truck camper shell on the side of a wintery road. Something about parking in the snow made me sleep so peacefully, even when everywhere was cold and my toes stayed numb for weeks. We both knew where and when to be back then. Where and when didn't matter, we were home everywhere we went. Society calls wanders like that homeless and shuns or pities or looks down upon those who are not so rooted. I envy the purist wanderers because I am hardly that, with too long a history of suburbia and affluence. But I like to pretend that I am a true adventurer, like those who really didn't know what was at the end of the path, when there were terrestrial unknowns testing the strength of men. Today our unknowns are inside the mind, and the battle being fought there has an even less obvious end.

Ali continues to play with his favorite string as I unwrap a cigar, clipping a hefty bite out of the end with my mini-guillotine. Matches lay on a table nearby.

They'll do, even if I burn my finger.

Something about a mission makes even predictable pain tolerable. I didn't flinch as I rolled the cigar for an even light. The flame grew larger with every puff, creeping towards my fingers. Addictions make me more adept at all the little skills required to support them. I know this one will be my "last," at least for a while. I had eaten my "last" meal for the day around lunchtime, and carried plans to not touch another piece of food for at least the next 3 days. My mind says I can do much more, but this mind is living in the comfort of a fully fueled consciousness. When the hunger comes, and all my stores of toxins release, I won't have the mind I have now and will have to rely on the commitments and reminders I set up to keep me from convincing myself that I should eat.

And so again I embark on unnecessary difficulty for reasons I won't know until life is easy again. “At least this unnecessary isn’t inspired by weakness,” he appears again. But I know his voice will change tune when things get hard, that’s when he’ll be an enemy against decisions I made tonight for a weaker version of me tomorrow.