Confusion

Pic @ Ellen Rogers

Do you ever feel like a spectator? Like life is just this stupid performance going on around you, and the more you try and make sense of things the weirder and more alien it all becomes? Sometimes I feel like I’ve wandered into a dream, too vague and exotic to be interpreted.

I arrive home at noon. In the living room I find Kerri and some guys I’ve never met strung-out in a heap on the floor. This is quite obviously the tail end of a massive drug binge. They don’t seem to notice me. “Uh… Kerri?” I say, gently shaking her, “did you eat my last can of soup?” She begins to wake up. Her eyes slowly make their way up to my face, then keep going up, up, until they’ve reached the ceiling. Her arms follow until she’s completely stretched upright, reaching for the heavens in revelation. “OH MY GOD I HAVE A BODY!” she shouts desperately–the words seemingly ripped from her throat by some supernatural force–then collapses back into the pile of bodies. I stare at her, perplexed. For a second I think about re-asking the question about the soup, then decide it’s probably pointless, and head to the kitchen to scrounge for more food.

While in the kitchen I hear a knock at the door. I answer it to find Bunny, wearing nothing but a ripped T-shirt, boxer shorts and a pair of soaked-through white gym socks, shivering with cold. “What the fuck?!” I say. “It’s freezing outside! Why are you naked?”

“It’s a long story,” he says, hobbling past me. “I can’t be bothered to tell it right now.”

“Well you have to,” I press, intrigued. I’ve seen some strange things go on this house, but this seems like it could potentially be up there with some of the weirdest.

“Well… like…” he says, flopping down on the couch, “I was at a house party in Camberwell, and somehow I became part of this weird threesome with some Swedish punk kid and a random Japanese girl…”

“Yeah,” I say, my interest heightening.

“So we were fooling around and stuff, and I went to fuck the girl or whatever, but then she was all like, ‘If you’re gunna fuck me you need to wear a condom.’ So I walked out of the house to buy some condoms wearing just this, but then on my way to the store I realized I had no idea what number the house was, or even what street the house was on by that point.” I laugh, he appears annoyed. “So I looked for the house for a while,” he says, “but I couldn’t find it and I didn’t have my phone on me so I just thought fuck it and walked home.”

“That’s really…” I’m searching for an adjective, but I’m lost for words… “Stupid,” I manage to say. “Why do things like this always happen to you?”

He looks up at me with blurry eyes, and in a moment of overt sincerity he says, “Only when I’m completely reckless do things truly become clear. I can both see and understand.”

I smile warmly and touch his shouder, as if to say I get it, though I’m not sure I do. What does he mean, “become clear?” He can see and understand what? I am… confused.

Comments

Comments