I have now been spending a week in my new place by the ocean, waiting for it to be ready for my guests. Indeed, I intend to hire three women to live naked around old Mr. Me so, when I die, the last thing I see is a gift of beauty, at least to my eyes. Yes I could buy paintings and sculptures but those don’t sweat and, in Southeast Asia, it’s warm all the time, often hot.
In the evening, after the rehabbing crew is gone, I enjoy the quietness of it all, even if millions of bugs make an infernal ruckus in the forest surrounding the property. There is plenty of fruits, the fridge is loaded with beer and the kitchen fully equipped with canned food because I was never much of a cook. The house is facing west, so sunsets are something.
I can now sit for hours watching the ocean and the sky, drinking beers, smoking cigarettes, with music coming out of the house, thinking about this and that. And you know no one is going to call and you don’t have to go anywhere. It’s perfect. Perfectly quiet.
While construction work was going on, I received many offers from the local villagers: house maid, cook, gardener, cleaning lady, driver and whatnot and more if I wanted. I almost gave in for a massage though I didn’t hire none of them.
I explained to the locals that I was waiting for my own people who would be coming soon. I didn’t want them to think there was anything odd with my desire to live in this remote place like a recluse. They were already surprised enough by the way I wanted my house to be furnished, no doors and so little furniture other than flowers and mirrors. When they asked me what I was doing for a living, I didn’t mention the aliens and told them I was a writer. I said I needed peace and quiet for my work. They saw me set up office in one room and, I guess, that was enough for them. Just another old and crazy occidental white guy.
There is a small resort a few miles south of their village so these villagers are used somewhat to see foreigners. There’s even a sports’ bar in town. A third of the villagers are fishermen and there’s a little port, a third are farmers and there is a lively market with wonderfully fresh fruits and vegetables, a third work in construction and, in some ways, with the resort. So, although it’s a small village, there’s a taxi service, and shuttles to the next town, 35 miles away inland, where the closest train station is. And all of these people seem to know how to rehab a house. I find their homes quite impressive and I really appreciate their craftsmanship.
In any case, the locals were thus not phased out to see me moving in, several miles away along the bay, in the forest, by the beach. And it was better they knew something about me rather than wonder what the fuck I was doing in that house, alone, in secret. Villages’ secrets are the worst.
Still, I didn’t tell them that, really, if I ended up here, it’s only because I was tired of selfish, vile, egotistic, mean, ignorant humanity, tired of the violence that seems to be the root itself of mankind, rich people depriving the poor of their dignity, bosses venting their hate onto their subordinates, those later venting their frustration on people even weaker than they are and at the end these guys becoming so insane and frustrated they come home and beat the wife and she screams at the kids and the kids beat the dog and the dog becomes so mean he’d have soon to be shot.
Everywhere, there no intelligence but hypocrisy, no ambition but greed and power and no one has ever enough money or power. Wars everywhere and civilians being maimed by bombs; as they say, one day of war brings more profits than ten years of peace. Elsewhere, inane patriots being force fed shit from monstrous global companies just so they’d become sick and would have then to be fed medicines produced by other worldwide companies. A world soon to be populated by zombies.
“So you are a writer?” one asked. “What do you write about?”
Yeah I wrote about what I saw everywhere, even in remote villages: people driven insane by ridiculous religions in the name of which the most unimaginable abominations have been committed, still are: Catholics vs Protestants, Sunnites vs Chiites, Jews fending for themselves against everyone, Atheists fearing for their life. Communism, socialism, capitalism, nationalism as new religions are no better. And it doesn’t come from yesterday. Cain vs Abel, Romus slaughtering Romulus, Sodom and Gomorra fried out of the world like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And every day, everywhere, billions of cowards hurting one another because of the sheer terror they feel when thinking about themselves. Guilty as sin they are.
That’s why human beings stink so much when they die, it’s because that’s when they release all the shit they have accumulated through their life and, really, I don’t know more of a stinker.
Sometimes I wish a truly powerful and benevolent God would come to earth and get rid of all assholes this planet begets. HE wouldn’t miss because HE could read in their heart. Very few of us would be left for sure. Maybe survivors would have a chance to make it new and better. I doubt it. I’d probably be gone too because I’m no saint either, though I love New Orleans.
I was born very poor and, with hard work, I managed to live later in a somewhat comfortable way but I would have gone an idiot the same way had I not been lucky with aliens’ money falling from the sky. So I did the next best thing I could think of. This way, after all those years dwelling in crap, now far away from violence, I might convince myself that indeed, sometimes, someplace, this is still a wonderful world.
“Oh, I work for some magazines,” I finally said. “International.”
“You know what?” said then the boss of the crew, “my daughter is studying journalism at the university in the capital. Maybe I should tell her to come by here sometimes and meet with you? You could give her good advices I’m sure.”
“I don’t know if I’ll have the time,” I said.
“She’s a good girl,” he said, “she has good grades and loves to write.”
“Ok then, have her give me a call one day,” I said
I appreciated sitting on my front porch, drinking beer and looking at the sea, being away from everything, from the world, from human beings’ folly and hideous nature, from family and friends and culture, being finally just by myself. Really, I enjoyed those first days ‘at home’ so much so that I sometimes wondered if I really wanted to go through with my project. What, now that I’ve finally made it and found peace, I’d bring new people in here? Women at that? Women I would have to deal with? Did I really want to do that? Again?
I knew those moments of hesitation had more to do with my own shyness than anything else – once a poor fellow, always a poor fellow, at least in mind, and aliens’ money won’t change that. It was hard for me to conceive that I was now the one in power, with the ability to choose how to live and who to live with. Fear, always the same fear. I was born Christian so I was born guilty as sin.
I certainly considered finishing my life this way, being simply alone looking at the ocean drinking beer and being bothered by no one. No more pain, no more worry, no more ambition of any kind, and, when even that would still be too much, going to take a swim in the ocean and wash it all off.
The house was just about ready the way I wanted it when I got a call from the capital, from downtown: the head hunter bureau had some news. First, some secretary verified my identity and checked that I was indeed that guy looking for, I quote, ‘a nude female roommate’, and still looking.
I said yes.
Then she said they were ready for me.
I was as ready as I could be.
Ellar Wise
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Iconography: MDU Fashion Fusion Show The Origin of Human Beings
Stories 