Click clack, click clack, I hear myself conjuring these sounds in the early hours of a Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and sometimes even on Fridays. I hear the clock strike 2 with its usual DING one two three DING. Like Quasimodo trying to claim sanctuary. My neighbors asleep in their beds. My breath slowing and getting steadier. Click clack, click clack.
These noises are my companions while I type strings and variables together; sentences and paragraphs on a computer monitor. Sipping on a third, forth or fifth cup of whiskey. Or beer. With every touch of that glass it stings as if it was my first time.
My liquid amber, my golden escape. The dulcet tones of Miles and his trumpet. The only time where I can feel nothing, and also think on everything and feel conflicted in 5 different ways. At the bottom of every cup I find some truth. Whether it be about you or other, there’s always that last drop holding the truth captive within its watery walls, but she wont give up her secrets that easily.
There’s a ritual that needs to take place before one can embrace her warmth. There’s a setting and mood that must act as a catalyst for your dance. A dance that sobriety and inebriation have to fight over to see who takes lead. Where their partners: reason and recklessness, take backseat. One careful step here, one gentle swirl there. Is it any wonder that a good whiskey and a beautiful woman share so much in common? With both you need to have a strong stomach to handle their offerings. Their smooth bodies make it impossible to stop.
Once you’re hooked you can’t let it go, because you don’t want to. You don’t want to lose that warm feeling that you get when you first kiss. After a while it becomes a love affair. Something you have to keep from your friends and family. The sting makes you close your eyes. Something to savor. Freddy Freeloader is what Miles Davis titled his second track on ‘Kind of Blue’. An album widely regarded as one of the best of all time. An opinion I happen to share.
Bukowski wrote a poem called ‘Bluebird’. What is it about the word ‘blue’ in pieces that I gravitate towards? Perhaps it isn’t the color blue after all, but rather the artists themselves. Both Bukowski and Davis were drunks and drug addicts.
Here’s to Kurt Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorian philosophy: this is where I’m supposed to be at this point in time. Nothing that I do to change will matter much. The past, present and future are happening with every step forward and backwards. All I have to do is close my eyes and time travel. Go back to the stardust which we all come from. Close my eyes and dream again.
FotografÃa: Alexis Vasilikos
