Miserable, lonely, sensitive, brutal, sometimes empty. When I met him in that dreary bar in Querétaro, he held a depressive essence, his silhouette represented the most terrible of misfortunes. He approached to ask for a cigarette, never left. The night was as miserable as existence. A natural sadness pervaded the atmosphere. Thomas X began to ask about the photo album I was holding in my tired hands, despite his insistence, I refused to answer, there was nothing to tell, nothing to explain. We chatted without any direction. It was close to midnight when I noticed that he had almost consumed all the cigarettes, but I didn't stop him, I even asked the waitress to bring another pack. Desperation as a driving force, as elemental energy. What was going on in his mind that night? What was keeping us in orbit?
A few minutes (perhaps centuries) passed, and I began to observe from the balcony, the toxicity emanating flooding the dreary November sky. The city phosphorescence invaded by the textile, pharmaceutical and automotive industries. Thomas X did not hold his gaze, his existence stranded in a night of agony and desolation. His crestfallen left foot moved at a dangerous pace, as if he wanted to run away, or jump out of the window. At that moment the reddish-haired waitress approached with a cadence that caused dissociation and left the cigars on the table. A melody began to disturb us: “Runaway” and we smiled exaggeratedly, but with a ballast of bitterness. We remained untouched for a couple of hours more, I started to get annoyed, but the taciturn character sitting in front of me remained static, time had stopped for him. Minutes later he gulped down the mezcal and left. I asked for the bill and did the same. I descended the gloomy spiral staircase that confused the awkward movements. The parking lot was empty, no one but characters like us frequented places of such singular importance. It was dark, but a beam of light was coming through the broken window of the guardhouse, also empty. I met the waitress in that darkness and she asked me to take her, I did not refuse, the night was still long and I needed company before dawn. Outside it was raining, she was smoking with a desperation that was scary, but I kept driving with no destination. The avenue seemed to have no end, the streetlights came and went, lengthening the night, the coming and going began to tangle the situation. The rain caressed the edges of the car and the trees that surrounded the road swayed with uncertainty and despair. A few meters away a silhouette could be seen dragging a huge trunk, it was Thomas X, I stopped suddenly, his head was almost detached from our soft bodies. Do you have a place to sleep? I asked with a halo of hope. He didn't answer, seconds later he got into the car. The fugitive rummaged through his trunk until he found a CD and popped it into the stereo. Matt Berninger sounded heartbreaking, the waitress turned up the volume until it became overwhelming.
In miles we were lost, in light years we became. I'm so far away from that night. I want to turn back time. I want to lift Thomas X out of that hospital bed and go find the russet-haired waitress. But it's too late now. We were too young to understand the impossibilities of life.
Photography by Cleo Thomasson
