The Prestidigitator

I’d be lying if I told you that I haven’t thought about you since. It creeps on me during the strangest of times. I wouldn’t call it painful but it certainly is far from desirable, the reminiscing. Remember Almora? We talked about it; we spent the entire night under the influence of what may or may not have been hashish, discussing isolation and taxes. I remember because you mentioned it was too cold to be pondering meaninglessness.

You joked about how Zarathushtra may have been just a mad man suffering from some variation of cabin fever. In hindsight, I doubt it. The overman, we concluded, was a farce. We laughed at our seeming cleverness.  And I cannot help but wonder if that night had anything to do with what happened after. Did it?

No, don’t answer that.

I concede that a year is a long time. I do not wish to bring up the unpleasantness but I want to tell you that I’ll take you up on the offer. I’d rather spend a year away from this noise with you. In isolation. We can still prove that the overman is a collective.

I’ll hang up now.

I counted seven of them; passed out on the floor surrounded by smoking paraphernalia and empty jello cases. The faint strain of a Marvin Gaye song came from somewhere in the decrepit apartment.

“What the hell does your boytoy want, Gwen?”

Gwen motioned me to follow her in.

“This is the guy I told you about Stu. He’s the one who wants….”

“Yeah yeah.”

Stu walked in from the toilet, wiped his hands on his khakis and plopped himself on the stained couch. The room reeked of cannabis and urine. There were copies of High Times, Extreme Golf and back issues of comic books I’d never heard of strewn about. In one corner of the room, there were giant stainless steel boxes that had wires going in and out of them. Temperature controlled vaults. Nonetheless, the place was the antithesis of what I had expected. Weren’t these people supposed to be a bit more, disciplined?

Stu sized me up and let out a condescending chuckle. I took that he wasn’t too impressed. I looked over to Gwen who seemed to be showing no emotion. Enter paranoia.

“I told you I wouldn’t sell to any wannabe latte sipping yuppie after last time Gwen. Why do you bring these little fuckers over?”

I tugged at Gwen’s sleeve but she didn’t seem to notice. I didn’t want to inconvenience the man any further. He probably had vegetative substance to get back to.

“He isn’t like the others Stu. Besides, why do you care for what he does with it?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t care what he does with it Lady Guinevere. You do. We all do.”

“We’re not having that conversation again. Stop being an elitist prick and just give him what he wants.”

Second thoughts now. An unemployed pothead was on the verge of putting me through another bout of existential angst. And from the looks of it, it’d take more than three bottles of vodka and a Dario Argento film to fix it.

Stu seemed to be contemplative all of a sudden. He picked his nose and drifted off for a minute.

“Alright, but I don’t have it sweetheart. You’ll have to see this Chinese kid. Peng.”

He turned to me, “And no asswipe, he doesn’t live with his mother.”

Hours later, I was trying to keep pace with Gwen as we raced through dingy streets and shady alleys. Screw Melbourne, this was Australia’s best kept secret. We waited by the Indian restaurant as instructed over the phone. Peng was a lot more like I’d imagined. He looked the type. Dressed in a Green Lantern t-shirt and jeans, he walked over and we shook hands awkwardly.

He seemed shy and didn’t make much eye contact with Gwen. From what I could make of his broken English, he wanted fifty more than we had agreed on. I shrugged and gave him the money. Too exhausted to haggle.

“You very lucky man. You take care of this, okay?”

I tore open the paper cover like an impatient schoolboy. Two years. Two whole years of tracking people down, forging unlikely friendships and promising unusual favors. It all boiled down to this.

I felt Gwen’s hands on my shoulder.

“Now, about that other thing.”

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight.

- The Myth of Sisyphus

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see. A rare cosmological event, bright lights, falling frogs even; anything to break the status quo the universe seemed hellbent on preserving. The starry night sky amplified his loneliness. The chilly air brought out hitherto repressed memories. Clenching his fists, he muttered a curse, sat down and stared into the distance.

A year back, he had spent all his savings on a rather nice but unimpressive house that blended in with the neighborhood. It wasn’t too gaudy but it was something not every thirty two year old could afford. Determined to settle down early, he had pursued a degree, worked and attempted falling in love all at the same time. He wasn’t entirely unsuccessful and had achieved what he had set out for to an extent by the time he was twenty five; married at twenty seven, mostly because he felt it necessary to do so after courting her for over a year and a half. She was beautiful, smart and ambitious. Beauty and ambition fade. Vanity and pettiness thrive.

Lately, listlessness crept in. Again. The ambiguities and uncertainties of youth had given way to mind-numbing comfort and normalcy. There were no wars to fight, no inner demons to subdue, no women to impress and no goals to strive for. What irked him more than anything else was the fact that his life had gone exactly according to plan.

A boy on a bicycle appeared. He glanced at his watch. Seventeen past twelve.

“Pretty late for you to be out isn’t it?”

“Yeah, my folks don’t know.”

“You should go back in. It’s late…it’s cold.”

“Why are you out this late then?”

“You first.”

“I was bored.”

“How old are you?

“I’m eleven and a half…what are you doing out?”

“Bored too.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Yeah, look I’ll take you home.”

“I can go by myself. Hey…you should get a bicycle. Beats sitting around doing nothing.”

“Uh huh.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Go home…I’m going back in too.”

He waited for the boy to be out of sight and lit a cigarette. It was all absurd. Everything. He smiled and realized the epiphany warranted revolt. Camus would concur.

Putting out the cigarette, he walked back to his door and noiselessly turned the knob. He tiptoed to the bedroom and saw her sleeping silhouette. Calm. Almost other worldly. It hadn’t been that long since he was sure of the life he wanted to live. Things had changed. He slowly walked up to the bed and kissed her on the neck. Eyes half open, she turned around.

“Where did you go?”

“To get a glass of water. Go back to sleep. I’m buying a bicycle tomorrow.”

“What?”

“Go back to sleep.”

Carefully unkempt twenty somethings with guitars standing next to bright red and blue boxes; another new indie band promoting cheerful nihilism. Methodically flipping through the pages once every two minutes, I thought to myself about what a creep I was being.

From the corner of my eye I watched her purse her lips to hum a tune; Damien Rice. What is it about a girl humming Damien Rice that never fails to arouse? Standing at the counter, she seemed oblivious to the evening commotion, a disposition that I was drawn to. The pretense of seeming interested in the stacks of music and pop culture journals was wearing thin. It was only a matter of time before someone at the counter realized I was not actually going to buy anything.

As I tried forming sentences from a random array of words in my head, he walked in. Quite an entrance, even turned a few heads in the process. I grinned not giving the slightest hint of displeasure and proceeded to return his rather enthusiastic wave. It was hard pretending to listen to him go on and on about coming to pick someone up. Or something. I managed to shrug, sigh and nod wherever necessary. Tilting my head ever so slightly towards the counter, I watched her tip over a can of coffee beans. Our eyes met and she gave one of those embarrassed smiles; I smiled back. I think. She exclaimed, ‘Best day ever’ to someone else at the counter.

I touched his shoulder politely stopping him mid sentence and managed a hurried goodbye. Too much pressure; I had to leave. Maybe another day. Nevertheless, I surprised myself by making a detour to the counter. She looked up and for about two seconds, I had nothing to say. Then, ‘I’ll have a orange juice.’ Fuck. An orange juice. An orange juice.

She smiled, one I’m assuming they taught her when she signed up for work. ‘That’ll be two fifty’. A false sense of confidence rushed over me by the time I reached into my purse, ‘You spilled a can of coffee beans, didn’t you?’ Way to go. That was as smooth as any opening line.

‘Yeah…I tried forcing the lid open and the entire thing just came off’, she was still smiling.

‘You come in on weekends huh?’

‘Mondays and Tuesdays, mornings and then weekends…wait…how do you know when I come in?’

‘No I just see you on…relax I’m not stalking or anything’. Exit false sense of confidence.

She grinned like a school girl. We had nothing to say to each other. She handed me the orange juice, ‘Thank you! You have a good night.’

‘Sure…you too.’

Making my way out, I couldn’t help but smile. Five weeks and so much progress. Glancing back for the last time, I watched him give her a peck on the cheek. She smiled. Not the one she gave me. Happier.

Epiphanies are dime a dozen; even while packing stuff into boxes. Nomadic exasperation perhaps. I’ve realized I have just a single pair of jeans; that too, one that hasn’t been washed in a couple of months and has been worn more times than it was designed for. All my t-shirts have insignias of marginally obscure cartoons a la Thundercats, comic book characters and band logos. I live in my own little delusional biosphere; oxygenated by seemingly intellectual literature, obligatory rock and indie music, cinema and distorted nostalgia. I pretend to care about things I don’t and am apathetic to the things that may matter. I lift lines from films hoping people won’t notice. I have nothing original to say; And now I learn that I am a cliche. Not a beautiful and unique snowflake. Organic decaying matter.

I’ve been told I act far too old for my age as many times as I’ve been chided for not growing up. In all likelihood, I’ll be that guy who hits 40 and still thinks he’ll make it in a band. Will mediocrity be the result of my struggle for a non conformist higher ground?

And today, she calls me a hipster. There is nothing that soothes the soul like being reduced to a stereotype. Nothing.