Open bar...
Though I did get to see Havana. It was fascinating and sexy. It was a real sexy city, like New York. New York has sex appeal. So did Havana. Also, shady stores selling rum, coffee and cigars. As well as shadier individuals outside promising said goods for a cheaper price. (I am sure such places exist in NYC as well, though I have not seen them.)
During the majority of my time there, I could be found at the beach under the floppy hat, jealously guarding my book and beer with my standard paranoia and muscular travel companion. I quickly finished my novel about the gossip during the first day, and moved on to Murakami's 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World'.
The book is utter crack. Which isn't a bad thing. But it got me thinking about the End of the World. To be honest, a lot of things get me thinking about the End of the World, but that's only because of the aforementioned paranoia.
In any case, I went down to the beach one night and gazed out over the water. The waves broke over the sand as they did during the day, and bumped and swelled a little further out. Then a little further out... darkness. The black water stretched out and up, and up - until there were stars. There was no horizon, just blackness stretching out from your feet in the surf. It was like standing on the edge of the world. It was like standing at the End of the World.
And what if, I thought, there was nothing out there in the blackness. I knew that somewhere to the north lay Florida, and beyond that, the sexy city of New York, and beyond that, my home, my friends, my family, my bed, the mall down the street, the clubs downtown, my old schools, my favourite restaurants... But what if all that wasn't there? What if the world had ended and there were no more schools and no more clubs because there was no more electricity and no more people? What if there were no more hospitals and no more doctors and no one you could call for help? What if it was just you, standing on the edge? You and the universe and the End of the World.
I left the beach after a while and went back with my muscular travel companion to the open bar and the lights and stopped thinking about the End. For a while. But the End always creeps back into my mind. Because it's always on the edge. Waiting.
It's strange, because I had lent you this book, so I know what it is about... and yet, I have never really thought of it this way. But it terrified me a little too, in a different sense. What if, I had thought then, when I first read it, we all carry the End of the World with us, each in their own head? In a way, it's the same question. There is nothing and no one at the End of the World, except yourself... and maybe this is why that is so terrifying? But it is also a place to find something else. Maybe even someone else.
ReplyDeleteIt had always been significant to me that it snows at the End of the World, for days on end, that it is a closed space that there is no way in or out, except to step over and above oneself. I was driving home today and it was still light, fresh in that way it gets near spring... And I thought, You're right, we're on the up-swing now. It's getting better.