The record

When I first met you, you were going nowhere fast. You looked up at me with puffy eyes and said you thought you knew what you needed but weren’t ready to start looking for it; you’d tried, but always fell back to the bottom of the ladder. To me it looked like you were sticking your head in the sand so your black dogs wouldn’t find you. You were digging for freedom, but with truth nowhere to be seen. Sometime afterwards you told me I wouldn’t see you for a while, that you were going away to get clean and thin. When I saw you a month later, you were even more bloated with booze and antidepressants. There was a gluttonous mistrust in you that sabotaged all your puritan exertions. You’d have said you knew all that, and maybe you did. The last time I saw you I didn’t recognise you at first. You’d been up all night and were talking too fast, but you were thin and happy. You said you’d finally got your orders and were going away for good now, but didn’t say where. You told me you’d found a way to live for next to nothing, that everyone had their own desert and you’d found yours. You were finally ready to patch things up between the soul and the world. It was all a question of finding a place with the right temperature. Walking backwards, you shouted that you’d keep a record and send it to me, a magical distillation of your trip that would help me with my own, that would help everyone. But you never did. I’ve spent far too much time thinking about you.

Sincerely, PHJ