NOWHERE-NOW HERE, HECTOR CASTELLS TRAVEL JOURNAL – CAPSULE XIV

THE REMAINS OF URI

“On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our bottom.”

Michel de Montaigne.

If you are eager to experience Game of Thrones in real life try sleeping on the bottom bunk of the guy who drank your piss last night: you won’t slumber but you will fight.

Halfway through the night, I hear the crackle of his mattress’ springs. Next thing, I see a hand carrying the remains of my bottled urine. Before he manages to unleash it upon me, I grasp his wrist and thrust my weight forward. He loops over my head, and falls flat on his back, the liquid spilling all over his face.

At least one of us is engaging with the Big Sleep.

I check his pulse and see the initials HH tattooed on the back of his wrist. Then I see a shadow and my heart skips. Phew! he is not resurrecting, thank Dog.

A greater miracle has just happened: Mae is back.

If you wonder what a ninja is, she is the end of wondering.

If you wonder about the pulse, Mae always knows better.

Born in 1998

Mae, my life saviour, latest infatuation, and the Nippon’s Zen Master kendo Sensei, has come to the rescue once more. She asks what I was thinking.

I try not to think since the start of the century

She considers me with unambiguous incredulity and orders to move fast.

Your inventor was two years old at the start of the century! Seven corpses dude. You are pushing it! We must hurry up!

It is heartbreaking to hear the love of your imaginary life calling you “dude.”

And then she says:

Remember what you were told right after landing, when the customs agents at the airport were grateful enough to let you in and spare you from prison?

Yes, of course. They asked me to avoid getting into trouble at all costs.

Exactly. And what have you been doing? Do you know how many death penalties have you earned in less than a month?

As much as the lives of a cat, is it?

Yes. Seven. It was an auspicious number until you flipped it.

“Seven Samurais”, I remember.

Oh, not fucking Kurosawa, dude.

Would you please, please, don’t’ call me dude. You are my only samurai.

Oh Lord, here we go again. We are in a hurry, but… Remember the last thing I asked you?

Not to idealise you, my guardian angel?

Mae drops her katana from her elbow to her wrist, lifts it up seamlessly, and tips it between my eyes.

Call me your guardian angel again, and the tip of the sword will meet your brains, DUDE.

Love after Dude

I can’t conceal how much I’d love her to do that. At this stage, I have spectacularly lost the plot.

I know thinking is my enemy, so I engage with imagination instead: Mae and I are on the wooden terrace of our house on stilts overlooking the Mekong river. We are training Kendo at 5:30 AM, and the early sunshine lasers are outlining our moving shadows. She is about to Shomen’Uchi me (a vertical strike to the head), when I dodge her blow, move to her line of attack, and perfectly unbalance her with the tip of my sword. She falls straight into my arms; it is undeniably a perfect kissing position. I close my eyes, open my mouth and she extends her hand and dips the weapon into my heart.

Bye-bye thinking —or imagination for that matter.

I know you know I can read your thoughts, but I didn’t know how to crack your imagination. Thanks!

Drive

Mae drives at her dramatic usual speed for five hours. I’m back inside her trunk. I could live here forever if she were to keep driving. There’s not much room for oxygen or thinking, but my imagination is running free. I visualize our offspring just to entertain her intercepting-imagination skills.

I can tell she can grasp my abhorrent parenthood fantasy effortlessly.

She is literally fuming.

Thought Reading

She pulls the handbrake and lets the tyres spin for an extended amount of time. I bounce like a pinball, and see stars, daughters, lions, honey, and the big wheel. I say nothing: I can’t help it but keep smiling and heroically resisting the throwing up lust.

Next thing she stops, gets out, opens the trunk and we are on square one again: the Fox shrine is behind us, the coast is glimmering ahead, and the Nippon Zen Master arrives just in time to park her vintage Volkswagen to avoid us the clear sight of South Korea.

The massive hatch on the forest ground opens up, and the unsullied army marches up again in their mandatory black kimonos.

1K MOONS

Thousand Moons is floating over them with her black and red kimono on. I squint my eyes and try to make out her face. I have definitely seen her before, although there’s some sort of wicked resistance that won’t let me zoom in. I’m sure she is Mae, and I can only wish she is also Nora.

I’m afraid to say that you have exceeded our expectations. You must be relocated. I’m as impressed with the amount of corpses that you have left behind as I am with your non-thinking skills.

Thank you, mother. Mae seemed very unimpressed with the corpses.

That is her war, is not that you are making her life easier, but then again, she is our “Misses Wolf.”

Quentin will be proud.

I don’t care about Quentin. They were all HH’s. They were never born in the first place. Chances are that they are going to resurrect though, so for the time being we are going to send you with the Slavic classic pianist, remember her?

How to forget her? Did you enjoy the song we wrote? I’m going to attach it at the end of this story, if you allow me to, of course.

That’s another nuance I don’t have time to deal with. I appreciate that you call me mother, and I also appreciate you saying that love is not a word in our vocabulary. That’s good, very good, son. Attach whatever you want as long as you keep breathing and not thinking.

Mae already asked you if you’d prefer to chase your bloody hunters or to keep travelling. Your answer is clear. You will re-emerge nowhere soon again. Make it Now Here and it all will be fine. 

And Mae?

What about her?

Is she going to show up every time I get into trouble?

Don’t wish, just imagine.

She says it and I see her spinning like the first tornado. The air, the lights, the soldiers and the Nippon Zen Master seem to vanish around the edges of her thunderous kimono.

Fade to black.