{"id":57111,"date":"2024-11-21T10:48:31","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T10:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fiestaybullshit.com\/?p=57111"},"modified":"2024-12-03T10:07:29","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T10:07:29","slug":"now-here-now-here-hector-castells-travel-journal-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiestaybullshit.com\/en\/now-here-now-here-hector-castells-travel-journal-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"NOWHERE-NOW HERE, HECTOR CASTELLS TRAVEL JOURNAL III"},"content":{"rendered":"

I. Now Here, FK\u2019N\u2019OAK, September 2024<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I open my eyes inside the cabin. My body feels foreign and I have become left-handed overnight, so it seems. There\u2019s a song playing on repeat inside my brain. I identify it instantly. It is an ambidextrous variation of Aphex\u2019s Twin \u201cStone in Focus\u201d performed by Glen Gould. It is as soothing as senseless: Gould died way before Aphex was born.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m exhausted, as if I have just woken up after a hundred years sleep, a deafening achievement for an insomniac. My left ear is awkwardly wet: it\u2019s the third abnormality I notice in thirty seconds of sudden consciousness, so I start panicking on second thirty-one. As it turns out, the auricle is dripping some sort of transparent gel. Somehow, I know that there will be blood and that I will have to play it by ear.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m wearing a navy blue Hawaiian T-shirt, a pair of awkward grey trousers and buttery runners. For all I know, which equals almost nothing, I don\u2019t belong to my dress code or to anything else around, inside or outside me. My jaw line seems dotted with tiny, soft bumps, as if someone has stitched it together over my centurial unconsciousness. I yawn and my mouth opens like a watermelon outsizing the rest of my features.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m holding a Kindle between my hands. I read: \u201cYou are nothing but a creature, non-human and somehow strangely pathetic.\u201d<\/em> I recognise Mishima\u2019s line as second nature. Then my left hand switches off the device and its black mirror reflects my worst fears: I look like Wilson, the unfortunate volley-ball stuck on an island with Tom Hanks.
\nThe pilot voice says: \u201cWe are starting to descend to Fuck an Oak\u201d<\/em>, and before I entirely lose it, the screen in front of me solves the time and space paradox with a map displaying Southern Japan. I fasten up my seatbelt and search inside my pockets. I unpack an Irish passport and my boarding pass. As it turns out, my idiotic new name is Wilson Harper \u2014and Fuck an Oak is Fukuoka.<\/p>\n

Upon landing, a piercing pain raids my left temple. Next thing I hear Khaled\u2019s voice: \u201cWelcome to Japan, WH. Shun, our Zen master, is waiting for you outside international arrivals. Don\u2019t forget to pick up your obnoxious backpack, and remember: don\u2019t think, just follow your instinct.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It kind of rhymes \u2014and sucks enough to turn \u201cStone in Focus\u201d<\/em> into a ruthless stoning that could be orchestrated by the Masters of Joujouka.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you hear me? Who are you? Why the fuck are you inside my brain?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I can make the sound of his shoes dancing flamenco before he says:<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my days: it\u2019s working!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYour implant, my dear. I\u2019m Khaled, your master and commander.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cKhaled?\u201d<\/em> I ask pretending to have forgotten what I have not. I restrain my opinion on his bombastic, postcolonial choice of words.<\/p>\n

Only then the background flamenco turns into a stomping reggaeton.<\/p>\n\n\t\t