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<\/b><\/h4>\nThe relocation is completed. I wake up inside a filthy coconut bowl ploughing through the water thanks to the unreal strength of its master and commander. His name is Binh, and we don\u2019t share any known language apart from smile and barefoot language.<\/p>\n
I identify the fluttering red flag with a yellow star on the edge of his dinghy, but it is unclear if we are in the country of the flag. The shore is close by. Binh points at it and says, \u201cHOME,\u201d the only word we will ever share, something I still ignore when I ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere is home<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n
Binh smiles, shakes his head and keeps pointing at the shore. It is full of palm trees, white dunes, wild dogs and tons of rubbish, so I guess it also could be the home of the infamous Marcos\u2019 and bastard offspring, and definitely NOT the shore of the country that invented emojis, the latest place I remember to have been in.<\/p>\n
It is definitely not K-Pop motherland either<\/p>\n
The obnoxious backpack lies under a raincoat, and I\u2019m wearing a stripped T-shirt, a strapping in my fucked knee and the shorts of a dead friend that I have no recollection whatsoever of having borrowed. It totally feels like back then\u2014when we hadn\u2019t any recollection whatsoever of having anything.<\/p>\n
I guess home is where your dead friends live, where you have no recollection whatsoever.<\/p>\n
Home is also Binh\u2019s hand vertiginously approaching my face. He knocks me down with a big smile on his face, and I have a reading dream.<\/p>\n
Selby is a female. We are in the same house we used to live in. Everything shapes up in utter, digital kind of accuracy. I don\u2019t ask Selby if he has swam to the other shore of binary gender overnight. I\u2019m just at awe at his reversed beauty when he asks me to draw the curtains open.<\/p>\n
The sky looks like cotton soaked in blood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe might have been sprayed overnight again,\u201d Selby says.<\/p>\n
Then he starts roasting the coffee. I will miss it badly in the years to come, not that I know right now. I feel like the over stimulated macho licker in all the coffee ads. Selby could be the woman smiling and bubbling up the foam.<\/p>\n
The grains are imported from a remote continent. We pay 400 dollars and get 23 kilos lasting three months. The electricity bill is also a joke. It is always winter here, so the amount rarely changes. It provides us with an equally metaphorical sense of warmth that rarely lasts over two hours, and undeniably brings us on the verge of collapse many times daily.<\/p>\n
We both love the thrill before crumpling.<\/p>\n
<\/b><\/h4>\nIt is the same story with the rent. You feel alive the day of the month you pay it. It is the miracle that keeps you smiling while dying.<\/p>\n
Selby is an exploited insomniac, but his relentless labour dignifies most tasks he embarks on, including murdering shady politicians. I\u2019m not allowed to write about that. It could become my last line overnight. And it will.<\/p>\n
He seldom closes his eyes: sleeping is a miracle that mostly happens on Sundays, like old miracles.<\/p>\n
He says, \u201cShut up, and enjoy the coffee<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
We start kissing. I\u2019m off to Japan tomorrow.<\/p>\n
He asks: \u201cWhere are the condoms<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n
Good, extraordinary question.<\/p>\n
They are nowhere to be seen. We have been together for eight years and he refuses unprotected sex since day one. He is consistent, solid as rock.<\/p>\n
Selby says that he doesn\u2019t want to get pregnant while I\u2019m away \u2014neither while I\u2019m around.<\/p>\n
My jaw drops, I press him against me, slide my tongue inside his mouth and unzip his fly. It feels like the end of bakery and bananas. The treasure hunt is hard-on I, and pearly on Selby: she has swum the transgender shore overnight.<\/p>\n
I feign absolute normality and totally agree. Fuck kids. It\u2019s a no-go. I will never get you pregnant, dear. You either need assets or millions in order to fuck their tiny futures lesser than the rest. It is a No-Go.<\/p>\n
Life is a miracle, and Selby doesn\u2019t want to get pregnant, something unconceivable last morning. It all makes perfect sense. We just want to fuck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll go to Tesco\u2019s and get the rubber,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
Selby smiles. There is hope<\/p>\n
I leave the house with a hard-on.<\/p>\n
I park the bike outside, get into Tesco\u2019s, and only then I check my pockets. I have a ten-euro note.<\/p>\n
I see them hanging before the cashier, next to the last-minute guilty pleasures. The cheapest ones are tagged at 10\u201970\u20ac.<\/p>\n
Fuck me \u2014although probably not.<\/p>\n
I start magical-thinking about pharmacies and cheap rubber.<\/p>\n
I get carried away enough to forget that it is Sunday and I\u2019m in the country that invented Jesus and prohibited rubber.<\/p>\n
I cycle to the closest pharmacy. Condoms lay beyond the shatters. I stop thinking about Drugstore Cowboy<\/i> later than expected.<\/p>\n
I could cycle home, but it feels wrong to do it without the rubber in my pocket.<\/p>\n\n\t\t