7 days at sea

Staring out across the night sky in this wicked city of lights and wondering what it all means. Just another lost soul who fled south for the winter. I got a call that a childhood friend had a child.
A girl I have known since I was five has a child.
In a few years, the baby will be the same age as we were when we first met. What does that mean? Are we no longer the current generation? Are we a generation ahead? Whatever the meaning, right now, it feels like the party is over.
What a sick notion on this warm October night, just hours after I saw Esto Es Todo -- Michael Jackson's This Is It.
I have spent my life searching for new beginnings, but now I feel like I am watching too many endings.
What kind of shit is this? I have been locked in this bed with a vicious fever for too long. I am becoming delirious. Maybe another sip from this deep bottle of Mezcal with soothe the burn.
I have melted into the seat and there is a row of ashes surrounding me. Dizzy talk at 3 a.m., but I have no real desire to come back to reality. Just get over this sickness. Do some lines and hop on the midnite express.
Eventually I am going to have to head back down the stairs for another glass of water. Ignore the delirium. Ride the wave.

Typhoid Madness

Yes, it's true. I have contracted typhoid fever and am coming home as soon as my treatment ends. No joke. The adventure is over. The phoenix has smoldered and plummeted into the ashes. I spent the better part of Friday in some seedy hospital with an IV plugged into my arm, watching bugs crawl aimlessless on the walls.

It was terrible, but not as bad as the bouts of sickness I have been feeling for the past several days. I thought it was the flu and would pass rapidly, but apparently it was more.

Laying in the dirty hospital bed for hours led me into some deep introspective reflection which I neither wanted nor needed. I have not eaten for three days, and am reduced to a diet of jello and bread, says the doctor.

Blink, wash this all away. What am I doing here in this clinic, with light flickering on and off. There is some urine-colored medicine being pumped into my body, one drip at a time.

Drip, drip, drip.

How long have I been here. I need to go.

The nurse comes in every few minutes and injects something new into the solution. My left arm feels cold.

Drip, drip, drip

An earwig has fallen off the light and landed on my pants, crawling up toward my face. I can't move to flick it away. Bugs everywhere.

"By the way, no cheese or dairy," says the doctor.

While I am here, Juan's doberman is in a nearby hospital, getting it's ears cut short.

"Are you sure it's typhoid, isn't that rare," I mumble.

"Not really," he said.

Several hours of this shit. The doctor pops in every few minutes. I am feeling light-headed. Trying to avoid passing out.

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

How much longer in this place. The lights are off, and there is no TV or any sign of life. Absolute silence.

Suddenly, music comes over what sound like loudspeakers. Some wierd country long.

"This liiiife. This Loooove."

What the fuck?

Then No Doubt, and finally John Lennon . Am I imagining this?

Let it be. Let it beeeeee.

Darkness.

Now, a day later I am drinking bottles of Electrolit Rehydrant and reflecting on everything that has come to pass thus far.

How did I get here?