“Porque necesito viajar, dígame,” I ask Manuel.
“No se.”
We’re listening to Wavin Flag by K’Naan as he drives me to the bus stop.
“Send photos,” says Manuel.
We do a bro hug.
“Absolutely.”
Five weeks ago, I was in a slightly manic phase, craving adventure to match my energy. I typed "social hostel" into Google Maps, and it pulled one up in Barcelona. I booked the flight.
Who should have that amount of freedom? Me? Thank you to the people who do stuff they don’t want to do, so I can roll the dice with wanderous international travels that may or may not accrue a genius level of prose for my readers to dip their feet in.
I haven’t done a day of work in six months. Yesterday I was feeling exceptionally useless, so I scrolled a job app, fantasizing about being working class. I’m in a new and growing class called Failing Internet Creator.
I’m an odd mix of "I don’t care" and "I care a lot."
With the stage set, here I go, across the pond to Europe’s largest prostitution market. Writing makes me feel better in the face of uncertainty. It gives this bus ride to the airport meaning—and my multi-decade bus ride from womb to tomb.
A forlorn lover lost could find my lines and take heart again, a smidge of spirit finding a new body.
When the plane lands… I had a dream last night that just came back to me—the plane landed and caught on fire, so it took off backward and landed on a car road. I slid down the slide to get away from the fire, then I woke up.
So when the plane lands, I’ll see the sun. And I’ll think of the boy in The Alchemist, who left Spain, in search of treasure. He had an epic journey, met his wife, then returned to an old church where he started. There, where he started, he finds the buried treasure.
Yesterday, a public school math teacher told me that he used to be a witch and cast spells to get girls, then he joined Mormonism, and now he’s a Catholic. He told me that when he goes 1 on 1 with the devil, he usually loses.
I’d like to cast a spell now:
I shall not get robbed in Spain.
Our plane shall not light on fire and take off backward.
I shall not spend money on prostitution.
I shall not get sick.
The probability of all those things not happening is low. I didn’t go to school for spell casting.
How do people live in the same place doing the same activities for more than six weeks?
Everyone on this bus has dumPods in. The more you sit in silence, the more you write. The more you write, the more you can post, and the more you can post, the more subs you can get, and the more subs you can get, the more likes you get, and the more likes you get...well, I don’t really know. You don’t really get anything.
The thing about having it all is there’s nothing left to get.
“Terminal A,” says the bus driver.
The government airport agents body scan me to log the size of my Johnson. Somehow they don’t find my DIY AK47. I’m never alone if I’m always writing funny stuff for Substack.
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