it’s not about leaving things/people in the dust – it’s about flying solo. no wingman, and you always need someone to watch your back. especially when you’re out in front, at least in this one direction. “it’s lonely on the top”, although i wouldn’t dare call this the top. it’s just a place, a rural road seldom traveled. rolling hills with the fresh spring grass and a mellow sun scorching arms that haven’t seen the sun in months. others didn’t take this turn onto the small road running through the pines.we would met up again later down the road. at least for a while. the detour wasn’t one that cost me much. it was there and i had the time. the day was far from over, and i wanted to take advantage of it - i wanted to see the winding road and the forest and whatever lied beyond it. it was a large hilly clearing in the middle of the mountain. for some reason it was named after a spirit. no, not a ghost, but a beverage. strange people live in the next forest. and it is a beautiful forest. the sun shines though the leafless canopy. and there are few people along the way – big guys with saws and the occasional lumber truck. no one else ventures here, i’m not sure whether they have no reason or they don’t dare. but i chose to.
the forest ended abruptly at the top of a steep cliff. from it you can see a river cutting its path through the valley and making its way to the sea far beyond the last hills visible on the horizon. spring had just arrived and the trees were awaking. a dog ran ahead of me down the road and seemed to jump off to the right and down the cliff. strange. but what is strange, anyway? was it him running, seemingly for no reason, or i who had absolutely no reason for being on this road except to see what was there, and then going on. and he had a lot less reason not to be there.
i trembled the entire way down. if i had only left word that this was where i was going to pass perhaps they would know where to search for me if i didn’t surface. this wasn’t where i wanted to go. it wasn’t worth it; the ride isn’t exciting enough, and the location isn’t exotic enough. it would just be plain stupid.
the rendezvous turned out to be just downstream from the cliff. it was civilization. or at least the place mankind left a greater footprint than a 5-meter-wide artificial strip through forest and stone. i spoke of the road less traveled. they spoke of the same things as before. i realized that there was a difference. an increasing difference. i had been different in choosing the pines, now i had added the meadows and cliffs, and dogs and big men to that. and apparently i was looking at the world from an entirely different angle. but wasn’t that the point? or at least the point to hear about the world from a different angle? no. it is about talking about common things, ones that the listener can understand without hearing about them, just adding new information to the abundance of malignant information that corrupts clarity of thought. a civilization of data junkies with a touch of cerebral dystrophy. and me physically addicted, with my brain screaming for help. it just seems to revert back to the simple plug’n’play information sources saturating the world surrounding me. no backbone, on abs.
so i find myself wondering in the noon sun, among cafes under linden trees, watching the people doing their thing. and i find myself as far from them as can be, without leaving the continent. i flip through the phonebook in my head, looking for someone that might be available for a fast trip through the real reality - the one that everything else builds up to, the one we occasionally dare to dream of – but there is no one. just another reminder of solitude bordering on loneliness. well-dressed thugs discussing business, twentysomethings reading newspapers. “get your work done and just get out” i keep repeating to myself. i don’t have the willpower. i feel the city dragging me down, sucking me into the lethargy that is my hometown. at least its not the hyper-productive well-greased machine of real metropolises; those can really get you.
i slumped into bed when i got home. i tried reading the book, but it wasn’t the same. the hero was still in the forest, but i was now surrounded by concrete. just a little depression nap. how time crawls by when your having no fun. as the sun set i make my way out onto the terrace and try writing. it brings some satisfaction but far from that of the meadows and pines. this is life in the 21st century. the standard 21st century. i remember someone calling me a renaissance man. i remember a choose-your-own-adventure book when i was a kid, with the whole story taking place in medieval times. i rarely made it out alive in those books.
am i moving in a different/opposite direction of my surroundings? am i moving backwards in time? will i end up a neanderthal at some point; strong and with excellent survival skills, but ungroomed and lacking all but the most basic communication skills?
planes pass each other in the sky, as i yearn for the pines...
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