The Various Recollections of the Recollected.
A Retrospective
Part Seven—The Various Recollections of the Recollected. As I write this, I am seated on my couch (a brown suede seventies style sort of thing) with a two-pronged purple Neon Genesis Evangelion Unit-01 personal fan around my neck. I am in relative darkness—the lights are dimmed. The ceiling fan runs at top speed. The air conditioner is broken.
Today I cooked a large catfish that I procured in Ayuthaya with some friends last weekend. It was delicious, although I must admit I could have marinated it longer. I also found some large shrimp in my freezer, enough to mix with some shiitake mushrooms, curry powder and paste, and a tom yum ingredient pack in a skillet to produce my own sort of concoction. I must admit that it turned out better than the catfish, so I saved the remaining catfish and dumped the sauce of the shrimp impromptu stir fry over it. I then ate it all several hours later. It did improve the fish.
With a full belly, I sit here and recollect the day. In the morning, I walked to Starbucks and read a few chapters of the books I am reading, then purchased the ingredients for the catfish dish. I ran into a friend at the grocery store, who I was drinking with on Friday night.
As far as weekends go, it’s been quite pleasant. I woke up Saturday with a hangover that was cured through a good amount of toil, and had plenty of Thai practice over the course of the past few days.
I meant to go to the market to pick up some insects for my bearded dragon, but didn’t have the time. There is enough to last another week, so I can go next weekend.
I struggled to register to vote in the US election, and did my best to receive a ballot. It might be too late to do that. Ah well.
The shadows in this dimly lit room give everything a romantic aura. The praying mantis taxidermy I bought in Chiang Mai sits unmounted under the Tarantula Hawk upon the wall. Above that a scorpion, and above that several lepidoptera—butterflies.
To the left of that, Mothra flies over a Tokyo suburb, and below that, Han Solo holds Leigh Organa in an embrace on an Empire Strikes Back poster.
My hat sits beneath that, unworn but for publicity ventures. Beside it, on a lower shelf, is an orchid plant (not real, I could never keep plants alive on my own.) Boba Fett lies on the ground under it, knocked over as I was doing some cleaning. Cad Bane towers over him to the side, leaned against the bookshelf wall, adjusting his blaster pistol.
As for the books, they stand like soldiers. I’ve read almost all of them on these shelves, but I still have more to go.
The window is open, for the sun is down and the night air is cooler. The sounds of cars and motorbikes and tuk-tuks speed below. I am in one of those rare moments where no one has texted me and I am also not awaiting any responses, save for those from women who have not responded or apologized for their grotesque amalgamations of personal choices from dozens of years past. I doubt I’ll ever hear of them until they make the news from some sort of dismal and wicked infamy that they have somehow achieved.
I cleaned my apartment decently. Before, a series of cockroaches had found their way into the garbage can and bred there. When I moved the trash can, this horde assaulted me and I quickly grabbed the nearest siege weapon—a can of raid—and dealt with them. I then gassed the trash can and thought about the Buddhist scriptures I read in the morning, the part about not killing things. I smiled in acceptance of what are the limitations of a samsaric human condition. The bugs died.
As of now, I haven’t seen anything creeping on the floor. The apartment isn’t spotless, but it looks to be in far better shape.
The Austrian clock I purchased in Vienna sits with its hands pointed at a time that is not now, the second hand twitching in place like some sort of an ataxia. The cup of Elijah, received from Jerusalem, remains not far from that. A Voodoun painting from Haiti is beneath it, along with an alien and a predator. The bobble-head devil, that was my Uncle’s, sits in his suave suit, holding up a copy of the US Constitution as a bookend. Beside it, a Japanese Teapot.
I made a pot of Vanilla Bourbon tea this afternoon. It is herbal, so I shouldn’t have a problem sleeping. Its aroma is still upon my tongue and when I breathe, I can taste it.
There’s not much more to tell. These are recollections of a moment, and not much else.
As I drift into sleep, I see my anima beside me. She is smiling, in the form of the woman I love most. I smile back. The praying mantis guardian looms over me, a shadow:
“Not a bad day, it would seem.”
“Not much to tell.” I respond.
“Not much to worry about.” He says, lighting a spliff and taking a drag. “Next week may seem like a barrel of rocks or hot coals to walk upon, but I assure you that the end result will be to your liking.”
“And I assure you as well,” says the anima,her spidery legs stretching out of her kimono. The mantis hands her the spliff, and she pulls in the smoke from it gracefully.
“So you say,” I say back to her. “Your grayish hair fascinates me, by the way.”
“What of it?” Says the woman, suddenly annoyed.
I give her a soft kiss, and I am left with smoke, the mantis laughing. In my hands, the spliff. I smoke what remains of it.
Outside on the street, a monitor lizard darts past a cat. A tourist screams, for no particular reason, perhaps he is completely mad. The night air is cool, but the heat of the day lingers. There upon the buttresses of a temple, the Praying Mantis sits, a top hat upon his head. The face turns to regard us, and says.
“Lovely night for a-sort-of-a wandering walk.”
