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ENTRY 1: November 30. 2025
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-some grain silo appearing out the car window. I imagined yesterday the silo in a dark field, lit up at night and the workers coming up to it out of the
darkness, flowing in like...
Strange how there is a push and pull with leaving society. We could break some bounds, standing on the road with a sign - the interaction invited with the drivers
as they might say in art school - but when we enter a car it is all mundane again. Even the concept of 'pick me up and take me somewhere' has words and societal
logic, reputation, again, a couple picks us up and puts our destination in their mapping software, we drive for
an hour in silence as though they are our parents, we can fall asleep, head against the window, again, we are relying on the structures, the car, the understanding
of our outcast status, to move through. We come to Prague and cannot find the right door with our key, always the hotel is souless, a picture that says 'coffee is
lifeblood' or something. Where are we really? We are together at a restaurant I don't like the feeling of. I like the feeling of the bathroom, there is a crystal
square hung crooked above the bulb on the wall, all of the tile is crooked and the doorframe is sinking down. The restaurant looks like everything else, I don't
like that the people I'm with say mmm when they try the food, I don't care how things taste, I don't like that somehow everyone can see I don't belong but
continue insisting I'm someone else. I want to move through, hold up a sign and be taken somewhere else. Someone suggests next time we take an Uber to the highway
and then start hitchhiking. Who's right and who's wrong?
Are you doing okay? The world bends sideways at times, afternoons when you seem to come to in an unfamiliar room, sunlight landing softly on the floor
and the cabinets, too bright, people are around you don't recognize, their mouths split into lines of teeth, you look outside and see that the unfamiliar bent
world, all these people unlike you, extend to the horizon. When night comes the feeling will only intensify. Who really do I understand? Who is really here with me?
I'm alone outside the gas station now, where is the highway? I don't know what direction I need to go, the last driver always points to the right street, but not this
time. I stand on a median with my sign. Everyone is shaking their heads, or saying nothing, sometimes I feel stupid, standing there with a sign. Eventually I
ask someone if this is even the right way to Dresden, he shakes his head, I go down the street he points to, narrower and I have no reactions here, only cars speeding
past. I cannot forget it's getting dark. The sun keeps going behind clouds and my sign becomes unreadable. I walk back to the station and stop being picky with cars.
Someone will save me, a van is stopped across the road, driver's door opens and he yells to me, I run across the street, a girl with false
lashes pulls open the door, I climb in next to her. The girl looks at me and drinks her energy drink, she tells me she's married, eventually I realize her husband is
the quiet guy sitting beside her. We're Romanian she says. She asks me to guess her age and I say 28,
What the fuck, she says, I'm 16.
Her husband is 29, she asks me if I smoke weed, it's all I do, she says, tells me her mom hates it so we talk about that part in English.
Have you ever been
with a woman? I want to ask what gives her that impression but I don't, only answer, Yes. she smiles, How? How does it work?
There's lots of ways, I say, she nods and turns away, okay, agreeing,
Strap on. I say,
But a man, she says, is always better.
I can't argue with her, Yes, for me yes. She smiles, proven right. Do you like the smell of weed? as she lights a cigarette,
yes, it smells nice.
Her husband keeps trying to talk but speaks no English or German. She notices that we have the same eye color and we look at each other, he looks
kind and clueless.
Do you like being married?
Yes,
How long has it been?
2 months, I meant to ask how was the wedding but I ask how is the marriage,
It's okay. We didn't have a wedding, but we will. She doesn't seem sure.
Somewhere in the this we're stopped at border control, the cop is nice when I don't have my passport, smiles and accepts a photo saying something
about a 25€ fine, the adults in the front seat are unconcerned with my lack of documents. Bianca does ask, but you have an Ausweis?
Yes, I assure her, at home.
We are coming into Dresden and her husband is saying something about insects, sounding out the words like sticks in his mouth. I laugh and Bianca says
yes, not so good with English, but he speaks some Italian, we smile and blink our blue eyes, Ah, I know some Italian, bene, maki cazzo,
Animal looking out at the flickering room, the things I'm good at are liking the lights. Looking out from the bathtub, a child's memory
of lifting my legs from the water to wash them. What will happen now, when will the other join me there, someone I like the look of -
Burnt out animal, who else?
Who else?
can imagine crystal squares on the walls, around the bulbs, I'd live in a room of them, reflecting shadows like windows on the wall, what will happen now?
I'll miss them.
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