TBT #91: The edges of Foreverman

The headlights shine in azure. They reflect off the pacific ocean when you take the steep turn after Exit 48. When the traffic is heavy enough, the water surface shines with individual lights, moving with the cars and with the waves, creating an erratic mess that shimmers like a jewelry box overturned and dumped on the floor. The air tastes salty on the overpass and my hands grip the rail still wet with dew. It’s night. It’s morning. It’s the moments in between the two when nothing is easy to define. It’s black tinged with colour — there’s a dull orange threatening light.

This is all so boring.

I remember the lights in Paris, torches lit with other torches, an unimaginable daisy chain extending the day. The thick black smoke served as a warning to the moon. I remember the first street lamps in London that buzzed and whirred and came to life with a clicking sound. I remember standing in the morning fog listening to the tick-tick-tick of the dying light and the clop-clop-clop of the horse-drawn news-carriers. And I remember the fires, raging and dying in the snow drift streets, burning stores and shops and lives and families. Screaming and laughing at the same time; victims and vandals: all so very well lit.

And I remember darkness, spread across cities, lurking in alleyways, eclipsing the moon. I fumbled my way through an apartment with two rooms, cutting my hand on jagged glass in the kitchen, cursing my misfortune, staining the kitchen counters, yelling her name. Getting no answer.

I’ve been alive for longer than anyone has any right to live. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years. I can’t remember the details of my life, but I recall the way things felt perfectly. So I’ll stand in a field, thinking I’ve never been here before. Eyes closed, I breathe deep. And there it is again, striking like a migraine on a frost-bite morning: the same goddamned taste. The same goddamned smell. And realization spills dark black oil over me; I’ve been here before.

I’ve loved countless women, I’ve saved dozens of lives. I stood in spiral towers and watched the hordes advance and then retreat. I get bored thinking about places other people — normal people — can only dream of visiting. Glaciers and golf courses, popes and politicians, martyrs and monsters, brothels and brotherhoods, now and again. If it breathes, I’ve held it; if it attracts, I’ve obtained it; if it loves, I’ve loved it.

I do not want to go back there again.

The ocean below me, rippling waves that remind me of the waves off other coasts. The Pacific is darker than the Atlantic. The Atlantic is Pale, but its waves rise higher, get whiter at their top. But they all behave the same, no matter where you are in this world: rising and falling, building and cascading, living and dying. I envy the fucking waves. And I think of myself and of things I’ve heard on stage and in print, of seizing the day and living every moment, of counting your blessings and walking with your head held high. I do not pity myself. I do not complain or regret or wish for anything else in particular. I’m just bored. And I envy the waves.

There’s a lifeless man to the left of me, slumped against the railing on the overpass. I held my hands to his throat and watched his eyes bulge large, turning bright and then dark, before I learned his name. He was Harold Perinneau. His hair was thinning and his clothes were rags. I think he lived here. I felt a glimmer of recognition just before he went slack. I know him. I’ve met him. Goddammit.

Hands on the rail, eyes on the ocean, envying the waves. I started a list a year ago, of things I’ve yet to do. And now, lit by headlights and smog-stained starlight, thinking of other things, I’ve done them all. But it’s funny, the feeling I have, thinking of my list and everything I did, first my thoughts are questions — What do I do now? — but then things turn, and the feeling washes over me again. Like thick dark oil clinging to my skin, I’m enveloped in this feeling of dread because I’ve done this all before.

I wanted to say something to him. Something profound that would make me more of a hero, less of a villain. But I barely remember those days, those daunting days of defeating those that defiled. I have no words that fit. I just closed my eyes and listened to the waves.