Get Your Head Out of the Way

Sometimes we just need to have our heads out of the way. We need to find the connected screws and unwind them slowly until we hear a giant ‘pop’ when our head finally is removed from our ass. Today, the coffee acts as a mild sedative for my unhinged, racing mind that creates difficulty in finding awareness in the midst of the racetrack running to first place. It has difficulty in seeing the splash in the river by the fish that just flopped by, or the breeze that blows through the trees so tenderly. The motorbike is exhausted. I increase the throttle to push through the patch of emptiness that lives inside the fuel tank, throttle, throttle, throttle… It runs out of stamina regardless and it’s right as I arrive aside the fuel station where I pull in on the last gasp of the night and roll safely to meet the man with the giant nozzle I’m requiring.

“How much you want?”

“Mười.”

I for some reason, found a 10k note in my wallet that hadn’t been there previously, it had appeared as though through a trick of magic on an angle that my perception was misinformed. It’ll do the damn job of putting 10k worth of fuel in my fuel tank to have me throttling more and rolling on empty less. I pick up some more notes from my sister at the cafe and return to the scene of the great re-filling, where he adds another 30k worth of fuel to the desperate, thirsty tank. I thank the man pumping and the bike thanks me putting and I thank my sister paying as we glide out, fuel heavy onto the bustling street of two wheeled transporters in a wild and awe-stricken frenzy. I soon become immersed in the sea of mechanical water, the hundreds of other radiant riders on Cua Dai road accompanying one another as if only a single body, to pick up their children at pick up time. The crowd is ebbing and flowing, left and right sides of the road as I too, wobble to the left and to the right, managing to balance straight up only by focusing on the road ahead instead of the shaky ground that I now ride upon. The focal point of my travels is north of where I currently stand, so as if in deep meditation, I focus only on the position ahead and my body, certainly mindlessly, arrives me further ahead at the place I intended to land upon, and again it does the same... There’s buses pulling over to both sides of the road as we others feel they should not, though it doesn’t phase me any, I simply drift rightward to avoid direct collision with the giant people movers. I make it through the chaotic swarm entirely unscathed.

Passing the local pharmacy where lies the cute girl who gives us fresh, previously unknown cooked foods and fresh fruits upon arrival, I nod toward her as if to simply say ‘hello’. I watch the wandering tourists walking as they stumble on heavy and steady feet, marching the streets of the city, only hitherto accessed by a flying time machine, transporting the weary to a 1970’s style haven where luck is winning and gold is found. They stomp and stroll so purposefully toward nowhere, they know not where they are going, though they assume to with pompous righteousness - the only living kind of righteousness. I arrive as a whole to the bar and take one large sip from a single bottle of Larue that has a tiger on the logo, stuck to the perspiring glass of the bottle. The sip settles low and deep through my consciousness and into my gut where the warmth now lies, and I am sweetly transported to a land of intoxicated bliss, where we all know too well is named ‘Heaven’. Soothing of the soul is immediately enacted by the powers that be over my one true body, and I am seated at peace with all. With all that surrounds me and is, and all that I am and will be, I know it is true that I sit in peace, if only for a short-lived, yet tender and luxurious moment. The blue lights are turned on by the lady in the black dress, decorated with beautiful red flowers, and I rest my neck muscles and my back as the cushion bends over the edge of the wooden seat and sends me back gracefully to a position that is comfort, and a land that is home. The blues and the jazz music play and I rest my adventurous soul to observe the curiosities of the world around me, inhabited by such daring and simple and strange creatures known only as human beings. They are me and I am them, and here we sit together, in the blue lights as one. Welcome to the disco.