Wanker

The following notes were found in a Bedouin caravan’s collection by a team of explorers. We are not really sure what to make of it, but it might provide some light on the missing figure lately in our news feeds…

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How hard can it be to get your work published? All this time spent trying to solve the problem of survival, and all I can cudgel my brains over are the vicissitudes of the publishing industry in my hometown. Not one publisher willing to put out a new collection from a talent such as I. No one interested in “Oh Love! Oh Life!” I refuse to blame the title of my vade mecum is the reason why that publisher gave me that pathetic excuse of a form letter: “Your work shows great potential, but…” Oh, how nice of them to condescend to me like this. I am just so happy for their wisdom and insight.

*

I should not go on about such matters. There is the bigger matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing but my papers, food and what looks like a joke from a bad cartoon. You know the cartoon: a palm tree and a pool of water in the middle of sand, sun and heat. An oasis, they say. If it were a desert island, it would have been no different to the untrained eye of the poetasters. For me, I feel like I should have brought along a cartoonist to create a daily piece on my predicament. Plenty of food; enough water for now…and a promise.

Let me put this down while the light is good. There was a contract to allow me to travel with my father’s import and export commercial trade and the offer to make contacts with distributors in various markets. He wanted me to learn all about the business. Such a peasant! Me, a businessman… A commercialist… He never understood why I had to go to university and study literature. “Read a book and you would learn as much.” Not really, mon pere. There are so many minds that you encounter at school that can open up the world for you. They can show you that the flash of a coin or the bills in a wallet are not enough for a life. Professor Ostwald suggested the travel, saying that I could not get more from a lecture than I could from actually following the man’s path. Dear Arthur… Dear Rimbaud… You were so important to me for so long. I had to make you the topic of my doctorate. Two years to go and it will have some extra information that may not exist in other papers. “Get to see it, feel it, and live it,” she said to me over espresso (glad I bought her that machine). Strange where my thoughts travel as the sun gets bold…

*

That promise… They did say they would pick me up after a week here. It has now been a complete fortnight (that is a week and a half). The deal was a week with the tent and the mini-oasis while I made up my notes and continued on the trip. The deal with Ragnar and Bresser was that I would compensate them for taking me a bit out of the way for their deals and then continue on with my own itinerary. I did make them store that extra food (so much dried meat and fruit; the desiccated tomatoes are quite charming). They seemed to agree to it, although they seem happy to pack up extra packs of that food and other things. “You never know what you will need out here. The desert has a million surprises.” Never would have put Ragnar in a poetic class, but the way he said that is stuck in my thoughts now. And he knows of what he spoke. It is a surprise to be here and to think about Rimbaud and his own journey. There were no more poems for him after the travel and injury – hopefully, I stay whole by the end of this on – but I find that my pen is doing some interesting things on the page. This may actually lead me to getting my work published (some interest in something with a foreign touch?). We shall see.

One line is still working its way through my thoughts. “The desert and its wide silence…”

Not really sure what that means.

Best to just come up with some ideas and work on them later, I think. My professor would like it.

Poor Ostwald…

She never got to see this world in front of me, outside of the posters and maps she still carries to lectures. I wonder if she was a little jealous when I told her about my plans. She seemed to think that she should have been the one to take this trip instead of just a candidate for a degree. Beginning to concede to the maitress’s logic…

“I am a grain in the sand dunes of…”

No, no, no. That will not do. It needs...

I should think of Rimbaud!

He became injured in the desert, but he was still a poet. He still wondered and dreamt and lived his short life the way he wanted to live it. His “Season in Hell” will not be mine.

My work will come to me if I just let it arrive on its own. All writers and artists know this.

And I think that I might have company.

Hard to say what they are, but there is a group approaching from the distance. Perfect silhouette on the sun’s fall and they have…camels! All this time, and I have not seen one in…

“Engulfed like sand…”

I think I am getting something truly inspired right now. Maybe I should have used another vade mecum, but I want all my thoughts to be in one place.

Still wondering about Ragnar and Bresser.

They did not shed a tear to lose me. It was almost as if they knew that they could get rid of me and get on with their work. Maybe reading poetry out loud during the flight was a bad idea…

My dad will be so upset if don’t…

Like he would really care. Another problem that money can solve for him.

“I was nothing…”

That caravan will be here soon. Just hope they can speak some English.

“I was nothing but sand in the wind…”

I should go out to meet them. We can share and I think that they will like what I’ve come up with…

“Engulfed in the desert’s parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind…”

*

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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