Dreaming

Codependence
“People are weak, and so afraid to be alone, so they do what everyone told them to do. Sheep. They find a mate, settle for the first one that stops the pain of yearning. The one who scratches the itch, checks the box. Because they are weak. The days turn into weeks which blur into months and years and before you know it, you only fuck on special occasions, and then even less. Stuck in crushing, pitiful, cohabited loneliness. All alone sitting next to the person that you smile next to in photographs, eyes glued to the cellphone where you escape the reality that despite sharing bricks and oxygen you ended up alone anyway. Smile for the camera. Make sure nobody knows what a train wreck your life is. Act like you aren’t a desperate failure.

I don’t pretend I know what happens after you close the door, but he looks at you like he want to give you the world and you let him, but then when the moment came, all of the sudden you let it slip in your fingers. Because you’re weak. And that surprise me, Mrs Ayla, because at first I thought you are strong. Admirable. The one who can steer a good ship and show how strong the woman can be. Of course, he have the championship, but it is clear to anyone who spend five minutes to pay attention that he does it all for you. Like sacrificial lamb, he destroy the ones in his way as an offering to prove his worthiness.

So I look in you, and think I am wrong, think maybe it can work this power struggle between the man and the woman. Maybe there is something I can learn, the way you have your obedient dog bring you the nice and shiny things. But the more I look, and the more I watch, the more I see more of the same. The same but different.

No ambition. And Damian tampoco, because he is happy with this. To give her everything she wants, that is everything to him. Himself? Unimportant.

And she is satisfied with having him achieve things on her behalf. Like the boy who tell the story of how he knocked out all of the bullies, and the first time it is with 2 guys, and then 3 guys, and more and more with increasingly dramatic consequence, until you found out that his older brother came and scared them away. The outcome is the same, but the achievement is not. When I saw you, both of you, I thought I saw something that was not there.

Calculated. Decisive. Pathetic.

It is an insanity, to squander all what is there. For what? Maybe I don’t understand it. Maybe I can’t. It feels like he suffocates his ambition to sate hers. He minimises himself to elevate her. And she embraces it. But he can’t do this for her. She has to dream her own dream, he can’t do it this time.”


Cabra Cabeza
“When I came to EXCELLENCE and saw this juxtaposition, a poetry in my soul, it was a beautiful one. Chelsea and Ross, so delightfully in love that they had to talk about it at all times, even in the public Twitter. Actually, love is not the word for those two. Pasión. Lust. The two animals can’t get their hands off from each other. And the other Damian and Tara. For them yes, it is love. Probably there is some pasión, too, but they are more matured, calculated, devoted. And I see how they move in a methodological way, measuring each decision, whilst the other ones rise from nothing to the top of the tower in an elevator until all in one moment the cable snaps and they freefall to a bitter end. And the boring ones watching, rub their hands together, if they even noticed.

I look at them, Chelsea and her Ross, and it just make me wonder how some people are so deluded. It always make me feel sorry when I have seen it, but there is a line, no? Because what can you do? Always wrap up the stupid and let him procreate more stupid? Or just stand to watch him or her? Like a car crash. Hard to watch but hard to look away.

At first, I laugh, because they are ridiculous. Like a cartoon, no? Who behaves like this? Not an actual human being, not an adult. It is exaggerated. Performed. So I poke, I prod, I push my hand in and move my fist around like my mother with flour and eggs. Try to make it into a shape, try to see what will happen, how it will react. But then I watch closer, pay more attention, and realise that it is a performance. That it is exaggerated. That this is the only way to get past the complete lack of any personality. To create one.

And then Hanson disappears in a fit of rage or self-fulfilled prophecy of victimisation. So then I stop laughing, I stop poking the bear. Because I see a fragile child, stuck in an adult’s body, and she is lost. Wondering how she got here. All alone. The idiot savant did enough damage for the two of you and I didn’t feel guilty about what I would do to you to hurt you both. But there was no fight left in you, and so what was my purpose?

In the last weeks maybe she managed to dust herself down and reinvent herself. A little bit inside I hope so, because it would never look special to cut off the head of an already dead goat. But I take home the head, no questions.”


Dream Inertia
“Simp?

Is a new one for me.

Friendzone?

Is low hanging fruit. I know. But he is like the puppy and the cheerleader. Why are people like this? I guess some of them like to be humiliated, some of them like to be made a fool out of. I heard a story from a friend about someone who got.. happy .. when she insulted them and call them names.

William Blake Mason is now in his second chance to be the Impulse Champion contender, still searching to not be the butt of the joke in EXCELLENCE. In all the time he spent here, did he manage some how to be the winner? Because he’s too busy making sure everybody else is smiling to worry of his own face.

Maybe he thinks the same about me. One fight, not a win. I understand. Truly, it is hard in the early moments to really get a grip on who a person is. In the past he talk about his history, and I think he is stuck in some world where he thinks he can pay future debt with old credit, and this is not how it can work. We must show ourselves in this moment, with everything else to the side.

I do not have care if he is old man with lots of veteran information, true? More experience, more failure. I learn and then I adapt because I am not stuck in a cycle of repeated failing. If he manage to get some time away from holding coat for Xaria, perhaps he will prepare well and I will be wrong again. I am ready to be wrong, ready to change my plan.

I just think to him and think about if he really put everything on pause, if he really feels like he already achieved everything he dreams about. When he was a child, did he want to grow up and be known first as someone’s friend, and as a fighter only when the conversation moves past the awkward introductions part? No, I can’t believe that.

Maybe he’s sleepwalking through the prime of his career and needs to wake up?”


La Puertorriqueña
“Y esta muchacha… coño madre..

La Puertorriqueña, Acid Beth.

Almost the exact one that I dreamed to be when I was a child, she lived. The girl who was encouraged to go forward and chase her dreams, her stupid face-painted tomboy dreams of kicking and punching her way to superstar. Carmen Amaya with a knuckleduster.

It is not to say that I am jealous, but it is to say that you were given the opportunity to live your dream, and my dream, with the full support of your community. Even though I don’t know whether your family supported you, I know that you didn’t have to run away from your village, from your country, from your family, to try to be happy.

No, is not jealous. It maybe is a chip in my shoulder, or something else. Resentment.

I don’t know if you appreciate what you have, I think you squander it. With your outlook on the life, you lack the discipline to make use of the lucky you have to be able to go with freedom and chase something. Every time I spent one hour in the gym, it took two hours to hide my track from my brothers or my sisters, from my friends. So when I look at you, I wish I had even half your opportunity because I have double your desire.

I look at you and I see myself looking into alternating universe to me, and I think to myself ‘fuck’. Maybe I am angry with the world. Is not your fault. As I look and think about that mirror I think that now we reach a point of parity. I can take from you what I deserve, I can succeed in your expense.

I can live my dream, by crushing yours.”


Dreams

When you think about Spring Break, or even the richrich kids who go to Laos or Cambodia on a year abroad, and you think about people sitting in a circle around a fire, the lick of flames crackling as wood gets turned to ash lighting up the faces who are all staring in a fascinated trance at the inevitable cliche of a very caucasian barely-able-to-grow-facial-hair with blond dreadlocks that are only barely long enough to reach his ears strumming away at a vaguely tuned, battered acoustic guitar, singing at least half a key up and half a beat off the music, you don’t necessarily realise that this is gypsy.

It is not simply and solely reserved for the trust-fund beneficiaries who have big ideas of breaking the status quo of success set out for them by Mommy and Daddy, who eschew their riches in favour of living the simple life in South Asia -- all the while oblivious to the privilege they have to even be able to take the opportunity to turn their backs on so-called modern comforts and conveniences -- no. The Spanish guitar and dance is the soul, the backbone, of family and culture for the gypsies. Los gitanos.

A meek, humble people, who travel, who settle, who do not integrate, they stay among themselves and are self-sufficient. And the community is fostered through nightly gatherings around a fire to keep warm, with home-made wine, and music. They dance, they chat, they sing, they tell stories. The same stories that everybody heard a hundred times, with another wrinkle or embellishment added in, or altered, because that’s just how life stays interesting.

On this occasion, it was one of the elder, Andrés El Circense, a brother of Papa. He had the floor, and he was recounting a tale of how in the 1960s, he would take part in lucha libre, and he travelled Europe with a group who were led by a Mexican expatriate who was spreading the culture in those times. Lucha libre had varying moments of popularity in Spain, particularly in the South, where The Girl and their people had settled. The story goes that he would go night after night, fighting the Mexican in these epic displays of athleticism that would astonish the audiences. In Europe, those that attended such shows expected something more akin to olympic wrestling with punches, the use of the ring in such creative ways astounded them, and that is how he got the name ‘El Circense’ - The Circuser. Not a perfect translation, but the prevailing wisdom was how he captivated these people, he recounted the amazement, with people dropping their belongings in disbelief, and after an ever-increasing period of time with each recounting of the story, the audience would rise to their feet and give a round of applause that wouldn’t stop until they’d left the city.

The Girl watched, through a slit in the curtain, as the younger boys laughed at the story, some of them making fun of him for exaggerating parts and the parts that had changed since last week when he told the same tale.

“But, Circense, if you took Europe in such a captivating fashion, why are you still here, drinking watered down grape with dirt in your fingers?” Another asked.

The tone shifted, and the background hum of the flamenco guitar abruptly stopped.

“Símon, if by now you don’t know what it means to be gitano, to be with your family always, to be for your people before all, when will you know?” Papa said, quietly.

Papa always spoke quietly, but he was always heard. He rose from his comfortable chair in the corner of the gathering, and pressed his hand against his own grainy bare chest. As his fingers traced over the sinewy muscle of his shoulder, he cleared his throat.

“Tomorrow, no school.” He touched Símon on the shoulder, and shuffled past the fire and into his hut. The Girl quickly shut the curtains, and ran to her bed, hoping to not be caught awake at this hour, and especially not peeking at the adults.

Símon understood, as well as everybody else that witnessed it, that tomorrow would be a tough day in his life. Tomorrow he would learn some lessons that are better left as metaphorical parables.

But The Girl, she had just taken her own lesson. Of course, if anyone found out about her listening, that was another matter entirely. A girl’s purpose is to maintain order, to learn how to manage the house and the family. A natural creature who’s primary social relationship is with their children. They had no reason to be around a fire after dark, playing music and telling stories. But what if?

What if a story she heard sparked an inspiration inside of her? What if, in her imagination, she begun to picture herself in a bright red flowing lace dress, throwing people and dancing flamenco, a two step and an arm drag? And a football stadium full of people that had stopped everything they were doing if only to pick their jaw from the floor? Like Carmen Amaya transfixing the world with her revolutionary interpretation of the Flamenco dance, bringing recognition and glory to the gitano people... but with dropkicks?

Papa was never enraged. But his body language spoke loudly and everybody knew when he was bothered. He would go quiet, and back inside his hut. He would sit in a specific chair, his thinking chair, and he could not be disturbed until he left the chair. After Símon had disrespected Andrés El Circense, Papa sat there for two days. Símon, indeed, did not go to school the following day, and by Papa’s absence the rest of the settlement knew the punishment, and when it had been carried out, and only then, could he return to school.

“La Circensita” The Girl uttered, under her breath, but surprised herself that it had been audible enough for her sister to hear.

“What?” Esmeralda, the elder sister, snapped at her from across the room.

It startled The Girl, “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.”

“About the circus? Are you serious?” Esme said, before gripping the wrist of her sister in the dark, “Sister, you are twelve. It is time to stop thinking about make-believe, Papa will want you married soon. I mean, look at me, I am already preparing to marry Victor. You really need to grow up!”

Esmeralda was fifteen, three whole years older than The Girl. But still much too young, in the eyes of most of the world. In reality, Papa was very selective and it had taken some time and a lot of bargaining to persuade Papa that Victor was suitable to take his daughter and make her a woman.

The Girl rolled her eyes, because she knew that she wouldn’t ever want to get married. Something had always told her that this life wasn’t what she would end up with. And it is not common for people to leave the community, she had not seen that first-hand, or heard stories about people leaving the community. In her young mind, there was no concept that she would leave the community, either. Simply that she didn’t fit the mould like her sister. She was far less compliant, and it often landed her in trouble.

The law in Spain states that everybody must go to school, and schools are integrated, meaning that there are gitanos mixed with castellano Spanish children at the school. So there was certainly exposure to ‘life outside of the community’, and she saw the other girls her age staying after school to play soccer or volleyball or tennis, or to practice French or English.

She rolled her eyes at her sister who blindly did everything as her parents told her and didn’t question anything whatsoever. And in one such moment of non-compliance, The Girl had been working herself up the courage to breach the topic of wrestling with her mother. She wanted to express herself, she wanted to chase this dream that she had, she wanted to do something other than be the feminine decoration destined to manufacture children until her ovaries ran dry, and then shrivel up and die as a useless husk who never lived a day for herself.

“Are you insane? Or just downright stupid? If your Papa hears you speaking like this, he will spend a week on his chair and God knows what will become of you.”

She hadn’t expected a different answer, and in retrospect, she asked herself the same question about insanity versus stupidity.

“I just want something more, Mama.” The Girl pleaded, and as emotion welled up in her face, an equal and opposite reaction flared in her mother’s.

Fury.

Her hand flew from her shoulder and straight into the cheek of The Girl. A large, hand-shaped welt immediately raised and started throbbing, and pain seared through her. She cowered back on her bottom and clutched her face.

“More? Is your Papa not good enough for you? What more could you ever possibly want? Do you think you are better than me? Than your Papa? Than your community?”

She shook her head, no. But it wasn’t good enough.

Her Mama reached for the leather strap and The Girl knew that she had to undress, she had to stand against the wall, and her body shook, rattled in fear.

“You are his child. You will live a beautiful life with the husband he chooses for you, and this is how you show your gratitude? Am I expected to stand before Papa and admit that this is the total of my parental legacy? An ungrateful whore who thinks she has the divine right to be something that she is not?”

Another lick with the strap on her abdomen sends a sickening echo throughout the settlement, as her body involuntarily doubles over and she grabs at her kidneys.

Papa didn’t get enraged. He didn’t need to, because other people did it for him.

“Dream, I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming.”