Friday, January 27, 2006

20) I had to leave town. I am going. I am leaving. I have already left. Earlier, when I had just stepped from the rubble, I was so completely untouched, even by dust, that those who were the first to arrive mistook me for the first to arrive. They beseeched me for answers. They raised their fists. I was not afraid. No one recognized the face that had not healed.
More small voices protested to god the lives lost in the building's collapse. Others grasped handfuls of rotten mortar and more properly shrieked and sobbed blame at contractors. Cheap materials. Poor execution. Cry. Cry. Every time.

From the moment of catastrophe I have done nothing but walk North. No, I do not know what to make of my time in Ushuaia. Neither did I have the time to heal nor did I play any part in my reintegration into the human family: After all, my hosts could not speak to me, they are gone, desaparecidos; I still have no papers; The police had not been apprised of my habitation; I had been falsely accused of self-gratifying acts on the beach. What was Dr. Creep thinking? I slink away. I am slinking away into the mountains. At this moment, I overlook yon tiny confused town: Ushuaia, my aborted spa! Good bye.

Dr. Creep, a word.