Tomorrow

She appeared to not notice me. She appeared to not notice anything.  Her beauty enfolded me, but only as long as I could see her.  When I looked away or closed my eyes, she ceased to exist and I was not able to picture her.  Even after spending thirteen exhausting and desperate days and nights with her, I could not keep her in my memory if she moved from my line of sight. Maybe it was because I did not know her name. Or maybe because I did not want to know her name.  Either way she was transient and evasive.

She was pale and thin in the gray, dusty light of evening… an unsubstantial vapor leaning on the crumbling stucco wall, smoking another one of those harsh locally-rolled cigarettes with decided disinterest.  I stayed slumped on the frayed striped futon, trying to remember words and sentences through the lingering fog of the afternoon’s repeated hits of her pungent hashish from Kandahar and mainlining black tar I had picked up from the sordid alleys in the same city. It was how and where we had first met. We had spoken little, revealed less, and and without any planning or sense of direction had made our way to the forgotten northern reaches of Mali. Now without any preface, through her nearly inaudible exhalation, her voice reached out languidly across the hot dusty room.

"You know no one cares or even knows how much time and energy you are wasting trying to appear normal, don't you?"

Her gauzy hooded robe only accentuated her frail nakedness beneath. I tried to burn her image into my head, but her words pushed it away, forcing me to find a thread of coherency.  Lightly irritated that she was deflecting my desire for her with philosophical boredom, I pushed my bare feet along the wooden floor to sit up a little.

“That’s not exactly how Camus put it. You are making him sound stupid and melodramatic. He was not.  He was resigned and disgusted by the absurdity of everything.”

The cigarette dangled lightly from her tinted sienna lips and she took a leisurely drag with only the slightest curl of her mouth and again spoke through the smoke.

“I’m just saying you didn’t trek all the way to Kandahar to score a few bundles of smack.  You could’ve done that ten minutes from wherever it is you said you were from.  You obviously want someone to notice you or miss you, or feel sorry for you. Its not working... no one gives a shit so you hook up with me hoping I can fix you.”

I stood and reached for the indigo linen shirt on the back of the cane chair and slipped it on with out buttoning it.  The effort and the airless heat made me sweat unnaturally. My eyes burned into my head and I wanted to vomit. I felt thin and dry in spite of the sweat and I was suddenly aware of my dirt-baked thirst. 

She guessed what I wanted and nodded at the clay jar on the table.  “Tea.”

I took it and drank two or three swallows. “Piss”, I corrected her.

I slumped back onto the futon and pulled a cigarette from my shirt pocket.  She stayed leaning on the wall, again appearing not to notice me.  The dark shadows of the oppressive Essakane night began to shroud her and the whiteness of her pale skin glowed milky gray. She spoke again, flatly and ambivalently.  "You won't ever be happy trying to find happiness and you won't live...really live...if you keep running all over looking for meaning to your life."

“What’s with all the Camus?” I felt edges of irritation drifting around the back of my neck, but I was feeling too ill and too untethered in the stifling heat to gather enough tendrils of emotion to actually feel angry.  “I need to go outside. It’s too fucking hot in here.”

I stood again, unstable and tentative.  I shuffled past her to the door. Waves of nausea pressed me into the frame.  The unnatural sweat began showing through my shirt. “The only thing Camus ever said that ever made any sense to me was when he said that suicide is the only question worth thinking about.” My voice sounded brittle and far away in my ears. My eyes closed, causing me to lean more heavily on the door frame. “Deciding whether or not to off myself right here and right now might be fun, but I can't. Just need my shit so I can stop feeling so sick.”

She slid up to me, resting her hands on my chest. Her hands were cool and dry. “No”, she whispered.  “No more today. You are feeling sick.  Don't be mad at me. We can go out where it is cool and smoke this and forget Camus. You will feel better.”

She kissed me on my mouth and lead me down the clay stairs and into the cooling desert sand.  We sat and smoked like she said, my head in her lap. I stared at the desert sky and saw the crescent moon and saw the rivers of stars and saw the melting meteors and saw the infinite darkness. But I saw no tomorrow.