I have this recurring memory of a supermarket in Cuernavaca, the rain, and me running in the parking lot trying to fetch a cab. The rain, the groceries, the cab, with it's characteristic smell of Tsuru, the city, the palm trees on Juarez av, the climbing streets, the falling rain, her.
And that smell is in my thoughts the same as that of old Datsuns, sometime in the late 80s. The hard door knobs, the doors so thin, the window handles with chromed knobs. They were rather narrow cars, and they had that smell, that feel of metal, and those analog displays. The windows creaked when they moved down, and the rain was so loud on the roof. Those were used as cabs and I used to ride them with my mother, going downtown sometimes. And then there's the smell of downtown, a whole story all together. But that feeling and that smell Datsuns inherited to Tsurus.
The exact same feeling you get riding a Lada 1500. No wonder.
I like that feeling, that smell.
That soon?
Coincidence
The light so sweet on the white walls, on the pine wood, on the dusty books and records. The sound of birds, the sense of calm, the joy of waking up to a beautiful day, on those white sheets. And then the smell, smell of plants, smell of tobacco, smell of the future. And in the middle of it all, the smell of bergamot in the steam rising from the cup, the smell of happiness.
That very same smell went by today, and gone it was, just like before.
Definition
Eric once asked me what was it I understood for the word spirituality.
The best word I could manage for an answer was sublime.
I was really thinking something like this.
Humanity
It is said that all of us have this one humane side.
I forget mine quite very often, actually I am sometimes annoyed by it.
Yet, the moments I've enjoyed the most are of the kind I consider humane./
But most of us don't like humanity, at least not all the time. We prefer that simulation on top which we like to call world, where hunger is a pretext to have lunch and socialize, where boredom is a trigger for fun and love is a sign that condoms must be bought in larger quantities. We prefer that stern look, that pose of worryness, a thousand times to a face of despair, or a smile.
A better world, I hope, will come, when that simulation, the matrix, no longer exists. Where thoughts and feelings aren't context-dependent, where a smile is a smile and a hug just a hug. A better world, I hope, will come in which one mustn't be ashamed of longing, of crying, of laughing. A world more humane.
A world of humane aesthetics, humane values, humane social protocols.
Meanwhile the humane must be confined to bedrooms, or walks in the park. Meanwhile the humane will be a sought-after product. We will but it in literature, in therapists, in lingerie, in drugs. Meanwhile we will laugh and cry in pairs at most, and never too soon.
Meanwhile I will burn in shame for writing the words shame and humane.
Chiba
Case is 24.
Two years ago he was the best console cowboy around, until he made that mistake he swore himself never to do: steal from his employees. Now, he is a middle-man in the black market and is planing to make some money by smuggling 3Mb of RAM.
A great friend of mine used to smuggle hot RAM. We were both 16 back then, and 128 megs was really something. I had read Neuromancer for the first time some two years behind, and I felt that Case and Molly were grown ups. They had the experience of age to aid them in their deeds. They felt in love, they feared, they longed, they fought, like grown ups did.
I am 23.
I am no console cowboy, I am nobody. Or at least, I'm no where near what I had dreamt.
If you ask me, the best days of my life are in the past. Or even worst, in a future now unreachable.
Do you feel the same way?
