2026/w6
it’s raining in Paris. the lamp light flickers when it splashes off the river. i don’t remember Paris being a city the last time i was here. it’s a city today. i am in the train station. i can’t tell if im inside or outside. up in the sky there is what appears to be a roof. but then, there is rain on the table. and the wind is blowing. stars aligned in corrugated steel?
it is likely that i will have to stay awake for the next seven hours. the peace i reached after so many months of strange and wonderful unsweetened chaos is with me now. it is nice to live in my head, to be alone again. and to be somewhere in time and space also. the time and space i’m in right now is 12:47a.m. at night, in Gare de Lyon Hall 1.
apportion my rations sensibly. that is to say, in a moment i shall drink half of the remaining bottle of Club Mate Zero i brought from the previous country. Then i will move through the halls, to deux or trois and see if there is another story. three hours later, another half.
oh, over the tannoy just now it says the station is closed, and that we should leave for the exits. none of my fellow hall lurkers seem phased. haven’t even looked up from their interactive computing devices.
i see. they really have closed the station.
i did not know train stations closed.
a station with a train to the faraway.
i am surprised, and cold, to learn that the train station closes at night.
it will reöpen three and a half hours from now.
there are a few of us out here surprised with luggage. someone’s iphone just played the 3 note lullaby, time for them to wind down for bed. brutal.
i’ve counted to 500. that ate twenty minutes.
i am out of ideas.
a man has taken an interest in me. that’s never the start of any good story.
he asked if i wanted to buy cocaine. he told me he was going to try on my headphones. i said nah. he slapped me in the mouth. i’ve surprised myself by standing up and removing my sunglasses and stepping into his space and shouting in his face you need to get the fuck away from me right fucking now. he shrunk like little worm and went away. new power. from whence? did not know i had it in me, i’m a whole different woman now things are going to be different around here. perhaps too cold to be scared? i’ll go by the door where there are other people. i’m shaking now like tears in rain i’m shivering i’m cold i’m adreneline.
station reöpened.
just as cold in here.
i’ll compile automerge a few times to warm up.
here’s the train. im sitting with a nice family. im waking up repeatedly.
off the train in beautiful rainy barcelona, and headed up berlin st through london st to paris st and into hotel where lie in bed ate 7 tacos.
i’ve gotten that kinda cold where it goes all the way through, digs in, changes the temperature of your bones. i’ve turned the heat on, it’s 30°C in here with the fans blowing. im overheated, dehydrated, can’t move from the heat. but i’m still cold, because it’s coming from the marrow.
and the next day a train. and things cleared up. and a taxi. a patata…pescado…fish and chips. and i’m staring out the window as the buildings rush by and suddenly i’m completely and utterly alive. “that building is the same distance from me as i am from it” and like an iron bar between my heart and some brick structure built a hundred years before i was born and it’s between my belly and it. chinchon.
and then… oh that’s strange. there were days. more days than there have ever been in so few days. though it’s been that way for nearly ninety now, it’s like that more than ever. and i don’t have any notes. and i don’t think i can describe it now. there is no way, i think. i’m weakened. VCM’d.
each night i slept for at least two hours and i ate most days. notes for next time to manage this better. i got to see many people who i love quite dearly in a deep and abiding fashion, and learn some new people who i have loved quite easily and intend to continue loving for some time.
thursday was a rewarding day.
i won’t talk about it.
i guess i won’t talk about any of it.
i feel as though i’ve awoken after a long slumber. but it’s one of those slumbers where you’ve eaten acid and ecstasy but also you’ve been awake for four days so you fall asleep anyway and you’re lying on the floor on the chillout room and the lights and beats are still going and all your dreams are about you lying on the floor of the chillout room but nevertheless you return vuelves and you’re surpisingly refreshed all dressed up and ready to rumble.
all dressed up and ready to rumble.
anyway, you know. feeling pretty. so tired.
yeah. i can’t write this.