Everything but the Truth

         I stand in front of a pyramid or mound or hill or tor or crag or whatever you would like to call it thinking about all those times I wish I had done something else, but did not and now I am two thousand miles away standing in front of these huge, diabolical, sandstone erections wondering if I indeed did do the right thing in leaving her there; her full, profoundly blue eyes gleaming with hope as I boarded and pulled away on that vessel destined for seas and lakes and rivers and ports and eventually a lonely, wet grave. I turn around and walk slowly back to the beige Jeep that I had rented when I came into harbor. The moments before I left were something I could not prevent; it was calling for me.

         I am staring at a blank, dirty road that sits silent as the sky, no cars, no pedestrians. I sit outside of a café in a very urban layout on the Spanish coast in Barcelona. I ask the dark, young server for another cappuccino in broken Spanish when he comes outside to serve a young lady who has just sat down and then I lean back in my chair and gaze into the sky. I am thinking about how nice it has been here in Europe for the last twenty-eight months, about everything that has happened to me, everything that I have experienced, everything that I have done, whether good or bad or horrible or despicable. Amsterdam and smoke houses. Absinthe. London. Fish and Chips. Coffee in Paris. Clichés. Venice and the canals. The Mediterranean. Sailing. Greece. The Parthenon. German beer. Slums. Bratislava. Hostels. Everything. It is so unimaginable and so fantastic. Life is surreal and full of unexpectancies.

         The waiter comes back and gives me my peanut butter cappuccino, but I do not tip him because I am short on cash and actually doing anything I can for it nowadays. He makes his way over to the girl who is now smoking a cigarette as if she was waiting for somebody, me. Waiting for me to come over and sit down and talk and think and offer to buy her a drink or a smoke or a light or just to join her, but I sit back and bide my time, staring out of the corner of my eye watching her delicate and precise movements as she softly takes drags off of her cig and stares off into the moon. I still do not get up and walk over to her; instead I wait and nonchalantly take a sip of my drink and the hot liquid leaves my tongue numb enough to take another drink and I do not feel or taste anything particular as if I were not drinking anything at all. I reach into my pocket as a small car drives down the road and I pull out a pack of Parliaments. I open the pack and only have four left but decide to smoke one. I reach into my pocket but cannot find a lighter. I search around in my bag and cannot find anything. I sit there looking ridiculous with a white stick hanging unevenly off of my dry lips. Another few passers-by and a squirrel and a stray cat wander past me completely unaware of my intentions for tonight and maybe even tomorrow with that young girl while I look for a lighter or matches. I look up completely disoriented and exasperated. I look over at the girl and catch her staring at me and she looks away embarrassed and a crimson blush comes over her soft face and her hair moves with the slightly cool breeze.

         She puts out her cigarette and I put mine on the table unable to light it. I do not feel like getting up because I do not want this girl to get out of my sights, to leave without getting at least a word with her, not to mention a night. I stand up and stretch and watch as another small, but loud car rolls down the road. The man at the wheel has thick mutton chops and a soul patch of dark grey. My eyes follow the car all the way down the road and when I turn around to sit back down the young lady I had been staring at from afar is standing in front of me shyly smiling and kicking the ground.
         “Do you need a, uh… light?” she asks in broken English and a Spanish accent. She holds out a silver, metal lighter in her small, yet surprisingly appealing hands. They are not dry, but are not sweaty. I stare at her hands for a few moments admiring them before realizing what I am doing and slide the lighter from between her fingers flirtingly stroking her fingers in the process. She breathes deeply and averts her eyes to her left, my right, where an old man is standing outside of his apartment smoking a tobacco pipe that is probably not tobacco at all; I pick up my cigarette and light it even though I do not feel like smoking any longer, but do not want to be ungrateful toward the sweet girl.
          “Gracias, but how did you know that I speak English?” I ask her slowly making sure she is hearing and comprehending what I am saying, but making sure not to offend her or talk to her like a child. She does not say anything for a moment, but then answers.
          “You, um, have a, how do you say it… certain… way about you” She says questioningly as if asking me to make sure that she is saying the correct words. I find this cute and chuckle to myself. Oh, the things I am thinking are so lifelike and so not like life at the same time: so banal and commonplace, yet completely astonishing contiguously. I take a deep drag from my cigarette and blow it away from her face. She smiles and I smile back.
          “Usted… cercano …vivo aquí?” I say, fumbling my words a little, but she understands what I am saying and points down the road, holds up two fingers and says, “dos bloques.” I finish my cigarette and gently touch her hand. She looks up at me with those mesmerizing eyes, smiles, then walks over to her table to pick up her purse. We leave forgetting to pay for our drinks and stroll the two blocks timidly flirting with each other and holding hands. We do and do not sleep that night.

          I wake up in the morning, clothes strewn across the room and the girl nowhere to be found. I have auburn sheets covering my thighs and butt and lower back, but nothing else. The room is dark and cool because she has put up thick burgundy curtains and Venetian blinds up on her windows for some reason. For privacy? I stand up and the door opens and the girl walks in and is startled. I do not bother trying to get clothed immediately because she already has seen this sight and it just does not feel vital to me. She turns her head and I now feel this is the time to get at least half-way clothed. I throw on my boxer briefs and a pair of sandy yoga pants I had stowed in my bag. I tap her shoulder to indicate that I am dressed and she can resume whatever it was she wanted to do whenever she would like. She turns around and looks me up and down, and I can feel her piercing gaze go through me; then she nods approvingly and softly puts her head into my chest and wraps her arms tightly around me. She stands about shoulder height to me and I put my arms around her to make her feel safe and secure even though that does not exist. It is too late. It is all just illusory—imagined on her part, but known by me.

         We take a walk down the docks and I see a sign in English that says there is a ship for Egypt shortly. Tickets are not cheap and I have very little money, but judging from my new friend’s home I have a feeling that she is well-off and I have never been to Egypt even though it is just across the sea from many of the places I had been in the last two years. I speculate that I just never had the opportunity to go, or even thought about it for that matter. I imperturbably guide her in the direction of a solitary group of storage garages that stand nearly twelve feet tall and are very closely compacted. I take her back between the two farthest from the docks while giving her signs that I want to sneak away to probably do something sexual with her. My guise is truly impressive and I almost forget what I am doing. I stop her and look around to make sure no one is watching or even within hearing distance. I lean in and kiss her hard on the mouth making sure that she is quite preoccupied and while distracting her I pull a knife out from my bag and slowly introduce the blade into her stomach and now I kiss her even harder so as to not allow any sound to escape her delicate lips. I lower her body and insert the blade into her again this time nearer to the sternum. As she lies there and bleeds to death I steal what money and debit and credit cards I can from her and stand up. Her full, profoundly blue eyes gleam with hope as I walk away, buy a ticket, and board the ship to Alexandria.