Peace

Oblivion

My homework is either done for better or for worse. My girlfriend and I relax next to each other on her bed. I pick up the heaven-sent remote control and flip through the dramatic and often over-the-top reality programs. We lose our lives for about an hour or two replacing them with other people’s problems. I put my arm around her and we watch until we get bored. I get up to head to the bathroom and she gets up to hit the auxiliary button on the remote to play Mario Kart on the Wii. It’s eight o’clock; time to shut the world off and forget the day to day responsibilities. Everyday is such a mad hassle between the here and there and things to do, that often times we forget to just enjoy life. I work very hard every day pondering on the this and that and things change and time passes, but still I always make sure we have the evening to wind down. It’s what could be considered our, secluded-from-the-world-yet-together time.
I’m in the bathroom. I can hear her roommates gossip in their bedrooms talking on the phone about guys and the this and that. They are getting ready to go out to wherever they go to commit fornications with older men they’ll meet at the bar while performing their day to day. I head back into my girlfriend’s room and shut the door and lock it. We hate to be bothered by the drunks and when they do come knocking we tell them through the door the one thing or another line and that we have a lot of homework to be done. This is a lie. They trudge off huffing and puffing.
“I’m so glad the days over,” I say while watching the videogame on the television, “let’s go to sleep early tonight.” She agrees with sleep, as always. It’s my turn to play the game because she’s not good at Mario Kart and she hands me the controller. I play for twenty minutes or so and hear a deep snore begin to emerge. Her day to day is finished and she’s fast asleep. I don’t get upset about this, it’s why we enjoy the evenings so much. Every night at this time, we do what we want to. If sleep is what we want, then sleep is what we get. There is no mad hassle or chaos about the this and that going on in this room. She always falls asleep around ten or eleven anyhow, I already know this. It’s me that can never sleep. But still, I enjoy the alone time after my day to day so I pick up a book and read for a while. I hate Hemingway’s cardboard flavored atmosphere. I toss the book someplace and make a sandwich and then it’s back to the television. From here on out, it’s usually just me occupying my time in some way or another, and entertaining myself until I can fall asleep.
I’m still awake at three in the morning. I can hear the drunken stupor of her roommates stumbling back into the apartment. They are loud, obnoxious, and would have woken me up right about now had I been asleep in the first place. They are crashing off of some type of methamphetamine binge they probably began before dinner time. I’m very glad to be in this room, with my girlfriend, sober, and safe. I need my time alone. I need to collect myself; to compose. I shut out the noise of chaos reigning in the living room and lose myself in my thoughts. I begin my own sort of meditation and just surf the electric brainwaves that naturally flow. If I begin to trouble my mind with tomorrow and the this and that, or the here and there, I calmly and naturally tune it out. Eventually nature takes its course and I sink into the bed as if gravity has doubled. I have one or two final thoughts that I never remember again although I know they are bizarre, and I’m whisked away into neither the here or there, nor the this and that; but brought to peace. Like the baby in the womb with his thoughts beyond oblivion, I have about five hours of bliss.
When I wake up, it’s the here and there and the this and that all over again. When I’m forced to communicate with people in my day to day, I just throw them the one thing or another line again and keep hassling through the chaos until the evening. The bottom line is I will always look forward to our secluded-from-the-world-yet-together time the most.



Matt Travis