Storms

    Water felt good. Even the cold that had descended from the clouds was nice on the skin and bones. Everything seemed alien in a way, covered by the storm and a fog that was thick and somber. Sitting on a bench in the park didn’t feel like something normal, but so wasn’t the absence of people or of any kinds of sounds. It seemed as if the world had lost all of its inhabitants in a single moment and it was glorious. He sat there, not minding anything but the was happening right then and there. It was amazing.

 There were no birds, no dogs or cars turning the corner. There were no people talking on cellphones or others talking loudly with their coworkers. There were no babies or children or teenagers whose hormones made even more sounds than the storm. No one else was around. Only rainfall made noise and, occasionally, a thunder or two would break the peace, as if it was announcing its presence and power. All of that was beautiful and very special and something people would rarely stop to really perceive.

 Granted, storms like that one were not that common, even in the rainy season. But people should’ve taken advantage of them more often because, it almost seems that you can listen to deeper sounds when you have the chaos and calm of a storm. It’s almost as if you could listen to yourself, to what your deep feelings are really telling you. It’s such a peaceful state and place to be that it becomes almost as a temple. Of course, prayer is not mandatory but you could do that if you wanted to, if it was up to you.

 The man was drenched, from top to bottom. He wore a hat that was now almost black because of the water, a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Everything was flooded with water. Yet, he seemed to be thinking, he seemed to be really taking advantage of the moment. Maybe he didn’t get to meditate a lot at home or maybe it was just a way to breathe a little before the end of the storm came, which would eventually come. He seemed to feel every drop of rain on his body, every single water stream coming down his limbs.

 Two consecutive thunders and their lightings lit up the sky and made it look so different; that it was a shame more people weren’t outside enjoying nature. Sadly, people only learn to love when they get something in return and that includes nature. If she behaves in a way that its natural but that takes away something from mankind, then humans do not want anything to have with it and they even declare war against it. Humans never really learn to enjoy things as they are. Instead, they want to world to be what their image of it is in their brains, and that image is almost always highly inaccurate.

 The storm continued for several hours. Eventually, silence was broken by cars and people running to them and buses and trains and planes, in order to get home safe and hopefully fast. Then, at night, silence came again. The darkness made it all even more silent, more serious in a way. Now that most people were at home, relaxing in the world that they had build for themselves, they really didn’t care at all about what was happening outside their homes, not even caring if there were people like them outside, the less fortunate.

 In general terms, they really were unfortunate souls. They had difficult access to every single thing that a human being needed to survive and they didn’t have a home, which would cause several problems for any normal human being. However, they were much more in touch with nature than other people. They loved to have animals on their side and they learned from their surroundings about how to survive many things. Nature taught them everything they needed to know, if they listened and paid any attention.

 At those hours of the night, no one would do the same thing that the man did during the day. No one would sit on a park bench and just wonder about life, not even if the night was perfectly clear and warm. The weather came in second or even third after the dangers of the city. They could be deprived of any soul and dangerous because of those people that have evolved to feel they permanently need to take away from others. It’s a disease that many have inside their brains and it grows and cannot ever be eradicated.

 As they say: “once a thief, always a thief”. And it’s a true saying because no one really stops being something like that. Once you think you have the right to take someone else’s belongings, you will never stop perceiving the world like that. It’s not that some steal because they are poor, less fortunate or just hate society and everything in it. No, it’s because they have gotten used to it, they have started to like scaring people in parks at night, cornering them and threatening their life. They have become addicts to that feeling.

 It is power that they love and even during storms at night, they will come out and try to cure their obsession by doing the only thing they feel they know what to do. They can be caught by police and send to jail for a short time, but that rush will not come down. Once you’ve felt power, you just cannot let go, especially in a world where only a few fortunate souls really do have power, mostly in the form of money. If someone outside that circle gets to feel a little bit of that, they simply become remarkably obsesses and they continue fulfilling that rush until they can’t, for one reason or the other.

 Anyway, stormy nights belong to no one, just as stormy days. No one can claim them; no one really knows how to describe the feeling of it all, how special it really is to finally being able to talk to your real self and to connect with nature. It’s different for everyone; so one experience is not really similar to any other. They are just as us humans, similar in key aspects but vastly different in what really counts. And that’s a fact that nature imbued into us, making us realize how really complex life is.

 The same feeling can be experienced when snow begins to fall or when you experience the natural darkness of the wild. You can also fill it when you dive deep into the water or when you swim in the ocean. It’s just something that is more than all of us combined, something that we can only experience privately. If we do feel it, if we really achieve that point, we will simply find it very complicated to use appropriate words to describe what it’s all about. After all, it really is a personal experience, different for each one of us.

 We have been led to believe that, as humans, we are precious and very special. And a way, we are, because we exist out of pure luck. We just happened, like a miracle, and now we are here doubting every single thing that surrounds us or worst, no even stopping to look at our surroundings. We believe that our brains are a masterpiece but most of us rarely use them properly because we just don’t have to. The world has stopped trying and now we just have to do a small amount of things to be a successful human.

 Of course, that is only in rich countries. In the rest of the world it is even worse because we still think we are miracles but we do not see any advantages of that anywhere. We try and try and try and nothing works and that’s how people get frustrated and they do whatever comes first in their heads.  So, that special part of us is just useless, like having the world’s most expensive object but not being able to sell it because it has become something more than just a very expensive object, whatever it might be.

 What really makes us special is how we choose to live life and how we decide to learn about ourselves. Thinking and precisely using the tools we were giving at birth is precisely what makes us special, not just having those tools. Anyone can do anything but not all of us can do it the right way.

 So just go out into the storm, drench yourself in water and make yourself feel. All those other things are not us, all those objects and people. They do not matter when don’t even know where we are and who we are. In order to live properly, we should really learn to look inside and around ourselves.

Naked party

   Everything had become a little too overbearing in the inside, so I made my way outside. There was a large porch kind of thing, where people could have a smoke or just go down to the beach and relax there. Of course, being a naked party, the organizers had been smart enough to put several warnings on the sand for people to avoid the water. Most were drunk and it would have been a grave mistake for any of them to enter the water in that state. There was even a lifeguard on duty, which seemed to be very bored.

 I went around the house, all along the porch, and finally found a spot to be alone and in peace. There was some kind of mannequin offering cigarettes, reminding people to only grab one. You could light it up with a built-in lighter that the doll had on its hand. It was kind of a clever idea and I was in such desperate need to relax that the cigarette was essential for that. I didn’t really smoke that much in my daily life, but this kinds of parties made me resort to that kind of vice in a very predictable way.

 The air was rather warm that night, yet there was a wind blowing from the ocean that felt chilly and gave goose bumps in an instant. I found myself caressing my arms as I smoked and watched some people playing around on the beach and the lifeguard yawning, but still watching them very closely. I could hear the ocean and it could be seen but only because a red lantern, kind of a Chinese thing, had been lit in the middle of the beach, right at the center of the section reserved for people that had come to the party.

 Curiously, I had come because of a flyer I had been given in another beach, the official gay beach very nearby. The truth is, the gay didn’t really wanted me to have the flyer, it was a thing of the wind blowing and him being unable to keep his things in order. He must have felt ashamed when I grabbed the paper and asked what it was about. He explained and just let me have the flyer, obviously dreading the idea of a guy like me going to such an event. I have to say I wanted to laugh at him but I didn’t.

 They were giving the flyers to all hot guys on the beach and it was clear they didn’t consider me one. I wasn’t ripped, with an eight pack and tall as a tree. I didn’t have any of that, even if I had been working out at the gym like a crazy person in order to be looking nice for this holiday. I had planned it for a while, something that I would be doing for myself and by myself, so I really wanted to look as good as possible. I had even bought a speedo type swimwear that made me a little bit uncomfortable. The flyers guys weren’t helping me a lot in that department, but I just went through it.

 My attempted laughter at the flyer guy had been caused by the idea that I found the party they were promoting something silly and the kind of thing I would never participate in. So I just forgot about it until I saw the flyer back in the hotel, after having a shower and preparing to go down and have dinner. I read the whole thing and I have to confess I found it to be very interesting. So much so, that I decided to investigate a little further. I spent the duration of my dinner reading on my cellphone about those kinds of parties.

 The mere idea of being naked around other people made me laugh out of nervousness. I wasn’t able to imagine being in such an event because I had always been too self-conscious about my physical appearance. Even after so many hours of workout and dedication to my body, I was still ashamed to parade without a t-shirt, much less being totally naked. I still had some “love handles” as well as many things that those guys on the beach didn’t have. But somehow, I decided to take it on as a challenge.

 They couldn’t stop me from going and I had decided it was the perfect kind of thing to push myself and just try new things. Maybe it wasn’t going to be my type of party or my kind of people, but that wasn’t the important part. The idea was to experience something different, something that I would have never done back home, being afraid of running into someone or something like that. I had decided to be a little bit more adventurous, in order to accept myself a little bit more, to love myself more in order to live a healthier life.

So, silly me, I looked all over my luggage for the best clothes to wear. I knew it was supposed to be a naked party, but my guess was that everyone arrived clothed. So it could be nice to give the right impression from the first moment, even if things were going to change in a matter of minutes. So I chose one of my favorite shirts, matching shorts and flip-flops. I also picked the best underwear possible: they were clean, had really bright and beautiful color and could attract attention even if there was a fire in the place.

 The house was located down the road from my hotel. I neglected to realize I had to walk a long stretch of a very dark road, but I finally arrived and was kind of glad to see so many people there already. They hadn’t opened the place yet, so they were all waiting for the doors to open. I was very pleased to realize that there were so many different kinds of men: tall ones and short ones, chubby ones and athletic ones. And so on. It was very comforting to see that no matter who gave away the flyers, people would come because it was their right to have a nice time with many other different people.

 There was a large locker room, in which I was able to grab a tiny locker for my clothes. It was kind of chaotic at one point, but eventually everyone got in and had somewhere to put their things. A key was assigned to each person, corresponding to a locker, and you had to keep the key with you at all times. They asked people to never remove footwear only because it was a standard thing but it was also clarified that they did not use any glasses on the party, preferring plastic cups instead, which seemed like a better idea.

 The light in the locker room was dark but also very red, so it was hard to actually take a look at anyone. That made me feel a little bit more at ease of being in such a crowded room. But it was getting even more crowded as time went by, so I just took everything off pretty fast and locked my locker in order to move on to the main part of the event, which took place on most rooms of the house. From the outside, it looked like a typical summer beach house, but it was clear they had made some modifications in the inside.

 For instance, there was no proper kitchen. Instead, its place had been taken by a bar and some sort of snack area, each tended by a group of very attractive men. For a moment, it looked like something funny but the more time I spent there, the more comfortable it seemed. They clarified that if people wanted to have sexual intercourse, they could do it in the upper floors. The only limitation was that people had to leave their drinks in the lower level. Besides that, the porch and the beach were opened, also with restrictions.

 Up to the moment I went out to the porch, I had been walking around the lower level of the house, having some snacks and drinks. I even found myself talking to people but they would mostly leave for the upper level and I didn’t really feel ready for that. So that’s why I stepped out of the house and smoked for a bit in the porch. When I finished smoking, I decided to walk on the sand and just sit there for a while. Somehow, my brain felt filled with ideas and questions and so many things, that it made me feel tired.

 The lifeguard came down his post and walked towards a group of guys that were playing around and reminded them to keep it civilized, as drunken shenanigans were not acceptable. He seemed pretty serious so they stopped playing around and just went back to the house.

 He then turned to me and, to my surprise, he smiled. He started talking and then I answered and he sat besides me. I have no idea for how long I stayed there, talking to him. But at the end, we agreed on meeting the next day on the public beach, to talk some more and maybe have something to eat.

 I’m already looking forward to it.

No more parties

    After the tenth glass of vodka tonic, everything still looked the same. The place wasn’t nicer or more fun just because of that and the people in it just looked like normal people, just guys flocking around a compressed space, looking to have sexual intercourse with other men. That was the reality Ronald had chosen for himself that night and he had chosen that same reality some other times, when he felt especially horny but also very lonely. One of those parties usually cheered him up.

 However, that one had all the indications of a dud. He had been there for a whole hour and it had felt like four times that or even more. That was never a good indication of how much a place was fun or a party was entertaining. That’s why he started asking for those vodka tonics from the moment he arrived. The guy at the booze table wouldn’t even take a good look at him, he would just pour the liquids fast and try to keep the line moving or maybe he was making room for someone special.

 As for Ronnie, he did try to check out some of the other guys but they didn’t seem to care for his presence at all. Actually, some of them just seemed to not even acknowledge his existence. However, that was better than what others did: look at him straight in the eye, with the same expression they would use when glancing at a bag of decomposing garbage. They looked at his black socks, all the way up to his messy hair, and just made that ugly look that said more than a group of worse and even more than a good assortment of insults.

 He saw that look many times that night; even after he had been sitting down watching some guys play a dancing game. It looked fun and he would have liked to participate, but to his surprise, there were many guys coming in such a party in large groups. The four guys playing the dancing game seemed very friendly with one another, probably friends from college or something of the sort. So he kept to himself by the wall, downing his vodka, hoping the alcohol would help him have a bit of fun.

 Well, he never got drunk. After several glasses, he felt exactly the same way. He even went down to the rooms, the one’s with all the action. But there was nothing for him there. They were all filled to the top with men that would make a swimsuit model blush and cry. He tried to get into it but no one even wanted to touch him by accident. So he went back to the booze table and asked for one last glass of vodka tonic. He downed it slowly, watching people still getting in. Once he ran out of alcohol, he walked right to the entrance and asked for his things back. Leaving made sense.

 The guy tending to the reception seemed to be too important, as he ignored Ronald for a while. When he finally decided to pay attention to him, Ronald basically ripped the bag from his hands. He didn’t even looked at his face, not wanting to have anything else to do with that place. In a matter of moments, Ronald dressed up and ran down to the entrance of the building. He was about to call a taxi but he finally decided not to do that, as he felt he needed some time to think and walking seemed like a nice idea.

 That was probably the alcohol thinking because the area was not the safest one in the city. It wasn’t a pit of despair either, but let’s just say that people didn’t really walked around there at night just to be safe. Ronald didn’t mind, as he knew he was a fast walker and that was always important in cases one could be mugged. So he just closed up his jacket real good, checked he had everything with him and then he just walked out into the cold of the night. He could hear the music from the upstairs.

 In minutes, he was away from all of that. He was away from those bodies that had claimed the throne over anyone else, those bodies that had rendered everyone else useless and undeserving. He had all the images still in his head but he wanted to stop feeling like such a piece of trash. It was hard because being rejected like that, in such a blatant way, was always very hard on him. It wasn’t his first time in that rodeo and it certainly wasn’t something he was keen on repeating over and over in his life.

 He passed a small grocery store that, in order to sell beer and cigarettes to young people like him was still open so late at night. He laughed to himself, because it wasn’t really that late. He had stayed in the party for about two hours, between the moment he had entered to the moment he had left. And the party could last up to ten hours. So it was kind of fun. He decided to enter the grocery store and buy some chewing gum to mask his horrible vodka breath and to buy something to eat.

 When he got to the register, he paid for a pack of mint gum, two bags of chips (one lemon flavored and the other chicken flavored), a bottle of ice tea and chocolate bar in case he felt too cold. He got everything in one of those very cheap plastic bags and continued on his walk, heading home but not really having any rush to get anywhere. He wanted to eat his chips and just think, think about why it got to him so bad. Think about why he had let them get to him and his brain. Yeah, he was an average guy but somehow that had became something similar to a heresy or sometimes even worse.

 The hypocrites. Those were the worst. The ones that always praise you for being such an authentic and real guy and then just side with the new gods because it suits them best. Those fuckers don’t deserve to be paid attention by anyone; they would sell their mothers if it meant they could get to play with those they admire. It’s sad and pathetic and frankly extremely annoying, and that’s what made Ron leave the damn party and just have a nice walk home, however long it could take him.

 He was glad to see some street dogs wandering around. Some of them accompanied him for a big part of his walk, until they were apparently lured to the other side of a street by the smell of food. Actually, the smell of fried food also opened up Ronald’s appetite. The bags of chips and the ice tea had already been consumed and he was still very hungry. He knew he had some leftovers at home that his mother had kept for him, so he could already picture them on a plate, warm and cozy and he ate all of it.

 Walking faster was not really a possibility because the distance was quite big. He could get home but it would take time and getting tired before reaching the middle of the route would not be the smartest thing to do. So he just kept on walking, looking around for muggers or worse, and forgetting very slowly what had happened to him at the party. He would think about it from time to time, but he would actively decide to think about something else, because torture himself didn’t make any sense.

 It took him two hours to get home. His feet were destroyed when he opened the door carefully, in order not to make noise. He thought about eating the food but decided he was more tired than hungry. Besides, he could eat it all in the morning, as breakfast. He took off his shoes and entered his room slowly. He removed all of his clothes and then just entered the bed, which was very cold but kind of cozy anyway. He thought one last time about those men and their bodies and in a hush voice he just said, “Fuck them”.

 The day after, Ronald had a very fun family day with his parents. It wasn’t that they made something special but rather that he realized that there were things that he needed at one moment of his life and there were other things he liked to do or have when he was recuperating from a very annoying event.

 He quickly forgot about the party, the booze, the men in it and even the music. The fact that he decided to block all of that from his life had something to do with it. He just wanted to be happy and those parties were not being fun anymore. They had run their course in his life and now he needed to move on.