"Listening to the Songs We Love
Makes us feel sad sometimes, reminding us as they do of happier times. Of times when we had what we thought we wanted, and were not mistaken on that count. Now we have what we have, mainly memories and an apartment that's a tangle of wires and a bed without a boxspring and a few books and an absolutely empty refrigerator and a stove we've yet to use. People say put something in your refrigerator, it'll make your house feel more like a home, they say buy furniture, they say lots of things that cannot cure us of the conviction that we're living the life of a ghost. About all we've learned since we've been single is this: we can do whatever we want, but there's nothing we want to do."

found at Unremitting Failure, the web's deepest blog about futility.

Calvin & Hobbes, Bill Watterson

Another Calvin strip, this was not what I had in mind when I named the blog.

"Between us there was, as I have already said

somewhere, the bond of the sea."

- J. Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Rebel with a cause

--

We met Abdul one night in an illegal drinking den in Essaouria.

An unnamed bar, an unnamed street: a haven that the locals kept to themselves.

Away from tourists.

Away from police.

It was the kind of spot where stray dogs and alley cats met to drink gallons of cheap beer and smoke hash joints and weed pipes.

Abdul was a prince among beggars, another son of the shadows. He talked all through the night. He said God gave us two ears but one mouth - so we could speak only a little and listen to a lot. He hadn't slept in two days. He was taking the weekend off from his job as a mechanic in the north. He spent forty-eight hours spread evenly between bars, brothels and fishing.

'Hoder!' He cussed. He had been a sailor and picked up slang words in every port. He slammed his fist on the table. The hands were titanic and rough like all wise men's. 'You go to Taroudant? Why? You read this in book, no? Fuck that. I tell you, you must live in your own time. You are what you feel, what you see. I am not a philosopher of politics, but I know this. You are your eyes. Believe only as you see.'

Oualidia.

We came.

We saw.

We left.

Fisherman's wife, Al-Jedida

--

The three of them stood in the middle of the little road, in their dark clothes and lively shawls. They cast long shadows in the morning sun, long shadows on the sand.

"You are beautiful, Monsieur," said Fatima. She was big, friendly and standing in front. Behind her, her two friends talked with her in a hearty arabic. She alone spoke with me, a few words of French, a few words of English. With the abandoned Portuguese houses of Al-Jedida around them, it is striking how similar they are to our own; any of them could have been a Portuguese wife in a fishing village just like this. "This one," she said, holding up the baby from her warm bosom, "she can be your femme. Marriage." I laughed, loud and long.

"No, no, thank you!"

"This one, then!" She said, pointing at her second daughter. This one old enough to walk, had just come running around the corner. "No? I have third one, in here-" she wrapped two thick arms around herself.

I thought about it for a second. I laughed and took my leave and left the three fates behind me.

Blinking, I pry my eyes open. My head feels like it's been vacuumed twice and my mouth tastes of dead cat. I swing myself into a sitting position and the world spins just a little bit. I suppose it does that all the time.

"I'm a bit hungover," Duarte says.

"Uh-hum," I grunt. The watch says it's 8.30 but there's a midday brightness in the room:

Welcome to Morocco.

--

Al-Jedida