Especial

Hey, so check this out, last night I’m taking the last bus, the Especial, home from San Salvador, the clouds high, big beautiful sunset on the drive, little later lightning dancing nonsense across the sky, lighting up those clouds, making them turn blue all crazy and then fade instantly to black. And I got lonely; you know that tight pain in my chest, a lack of feeling ever really there with someone—make sense, as I had just passed the afternoon faking to be confused about being in love with Lore. But I just shut it down, went over to my friend’s place after getting off the bus, knew better than to be alone—after all, with four years of being single I have learned something—and bought a dollar’s worth of pupusas and a beer on the corner, turned on the TV, shutting off those stupid voices.

Earlier the same day I bought two shirts, a camera, shoes, and other things. I bought shoes without trying them on, bought the shirts, all this shit!, for like $200 and didn’t even think twice about it. Just do it, Tim, I said. Stop thinking. Trust your instincts.

When I saw Lore again that afternoon, man, I knew right away nothing would’ve ever worked, ever. Just no attraction. I need to trust my instincts more—the shoes are great, but the pain I felt on that damn Especial seems to come with trying to fake it. Like, she trying to hold my hand as we walking and me just being distracted by every little thing so as not to let her see my eyes.

But yeah, so I get off the bus and everyone is hurrying to get home and out of the rain, scrambling behind doors and into alleys, and I’m like the only single living person on the streets of Chalchuapa, and those big-ass volcanoes looming out in the distance, all sad and shit, there for no good reason, just humps of rocks now, and here I am realizing I’m more alone than ever.

Hey, just buy the camera. I did. Hey, $115, fork it over. Shoes. All of it. Just now. Instincts. Wake up, man.