• Vol. 02
  • Chapter 10

Walkabout

The sandy dust floated up and stuck to my jeans as my military boots take it in turns to disturb the ground. My leather jacket rubs against my sweaty back, but I keep wearing it despite the heat – otherwise, the weight of Isaac’s bass will cut into my shoulder.

      The road away from disappointment is never-ending, but I march on angrily; the distant neighboring sand dunes outline a perimeter of nothingness; while the open road promises something, but I don’t know what.

      I didn’t set out into the desert with a long term plan, but I was frustrated with life. I had heard that the Aboriginals of Australia go on a walkabout into the desolate wild to find peace and spiritual awareness. I’m not from Australia, and I’m not an Aboriginal, so there is probably more to it than I know, but I reasoned that even Jesus had wandered the desert for spiritual answers, at least I think he did. Either way, the trend I detected was the need for space to set your thoughts out.

      I’m not sure if anyone has ever had an epiphany in the Nevada Desert. Although, I am walking away from Vegas, so I imagine there are a few who gambled everything and then proceeded to tread down this road and think about when they should have quit.

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Walkabout

      I shove Isaac’s bass further around my back, and as my hand pushed the neck down, I felt it smart from the heat of the keys. The little silver knobs had become small musical branding irons. Of course I’ve already been burned metaphorically, never mind the four track-lines now burned across my palm; the heated steel strings had cut into my skin with the ease of cheese wire through ripe brie. It had been obvious to move the bass away from myself, it’s a shame I hadn’t done the same with Isaac the first time I’d felt the hurt.

     The city hadn’t felt big enough for the both of us, as every advertisement that grinned from a wall reminded me of the happiness that I no longer had, and that Isaac did. The casinos on the strip were full of hopefuls living the dream.

     I don’t think I’m living the dream right now. I’m standing alone in the desert, while the vacuum between the dunes lining the road many miles apart is filled with the echo of silence and vagueness.

      I stop walking and look back. I can still see the Vegas skyline, where somewhere, Isaac is singing songs to ‘her’.

      Five years of my life shit on for a woman who wears tea dresses and, blockish, square kitten-heeled shoes in fucking beige.

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Walkabout

     Sand is beige: Hell is beige; loneliness is beige; she is beige.

     I wonder if a hatred of beige is my epiphany and keep walking; taking Isaac’s bass and his old dreams with me.

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