Just My Soul Responding.

Chapter V: Present Anguish.

It took miles finally to pull away from the dragnet of the suburban houses, industrial parks and warehouses and the melancholic scent of the city. Now, at last, an open road 120 miles more of it. They will be asleep when I finally pull up and search in the darkness for that key under the old mat. I have never been a fan of cars but I am trying to treasure moments like this. It takes only a miniscule pressure for the machine to move forward. The hidden world of technicians that made this possible: the cylinders fashioned somewhere in industrial Japan, the oil in the tank from Arabian deserts. Every mile in this road took days to build. The base layer, the limestone, the perfect white and yellow lines and the men who made this all work... Alongside in other lanes trucks carrying parts of the nation's need: lampshades, biscuits, soda, things that will be part of someone's bedroom, accompaniments to a meal. It feels that my neglected inner life parts emerge when I am on the road; it is certainly emerging in this old bus heading back to Belgrade. Ideas, associations, feelings. To me it feels like riding is an unexpected tool to overthink, question and reflect. Out here, it becomes less frightening to look inside of me. One can always draw away to the stars in the vast horizons. With my phone, I put on Bon Iver; extraordinary sounds and songs: symphonies, instrumentals and love songs choreographed to the beauty to what I am seeing. Shortly, we stopped in the service station for a break. I got a black coffee, sat down and lit my cigarette. I have been trying to use some sort of method to lessen my cigarettes consuming and reduce the number of cigarettes smoked per day. In other words to be able to choose when to smoke for pleasure rather by being driven by nicotine addiction. Bertrand Russel came to mind when I recalled his interview where he talked about smoking and how paradoxically it saved his life.

I looked around and saw nameless faces. Everyone is a stranger here. I can guess at the sorrows that brought them to this place. Perhaps a father who sees his children only once a month or a disappointed fellow who has been waiting for his date for hours. The sense of sadness in this place is not necessarily depressing. Everybody is a little dislocated, the little sadness I carry inside me meets with the sadness of the others, it is redeemed. Finished coffee and back to the bus, still maybe two hours to go. It is 1 a.m. and sleep has not found me yet, and immediately my mind started thinking about my some sort of Insomnia. I have been escaping my thoughts about my lack of sleep for a while, I am even trying to escape them right now but it seems that the hardest I try the harder I fail.

'It is about time, what a person should do to get some sleep around here!'

OH here we go. 'I told you hundreds of times your sarcasm and teasing is not very helpful.'

'Oh get a grip, and let us talk about your insomnia.'

'Well just like every single night it is far into the night but sleep won't come, I turn over perhaps a different position will quieten my mind from all of this bloody noise inside, most of it comes from you anyway.'

'Eiii I am only here to help remember that.'

'Or maybe the other side was better after all. Not sleeping feels like an avalanche that I am constantly going under. Not being able to sleep is frightening; the thought of it only makes me deeply anxious. I panic about my ability to cope with the demands of the next day then I start to panic about my panicking and then the possibility of sleep recedes even further as my clock clocks down to another bloody dawn. You know I tried pills that is powerful enough to wrestle with my mind and put it into rest, it worked for a while but because I'm super moody and the thought of me getting controlled by a medicine is so irritating I stopped taking it. I don't want to go back to it, that's why you are here, to help me, or to bore me to sleep.'