Sanctuary

I have never posted any fiction writing on here because, truthfully, I feel like it's a talent of mine that withered long ago in a two-fold process. First, when I left secondary school classes that asked for it and second, as the usual, gradual loss of our childhood imaginations that plagues us all in varying degrees. But as I wrestled with extreme creative block in my watercolor paintings recently, I decided to put away my paints for a bit and come back to words, but in a different way.

I wrote this very short fiction piece all at once in a 10 pm daze while listening to Age of Consent by New Order and Anenome by The Brian Jonestown Massacre on repeat in a sort of meditiatve manner. I don't really understand the process of fiction writing from a psychological perspective yet because writing this felt more like needing to get out of my own way rather than diving deeper into myself, as journal entries or personal essays do. I do dream of writing a book one day, whether that's fiction or non-fiction I don't know, but I'm posting this to encourage that part of my brain to dust off the cobwebs of underuse and begin churning again!

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I wasn’t sure when the wine had gone bitter and the candle had burned out. Like most things in my life, they happened without my doing so. I had arrived here, in this room, in this city due to a string of events that I was merely a part of. I didn’t tip the first domino and I wasn’t sure if the last had fallen yet either. But here I was. Salty tears drying to my flush cheeks, the last light of the day long gone, and the only sounds, besides my breaths, the flicker of the street lights below and the falling trash from the ever-hungry street cats. 

Valencia was a nice enough city to seek refuge in. My neighbors weren’t too nosy nor was the keep of the local shop, who had seen me in various states, some closer days closer to the dead than the living. Nobody seemed to mind my ghost-like existence, appearing more like a hazy shadow of existence on my evening walks than an actual person. It was easy to exist in a half-state of being with cheap tinto de verano available every evening and languid days to be spent in the sedative rays of the sun. 

My apartment was on a quiet street a few blocks away from the beach. I had grown up hearing the old adage that the ocean is supposed to provide some mystical and not understood healing of the psyche and figured that this was the best I was going to get with the money that I had left in my account. It was a five-story walk-up with a ratty little cot, floors that could’ve used some serious scrubbing, and an AC unit that dripped relentlessly, but it was all mine. A loaf of sourdough bread and a variety of Valencian citrus occupied the little fridge, along with some leftover gazpacho from the previous resident. In the mornings I would prepare myself breakfast in a way that made me feel like I was on a luxurious seaside getaway, rather than a dingy escape. As I boiled water I would slice up the oranges and apricots, the oils perfuming the air, drizzle olive oil on the fresh toast, and eventually mix in my nescafe in the delicate floral-engraved cup that I had discovered in the cupboard upon arriving the first day many weeks ago. 

With my corner-store bikini and flip flops on, I found my way down to the beach. People were right - it is much better to be forlorn when you’re topless near the ocean than bundled up in your dreary, dark room back at home, if it even was my home anymore. I let the sun burn through my mind. I had made it here. My reddening skin was proof of my survival and corporality.