Insentient Dust
2026-08-01
Man, I'm exhausted. Last night, I spent a fair portion of the evening alone in my car in this parking lot I frequent. The spot I go to is nestled in a small corner of the strip mall. I like it because it's a bit secluded, mostly private, and the owners of the stores don't seem to mind that I spend so much time there. It's an odd little place; one of the buildings in this lot is a massage parlor, and it's clearly a brothel. I see different girls come in and out from the back of the building, and different Johns coming in through the front and exiting out the back. Yeah, it's obvious. There's a small median in their part of the lot, part of that little corner I like to sit in. It was just a patch of grass, but the woman who I assume to be the madame of the brothel set up a vegetable garden. All the years I've been going there, I've seen her harvests; she's got quite the green thumb. All those people circling in and out of this building, and that little garden in that dingy parking lot rests as a comforting, almost dissonant constant.
Usually I go to this lot to listen to music, just to get out for a while so I can be entirely by myself. I like to listen to my music—usually new sets and albums I've been wanting to listen through. There's usually no signal in this small corner of the lot, probably because the buildings around it are placed just right to block it. I need this time alone every few weeks or so; usually I sit in this lot for a few hours just so I can scream and cry, and it keeps me going for the next few weeks before I need to "recharge" again. Sometimes in those fits of tears, I see that madame come out to water her plants. I've never talked to her. I don't think she'd want me to talk to her anyway, even though at this point we recognize each other. I'm just thankful she never calls the cops on me. I've had that happen at other places I do these mini-retreats, and that's always a bummer.
Some time around two years ago, I got arrested. I was hanging out in a parking lot, and as I was driving away, I got pulled over by a cop. She started asking all these prodding questions, and I tried not to answer any of them because I didn't want to, or have to. She made me get out of the car and do a sobriety test, which I passed. Then she asked me if she could search my car. I should've told her no, but I wanted to do it as a gesture of good faith, I suppose. She goes through my car and rummages through all of my stuff. In my backpack was one of those delta 8 THC carts, which I had purchased at a gas station over a year prior and forgotten about. Apparently, in the course of that time, Texas criminalized them. I wasn't aware of this, so I had to stand there in complete, indignant disbelief as the cop put the cuffs on me. I had to spend a few days in jail, my car got impounded, and I had to regularly "check in" with a bail bondsman every week for the next year—only for the county criminal court to dismiss the case due to the immense backlog of tests they had for THC carts.
That's all long over now, but it was a strange experience. My life is a strange, constant expedition of wandering and being lost. It's fine, I guess. I don't really have much of a problem with it, especially because I don't think there's much else I'd want to do anyway. When I was young, I never had any ambitions for who I wanted to be. I think when I was five years old, and some adult asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said I wanted to be a race car driver. I hate cars. I think I just said that because all I really cared about was being cool, and I think I'm probably still that way. I never wanted to be some boring corporate type either, and I most certainly didn't want to sacrifice my humanity for a paycheck. I see a lot of people give up so much of themselves for so little, and that scares me. There are so many people out there who'd sell your soul to the devil just for a few extra bucks, whether they are willing to admit it or not.
I don't want to say I'm any better, because I don't think I am. The wretched sinner I am—I'd willingly give it all up, destroy and betray myself for nothing. Why? Because I don't care enough about any of this shit. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust. As much as I'd like to go back to being insentient dust, I can't. I am obligated to live, to do other things, even if I don't want to. If I had it my way, I'd be dead.
But life doesn't tend to go our way, does it?
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