I’m not sure why this is, but it seems that after a night’s session of drinking sakau, I suddenly feel the urge to write. Maybe it’s due to the kava taking effect in such a way that completely removes my inhibitions, makes me more apathetic towards my writing, and thus causing me to worry less about the words I write and allows me to just, simply, write. Sure, it’s probably not the healthiest way of writing, and on top of that, the murkiness of my mind in this condition probably isn’t conducive for producing quality work. But hey, at least I’m writing something, right? Mwahu sang sohte, as they say on this here rock.
This is my favorite time of the day. The sakau was a bonus. After two or three hours of sitting around, drinking the stuff, progressively getting more and more tired, comes the perfect silence of night. Well, it isn’t exactly completely silent, per se. But I’ll take what I can get. At this point of the night, the kids are fast asleep on the living room floor, the DVD they were watching has frozen, and it’s just me and my host parents, sharing long silences between sips of the muddy water. Tonight, the DVD was a bootleg copy of Delta Farce, some trite comedy featuring those blue collar comedians, none of whom I care for very much. It froze at a point where Larry the Cable Guy looks like he’s about to fondle the perky breasts of some hot young blonde. For an hour or so, I alternated between staring at this frame, this cutout of a B rate movie, and a snail slowly moving away from the left of my chair. The snail had barely moved – not much of a difference from the still frame of the awful movie.
To be clear, I was seated on an old rusty chair outside my house, directly facing the front door, which was left ajar so all of us partaking in the sakau could occasionally peek inside at the terrible movie, only perhaps I was alone in finding it so terrible. In my position, however, the TV was in my direct line of sight. With the volume turned low, I could only peer in at the ridiculousness happening before me scene by scene, meanwhile clouding my brain evermore with each sip I took, incidentally making the movie even more difficult to follow. Not that I wanted to that badly, anyway, or at all.
When finally it was down to the three of us, my host parents and myself, not speaking a word out of sheer lethargy brought on by the sakau, and the periods of silence between each sip kept getting longer and longer, and there was only one coconut shell of the stuff that remained, and my host mother, with a grimace, reluctantly took it, mentally preparing herself for what seemed like a very painful undertaking, I looked down to see my snail companion, only to find he’s moved on, probably under some bushes a few inches away, obstructed from view. He couldn’t have gone very far – he’d only moved about six inches or so in the span of about an hour. Snails, by the way, are bigger on this island, about the size of my palm. It might have something to do with the humidity, but I digress. This is my favorite time of the day. The silence, though not completely perfect as previously indicated, is enough to give me respite from the usual cacophony of screaming or crying children and crowing roosters that never seems to cease in the light of day. At this hour, about 11 pm or so, there is only the sound of night – invisible crickets chirping in the woods, a dog barking in the distance, or the pitter patter of some leftover droplets of rain caught in the foliage that seems to have jumped onto the roof of our house. A drop falls on the back of my head as I searched for my snail friend. A good omen?
This year is going to end whether we like it or not. Time has a way of crawling off without notice, like my friend, the snail. When you’re conscious of it, it moves slowly and meticulously, but the minute you turn your attention to something else, it’s gone. Where? Someplace tucked away in the corner of the universe. And all you are left with is a slimy residue or some insidious guttural notion that something important has just taken place, but you can’t quite understand what it is. Often I find that my problem isn’t not having enough time. I could have all the time in the world, but my problem is what the hell I’m going to do with all that time, how I’m going to use it more wisely and efficiently, without it slipping away from my grasp with me not having done anything of value or substance. But having said that, I am nonetheless excited for what this new year will bring. I have no doubt that it will be a significant one in the span of my life. Call it a hunch.
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