The desert, they say, is where the soul goes to find itself or lose itself entirely. A barren wasteland or the place of revelation, depending on which eye you’re looking through. My eye, at this present juncture, was skewed, twisted, and squinting against the barrage of veracity. John J. Morrison, that’s me, or at least it was me. Forty-five years I’ve stumbled around on this celestial playground and yet, what was I?
Somewhere between Las Vegas and nowhere, I found myself caught in a whirlpool of existence. The world had become an inconceivable masquerade, a ceaseless riot of faces, places, and time-dances.
“We were somewhere around Barstow,” I muttered, recalling memories of another life, a ludicrous chase after phantom bats. The radio crackled with old tunes, and the engine’s heart pumped the beat of raw existence.
Where was I going? The question followed me like a ghost. A shambolic mess, that’s what I was. A retired salesman drifting towards oblivion, seeking the meaning in it all, or at least a glimpse of the damned thing.
My old car, a relic of forgotten dreams, drove listlessly to the harbor of memories. A trip to Africa, chasing some legend’s bones, seemed as plausible as this voyage across the desert. Everything was a hunt, a fevered search for what was lost or never had.
I turned to my reflection in the rearview mirror, a mirror stained with the regrets and delights of ages. A face aged beyond years stared back, eyes wild with the thrill of nothingness.
“Maybe you should drive,” I said to myself, a frivolous whisper lost in the roar of the universe.
The tires ate the road, the world swayed in ecstatic oblivion, and on we drove, plunging into the abyss of life’s folly. The journey was both the means and the end, a chase after phantoms in the land of everlasting bewilderment.
Life, you see, had become a divine comedy, a ceaseless play where roles were exchanged, and every man was an explorer lost in the jungle of existence. It was absurd, chaotic, and utterly divine. My midlife crisis was not a crisis at all, but a revelation of a dance with the madness of being.
Ah, the glorious confusion of life! Let the journey unfold, let the roads lead where they may, for I was both the seeker and the sought, the hunter and the hunted, the explorer and the lost, all in this grand spectacle called life.
The desert stretched before me like the beginning of an interminable waterway, and I was ready to dive in.
Ah, the desert! A never-ending pageant of existential folly, a landscape that laughed at man’s meager ambitions. The bats? The bats were memories, figments, twisted pieces of self dancing in the corners of the mind.
What was the city to a man adrift in the ocean of himself? Las Vegas loomed ahead, that citadel of excess, that monument to the absurdities of human desire. A fitting destination for John J. Morrison, a man out of sync with the age, a wanderer lost in the circus of modernity.
I remembered a time, a distant glimmer of youth when I was a part of the machinery, selling things people didn’t need, living a life I didn’t want. Now, here I was, free and chained, chasing phantoms and fleeing from shadows.
I drove on, the arid landscapes of the desert morphing into metaphors for my own existence, a life bereft of purpose, now seeking a new dawn. Or was it dusk? Hard to tell when your compass is guided by whimsy and caprice.
What was it that Stanley said in his letters when he was searching for Livingstone in the jungle of the dark continent? Something about never giving up the chase. I chuckled at the parallel. Life had turned me into an explorer, too. Not of lands and rivers, but of existential tundra, of spiritual wilderness. I was chasing something intangible, a phantasmal Livingstone, perhaps. A ghost of meaning.
I found myself drifting towards the glittering promise of Las Vegas, a city garish and gleaming, a sinners’ paradise that had beckoned many a lost soul. Was it calling to me, too?
I pulled into the city, the lights dazzling like a million stars gone astray. The streets were alive with the hubbub of lost souls gambling away existence on a roll of the dice. I took a room in a rundown hotel, a mirror to my own tattered elegance. The walls were papered with dreams gone sour, the windows veiled in years of longing.
Entering the city was like diving into an ocean of neon lights, each one a flicker of temptation, allure, and decadence. The streets were alive with hedonistic energy, each corner teeming with offers to satisfy your wildest dreams or so they promised.
I wandered the city like a child lost in a carnival, drawn by the spectacle, yet somehow distant. The casinos, the shows, the ceaseless flow of luck and chance, it all felt hollow, a mirage in my own desert.
I went into a bar, where the bartender, a fellow lost in the time stream, poured me a drink with the skill of one who’s seen it all.
“Whiskey,” I said. “Make it a double.”
He eyed me with the curiosity of a cat regarding a curious new specimen.
“On a journey, friend?” he asked.
“Aren’t we all?” I replied. “I’m on the hunt for Livingstone, you see. But maybe he’s hunting me.”
He laughed, a rich sound echoing with wisdom and weariness.
“Livingstone’s dead, but his ghost walks these streets. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
The bar was a surreal painting of humanity, a place where dreams were traded for coins, and the music played a symphony of broken hearts.
A woman approached, her eyes wild with the desire for something more. We danced a dance of strangers, moving to the rhythm of a world unhinged. Her name was Cathy. She was looking for love in a loveless place; I was looking for meaning in a meaningless dance.
I caught the glint of her wedding ring as it twirled around her trembling finger. The bar was alive with the clamor of voices, the distant laughter of strangers, yet in that moment, we were isolated, connected only to each other, a world of our own creating.
"Are you sure about this?" I asked in a rough whisper, my eyes never leaving her hand. Her reply was uncertain, a confession wrapped in a question, the embodiment of a desire she couldn't quite grasp.
I reached out to her then, my hand gentle as it lifted her chin, bringing her eyes to meet mine. My lips found hers, a simple act that ignited something within us, a spark that had been smoldering, waiting for this very moment.
The room faded away as I led her back to my hotel room, my kisses a path to something deeper, something that transcended mere physicality. Clumsily, we found our way to the bed, Cathy's heels discarded, her body now one with mine, our fumbling attempts at undressing a dance of intimacy and inexperience.
The touch of my hand against her thigh sent a jolt through Cathy, a spark that caught both of us off guard. It was a fleeting moment, a pause that allowed us to breathe, to take in the enormity of what we were doing.
The zipper snagged, the dress refusing to yield, a momentary obstacle that only served to heighten the anticipation. It was a battle we would not win, and with a mutual understanding, the dress became a part of our connection, a symbol of the imperfect beauty of our union.
My departure from the bed was a slow unwinding, a moment of separation that allowed Cathy to take in the reality of what was transpiring. The sounds of my clothes falling away, the sharpness of my belt, they were a symphony, a prelude to something more.
When my hands found her legs, when my thumb brushed against her panties, the world seemed to stop. It was a slow, deliberate unveiling, a communion of souls that transcended the mere physical. The discarded clothes at the foot of the bed were a testament to our journey, a path we had chosen to walk together.
Cathy's ecstasy was a living thing, a force that swept her away, carried her to places she had never known. My devilish smile and tender kisses were an exploration, a discovery of something profound and beautiful.
Our conversation was quick, an understanding that went beyond mere words. The absence of a condom was not an obstacle but a bridge, a connection that bound us even closer.
“I don’t care,” she said, “just fuck me. Fuck me hard!”
As we came together, as my body found Cathy's, the world dissolved, leaving only sensation, only feeling. It was a surreal experience, a dance that transcended mere physicality, touching something deeper, something eternal.
In the end, when my pace quickened, when Cathy's whispers filled my ear, when we reached that pinnacle of pleasure, we were not two separate beings but one, a connection that went beyond the flesh, a love making that spoke of something more profound, something timeless.
With her dress bunched up around her waist and me on top, it was a surreal experience. She wrapped her legs around me and whispered in my ear for me to come inside her. We lay still for a while afterward, the world slowly coming back into focus, the essence of our connection a lingering reminder of what we had shared.
