Desire
To want is such a funny thing. Sometimes it’s totally abstract. Sometimes it’s so pointed that you could stab somebody with it. Sometimes it’s like the name of that song you can hear in your head but you can’t remember who sings it. It’s like you’re feeling around for something in the dark and you hope and pray it’s still where you remember it to be.
I can’t keep up this prose without diving headfirst into nerddom. I’m dying for experiences reality can’t provide. I want Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on a big, crisp tv screen, with the volume cranked up, being played on a playstation one with one of those controllers that came out with the dual analog sticks but before they included the vibration motors. The one with the big, comfortable handles. I want space dogfights on gorgeous backdrops of stars, nebulas, and planets, maybe with an element of trade or economy, definitely with a variety of ships, played with a big trackball or a solid joystick. I want Katie, naked, between those cheap black sheets we got when we got our futon, but on our new mattress. I want to weave through traffic at rush hour on 41A.
I have this moment stuck in my mind. It’s been stuck there for years and I can’t figure out why. It’s winter in Springfield. December. Near midnight on a weekday or past it on a weekend. I’m in my big ugly white ’83 Chevrolet Caprice, going too fast down MacArthur Boulevard, past the Baskin Robbins and the Family Video, through moderate slow that reflects the light off the lamp posts making the air outside soupy shades of orange. I’m driving home, and Alkaline Trio’s “Keep ‘Em Coming” is playing, and I’m singing embarrassingly loud. I want this again. I’ve wanted it for years.