Month: September 2024

A peaceful city street at night with long shadows and a solitary walker, capturing the calm and reflective solitude of nighttime walks.

Night Time Sanity

Posted on by Johnny Roque

That special moment the sun dips below the horizon means an entire world changes at once. All of the shadows merge into a single form creating a world that most people run indoors to avoid. During the day that ball of fire in the sky burns most fear off of the streets. People walk confidently in the daytime knowing the world safely moves in their direction, but once night falls upon us all the infinite unknown shows its mysterious face. Sadly this fear makes those that run and hide miss out on the comfort of the quiet peace of the empty streets.

I walk these streets at night to bathe in the isolation of an entire city. The demons and monsters lurking around the corners of dark alleys fail to install their fearful presence in my heart. I know that at any moment my life, like a terrible show, sometimes even a good show, might abruptly end. That might happen during the day too, at least at night I feel the calm of a world peacefully sleeping. The chaos during the day scares me more than the silent horrors.

These silent horrors mostly reflect the pain that we feel as a society in our hearts. Homeless people sleeping under their cardboard blankets make it apparent that the world we know falsely comforts our fragile lives. My life rarely feels anything, but fragile, it feels like a jagged stab at all times with the threat of death at my footsteps regardless of the time. Those lucky enough to feel a time limited strength ultimately miss out on the vulnerability of the spirit that connects to this world. A connection that all the noise during the day interrupts, but flows freely during the night that provides the only true form of sanity.

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Doorway To Isolation

Posted on by Johnny Roque

Slamming the door behind me I run down the stairs of my apartment to the street. My girlfriend and I just fought over a dinner that I brought home to eat. I brought it home to eat, she already ate, but still wanted some of my food. Any other day this small inconvenience means nothing to me, but today I ran out of my home.

We met in the summer a few years back, years add up faster than they pass over us. Day after day we learned about one another, we hated something about one another, loved a lot of things about one another, learning to love each other smoothed out the rough days of what we hated about one another transforming those days into years. Our dark sense of humor fueled nights of laughter while our coffee filled mornings boosted us into a life we lived separately, but happily together. Work, bills, stress, and money grew like a cloud over our heads. Gazing into our future with hope our vision dimmed the further we focused down the line. This morning we woke up together on separate sides of the bed.

A normal morning, dogs waking us up, then the alarm blaring out of our phones, and finally a rough roll over to see each other and say “I love you.” Our shoulders turned cold to one another over a fight about me coming in late, the surface reasoning of the fight, deeper in that fight lays our fears of the future. During the day I work moving camera equipment and directing grown adults that hate listening. My heart felt heavy in sadness after leaving this morning, but my pockets felt light in currency making me leave in the middle of our argument discussion in order to not arrive late to work. I showed up a little after 11pm, a somewhat normal day. On an empty stomach I dreamt of eating the charbroiled burger that housed itself perfectly next to a small basket of fries in a paper bag that smelled like heaven. Sitting at the table I unwrap my burger to take the first bite, but then she stops me to ask to eat some fries. Of course I say yes, she to my surprise grabs the burger out of my hands to snag a juicy mouthful.

Watching her eat that first bite drove me insane. I knew she ate. She sent me a message showing her dinner that sarcastically said “treating myself to a dinner date”. I grabbed a few fries off of my plate the moment I heard the lettuce crunch. Her face looked concerned, but I stood up in anger, I bit my tongue, then I left the table walking towards the door. Her questioning me about my mood and attitude really put a bad taste in my mouth. I mumbled something along the lines of “take the rest.” The loud slam of the heavy early 1900s door rattled the apartment. Eating a few fries outside on the street alone reset my perspective on my meal. Closing that door only led to me isolating myself out of the world I built into a world that made me feel lost. The isolation wrapped around me like a blanket of loneliness. That blanket fell off my bank upon returning to the doorway. I apologized, then we kissed. My dinner tasted a little cold, but the warm embrace of my household tasted delicious.

Dog Parking

Posted on by Johnny Roque

Driving to the dog park I spot an open parking spot, one of the few actually available. My little five year old standard poodle, a light 55 pounds and about 6 feet tall nearly jumps out of the car in excitement. She knows once we park and walk through the gate she wants to play in every pack or bark at the little shy pups in the corner to hurd them into a game that forces all the dogs to run. This game I call playing “catch the fast scared pup at the front.” The curb and parallel parking stand in her way to that beautiful part of her day. Parallel parking at one point took me 10 minutes to accomplish, but I trained my pup to help.

My car moves in a very analog way. Most cars leave the lot equipped to take on Megatron in a fight. They start themselves, drive themselves, and park themselves; the perfect car to drive people too busy or drunk to drive themselves. My car, a beautiful 96 Red Jeep Cherokee, manual transmission, oil eating, and gas guzzling beauty of a beast grinds its gears to a beautiful start and stop. I need to shift into first gear or slam down into reverse tapping my clutch to slide that shaft into place. Parallel parking usually means my tire eats the curb, unless my pup sits next to me.

I trained her to bark at the curb while sitting in the passenger seat. She makes life easier in every way. Driving to the park or anywhere with her reminds me of the love that we share in this world. Her whole entire existence radiates beauty and love. People that never owned a pet believe their existence relies on pet owners, but my pup creates my existence. Just the little bark warning me of the curb reminds me that someone loves me enough to warn me of any danger. I know the weeks of training her to hate the curb might mean something too, but anyone else in my life, everyone else technically never helped. They all just let me hit the curb, even after asking them to help.

Gliding my Jeep into the parking space I put the red giant into gear, pull the parking brake, and step out. My pup jumps right into my arms and I slowly put her down, just like when she weighed 10 pounds. Opening the gate to the park her tail wags while she runs to tell all her friends that she helped park the Jeep. I just watch my best friend enjoy her life and that makes the happiness in my life.

Morning Smoke

Posted on by Johnny Roque

Waking up without sounding morbid never felt fun to me. The grogginess hitting my body early in the AM like a weighted blanket that soaked in bodily fluids of anxiety really put a damper on the experience of waking up. School, chores, work, and the always watching sun either illuminated the sky to the extent that my eyes burned inside out or the clouds and overcast reminded me that even the sun took days to sleep in to avoid shining all day. It took over 20 years to find a reason to look forward to waking up, it took a vice, it took an addiction.

I woke up early to put on my clothes, eat breakfast, and start the process of racing to traffic in order to show up to work early. I wanted to show up early only to escape the reality of living at my parents once again in my mid 20s and clocking in to my temp job of video game testing. A game tester normally only lasts about 3 to 6 months, depending on the needs of the project or profits. Once on the road to that slow burn of a job I lit up a camel or Paul to start my first cigarette. It rushed my entire body full of nicotine. I saw miles and miles of steel, but the smoke inches away made all of that fade. Every inch of the road meant that much closer to my destination and that much additional space away the hell of the 405. Showing up to the parking lot I finish my drag normally around 7:45 AM, but today thanks to an unforeseen event of a circus big top falling out of the sky and landing on a big rig full of trafficked migrants, presumably south of the border, but I really try not to look at things that I might need to appear in court to point a finger at and miss a few days of leveling up at work. I arrived at 7:55 AM, barely able to finish half of my last cigarette.

Sitting at my desk I watch the characters fall through walls and faces appear on the crotch of their pants. My manager calls me over, a really nice guy. A super nice guy, sweet, always kind; and he calls me over. He “wonk wonk wonk” this and “wonk wonk wonk” that, but I understood my contract ended and I needed to find a new job. Thankfully I laugh it off, not in an insulting laugh, but rather, thanks for letting me know right at the start of the day. My computer locks on its own, now technically always their computer locks automatically. On the elevator ride down I to the front of the building try to tell myself all the coffee drink recipes I know in order to brush up on my back up plan. The last half of my cigarette, still lit, sat in the ashtray out front. Of course I picked it up and smoked it, of course it felt great, of course the consequences of a life full of hope quickly ripped away meant nothing to a recently unemployed. Still I take a few drags to calm down. A few more to enjoy. One last deep drag to organize my thoughts, then I walk to my car. I walk knowing I need to stop at a gas station to pick up another fresh pack to smoke on my morning drive.