I'm Just Alive


I was sixteen when I sat down in my red, rotatable chair, here at Palaus for the first time. My eighteenth birthday was last October, and by now I'm used to working here, nothing is alien, nor strange as it was in the beginning. This is it, my life.
    Some call us a bunch of geeks, other say we're just hip people passing with the wave. So far I haven't encountered none of alternatives. We're pretty straight forward here at Palaus. We are who we are, and we're not ashamed of it, and that's one of the things that has kept me here so far. We lack that fundamental guilt which is otherwise so common in our society.
    In a way that's what we do here; change people's way of thinking, or doing our best to. So many have what Nietzsche probably would have called a slave morality, they think they own the ultimate truth. That pisses me off. We're all seekers in this world, hubris belongs in Greek folklore.
    Lately I've had moment of insomnia, I simply can't fall asleep. I lie in my bed and watch the silent night outside, but that coma stage simply won't appear. So I began writing. Didn't really feel working even the nights I don't have to work, so I began writing something personal, the kind of stuff I usually write and just to then throw it in the trash the next day. It's going to be a novel, and I call it "Mom's Got A Brand New Gun" I don't know why, but I like the title, well it's very me somehow. Very me in a weird but accurate way.
    It's about a guy who seeks happiness. He's this peaceful dude, who wouldn't hurt as much as a fly. But there's just no happiness for a person who can't close her eyes and be somewhat insensitive. It all ends with his mom taking shooting lessons, just for the recreation, and that's when he realizes the world isn't what he has pictured it as. And that it probably never will.
    I'm not sure what I'll do with it when it's finished and at this stage it's not even really important. Now I just need to kill some time.
    Three hundred fifty-three nights to be precise.

Jacob is my closest friend here at Palaus, he's twenty and has been working here since four years. Sometimes I think he's a genius, he just says so many smart things, and it's like he always knows what to say. He's always the one rescuing you out of it. He has that sharp tongue, and I guess he's not always that nice to other people.
    Jacob dropped out of high school when he was fifteen or sixteen, I even don't think he finished the fist semester. When I asked him about it he said he didn't feel he could evolve in that place, not in his desired direction. I don't know what smartness factor lies in that decision, but then it takes one to know one. And I'm simply not a genius, but I'm not idiot either.

My brother moved to Japan about a year ago. I was all surprised, and in a way it was exciting for me as well. He studies economics and draws Manga comics. In Japan. It just feels so far away all of a sudden, I've known where Japan is for quite some time by now, but when Tim moved there it was like I actually could felt he miles between Tokyo and Stockholm. He visits every now and then and wee keep in touch by phone and e-mail weekly or monthly. Frankly I miss hi a lot. It's another feeling when your sibling's in another country than just in another city.
    Japan seems rather cool, but stressy. Would like to visit, but wouldn't want to live there. Their attitude is so much, how should I put it, workable. But they're intelligent people of course, always educating themselves. Tim isn't working for a zaibatsu yet, but who know, they say William Gibson could pretell some of the future. But then Tim haven't moved there permanently, at least I think not.
    I can't help thinking of Spring when speaking of Japan. Those flowering cherries, they even have a word for it. They celebrate the spring, when the cherries bloom. The Springtime is always the best, it always feels as it's the beginning of something tremendous, the strongest experiences, and memories, are always felt and remembered in the Spring.
    I remember last Spring Jacob and I had taken our bikes down to a nearby lake, yeah just as some kids. From the hills above the water looked like made of malachite, stretching out in infinity.
    We skin-dipped that day, we had forgotten to bring bathing trousers, or rather we didn't plan on swimming, but the water was just to tempting to resist. "What if someone comes?" I wondered, but no one did.
    The water was cool, colder than it looked and turbid. But only that kind of water is emerald green, when watching from above. It was late Spring, and we were living the first few days of the Indian Summer.
    That was the spring Jacob told me he had almost taken a life. Not by purpose, and afterwards I thought it was nature, it was the coincidence, it was one of those things you can't master. But the kids in a wheel chair now, for the rest of his life. And Jacob said: "We always have a choice."
    He looked at me with his beautiful brown eyes and for a second there he reminded me of a character from a Manga picture. He could have been Tetsuo before the character got all mutated by the destructive power of Akira, or one of those kids in Venus Wars. I didn't know what to say, so I just sat silent, trying to feel something.
    But I didn't.
    I didn't feel anger, love hate, compassion... damnit, I didn't feel anything at all. I looked at Jacob, but he wasn't looking at me any longer. He's gaze was beyond me, facing some destination far away, as if there were another blinding sun behind my back. His eyes where expressionless and I could see myself in them. A small, dark figure, resting somewhere there inside. I wonder how he pictures me.
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