Feigning indifference is different...

Bonsoir

Ah a gaze towards the pallid light eking its way through the gauze upon the windows shows the fallacy of such a greeting but nevertheless if I think in French and write in English I am expected to make some acknowledgement of the former. The tourists love it.

What I will not acknowledge is this rather stewed vintage wallowing in both glass and bottle before me. Clearly from the side of the vineyard where the grape pickers relieve themselves. It has not been opened since 2014. One glass in and I can see why.

Still, a borderline alcoholic must take the chaff with the wheat sometimes. Why not drink when you can think of little else to do? It is the drug to be the crutch for the rest of your life. I was on a consignment of prescription drugs not long ago which were meant to alleviate the mood and bring a feeling of worth back to the desolate canyons of my mind. Not even a sisyphean task, for rolling a rock up and down a mountain is a far more achievable request by comparison.

I cannot say it is self-loathing which commands these feelings; for that emotion is the foolishness of youth and immaturity. No, self-doubt is what I feel more. That concern that you are just not cut out for anything. You lack the skills which may make you a happier person. There is no skill required in buying yet another bottle to blitz away the day, inhibition and memory; the long term experience of any of these things can only increase the sorrow and isolation I find.

The only hurdle with wine is needing money but that is so celebrated and worshipped in this modern world. The atheists have freed us from religion but throw themselves entirely at the feet of money. I find money to be more intangible, baseless and ludicrous to believe in than any of the major religions they tend to sneer at these days.

I remember the cliche of the French being great lovers. I have been entirely passed by that national stereotype if it ever existed. I have become even less interesting with age and apart from drunken musings in the dark hours before dawn have entirely resigned myself to a life without love. Less complicated it is true, but...the loneliness and essential rejection of all I am can be hard to live with and needs constant justification. As a source of stress it can take years off you. Still on the positive side it has given me the motivation needed to finish this bottle of Chateau paint-stripper in one sitting.

I raised my head from the pool of my own vomit long enough to take a phone call from dear Bisson last night. It was also the opportunity needed to find my cigarette, fuming as it still was in my cadaverous fingers of all places. Bisson wanted to tell me of a great dream he'd had and wished it be related here. As he has given me the kindness to relay my thoughts here while he hibernates, I am honoured to do so.

The dream concerns a fellow called Ian Duncan Smith. This dubious creature was sitting in an orange jumpsuit and appearing very badly beaten up, bruised and bleeding, as he sat in the dock in the Hague. He struggled to answer all the charges put before him in any effective way and was found guilty. Bisson said he woke up before he heard the sentence but that was no bad thing as it allowed his imagination to run riot with all the possible and terrible fates that could have befallen this malefactor. It will keep him entertained for weeks he said.

Ah farewell wine, you were unpleasant to drink but made great inroads into my time. The last number of hours are a mere blur. Yet I must stumble out and buy refreshment for the evening and long night ahead. Begin on a sparkling white and let the selections darken just as the night itself does. Until next time friends.



Pierre