Fall, The Ocean, and Depravity of the Soul.

Day 1:

After briefly spewing out a speech on the patriot act and our freedom of speech, I hastily ran to my car, or at least what’s left of my car. After several trees, numerous road trips, and being stolen – my car has seen much better days. Now, it pops out of park if I’m not careful and there’s merely a mess of wires where my radio once layed. With Adventure in mind, I set off for Radioshack. It was finally fall break and I had to rig up some kind of device to get music back in my car – for I was going to Myrtle Beach for 4 days of adventure and tyranny. After several hours searching, I finally found a cheap boombox from K-Mart – a shopping center that I had thought was gone forever until I stumbled upon it. Flash, it’s now 11:00 – and two of my good friends are riding with me towards the beach, a 3 or so hour drive on the dullest, possibly the worst interstate in existence.. I-20. Being sober for 4 days in a row, I’m experiencing an odd clarity to my mind – something that’s both unwelcome and unfamiliar. Clarity of the mind leads to self-reflection at some point in time, and that’s just something I try and avoid at all costs. Upon arriving at the beach, going to Wal-Mart – America’s #1 feted cesspool of inbreeding, cheaply made imports, and corporate corruption – and cooking some dinner, consciousness immediately faded into sleep.

Day 2:
Waking up at noon is a truly degrading feeling. Opening your eyes and immediately seeing the sun above the sky uncomfortably thrusts the cold truth of being a lazy degenerate down one’s throat. The day goes slowly – filled with music and the ocean – a constant reminder in this trip of the depravity in me... that life is consistent with or without me, which is a beautiful and eerie reminder that I’m stuck in the middle grounds, neither success or failures really matter – unless I can somehow manage an extremity. Around noon, my blood alcohol content is steadily raising. In preparation for the upcoming show – “I’ll drink to that” reverberates throughout the apartment. The show is pretty amazing, the opening band, Fair to Midland, rocks to high heaven – after spending almost an hour trying to remember where I have seen them – flashbacks of previous concerts pour through my mind and I come to the realization that if I were deaf, I would be an utterly broken person, not to give anyone the impression that I am currently a whole person – but the point is that music is my outlet and in a sense my soul. After several hours of rocking out we head back to the condo – When we get back – a harmless card games turns into hours of slurred speech, blurry memories, and impaired judgment. At one point someone points out that “There’s thousands, possibly millions of gallons of water in that ocean – that’s a lot of water man” – at this point my mind was baffled. I was standing 9 floors up on a balcony overlooking millions of gallons of water; my friend was so right – that was a lot of water. I immediately became thirsty and staggered inside for another drink. From this point until I wake up the next day, my memories only exist in short thirty second bursts and my vision was deteriorating into what I can only describe as a static filled television. After several philosophical conversations, uncontrollable laughter, and the steady and unchanging ocean – I finally met my end for the night, only to wake up at an even later point in the next day solidifying my suspicions that I have yet to find a purpose in life.
Day 3:
On the third day we all rested both our minds and bodies. A brief adventure to get breakfast, I explained to a baffled waitress that lemon in coffee is the only way to drink it. She replied that in thirty years of waiting tables, she had never seen that before. For years I’ve been putting lemon in my coffee – what started as a drunken prank has turned into one of my favorite beverages. It gives one a sense of class and style, individuality and grandeur, putting lemon in coffee. Always there are non-believers who refuse to even comprehend the idea of zesty and bitter in a mug. Needless to say, I told the waitress that she is lucky she went to work today, because quite frankly, she learned the most amazing secret to enjoying coffee, and now she has the knowledge to pass it on to the masses. My mind has long since lost the clarity that I spoke so disdainfully about in my previous documentation of this trip. I’m mumbling to myself about trend-setting and revolutionizing the coffee industry. After a few minutes of strange looks from all sides of the table, I coolly blurt out some trivial fact about the French toast on the menu. Not that it mattered, but it was a keen distraction for those that cannot comprehend my zesty creation. The evening results in three of us driving around the strip – looking for adventure in all the wrong places. We arrive at Broadway at the beach, run around for what feels like a few hours – rent two movies – and head back to the condo. We all have a stoic look on our faces, for we have made a decision that will not be simple. We’re going to stay up till the sun rises over the ocean. Upon our arrival I immediately start drinking to ensure that I do not get involved with a little tension between my two remaining guests. Quickly after the first movie is over, my fragile mind is broken. I fall asleep holding a now-empty gallon of wine – only to wake up rambling about how it is a good girlfriend because it doesn’t call me stupid. After an hour or so of babbling and singing in half a daze – I finally awaken just in time to watch the sun rise over the ocean – one of the most beautiful sights one can witness in this area. With the mission accomplished, sleep quickly takes hold of me yet again.
Day 4-5.
The rest of the trip is absolute relaxation and rest. We stay at the condo and watch TV and movies the entire day. Nothing too much – our trip is coming to an end. The next day we clean and pack up for the trip home. Our adventure is over – with many pictures and stories to document it in our memories – we all are a little sad about leaving. The monotony of life will hit us hard on Monday. With several tests, countless of hours of homework and studying, and early classes every day, my week looks grim. Now here I am, sitting outside of a Starbucks getting my daily dose of caffeine, typing up the rest of this narrative. Once again that eerie clarity in my mind has returned and self-reflection has once again been eating away in the back of my thoughts. So my fearless readers – I’ll raise my glass to you all and drink to the next adventure in the near or distant future.


-D