he believed he could do anything, be anything

Lorenzo:

“The wind is broken, temporarily held together by circumstance.”

 

narrator:

in his youth, his friend had brought him blessings from the holy man

as a young man he had been mocked for his cocksure attitude. he had wanted to be a soldier. they mocked him for his bent spine.

these days he runs a drug trade in the Eastern Mediterranean.

sailing across the ocean, he feels the wind on his face. he feels invincible.

inwardly, he repeats the drama that had his former best friend killed only a few months back.

 

Lorenzo:

“How dare you question my authority?

Friend, you’ve questioned my trade. You have talked about getting high. But you have not sampled my product, even if I have offered it to you multiple times.

You have flirted with the girl that desires me. She’s mine.

Worse still, you have flirted with my young associate’s girl.

My senior partner, he is the real deal. He is tough, he’s got cancer. I didn’t know how I would cope if he died.

You used to be my friend. Now you say you are depressed.

Drink, I say! It is on the house.”

narrator:

in the distance, a single Turkish ship glides over the still bulk of horizontal blue. Death by water, a ghost had predicted all those years ago. It never happened. Besieged Ardea, now besieged Candia. We’d slip past the blockade.

Lorenzo:

“Alp was a traitor, and so was Beppo. A voice in my ear whispers: ‘Everything you desire.’ I just have to desire something, wish it, visualize it, and then reach out and grasp it because the Gods will grant me all my wishes. It is my due.

My daemon talks to me, he watches me. He is me, when I am not looking.

All I need is to wish for something to happen, and it does.

Now I wish to die, I feel guilty with sorrow and awe. I have too much. Everyone’s watching. No act should be without purpose. I have been arrogant, haughty, accumulated such wealth. All at the expense of addicts. Create a need, and profit from the addiction. There are many who are addicted to sex and love. They can never have enough.

There is no greater pain than the absence of purpose. Or absence of faith. And then there’s hard-boiled eggs.

The body craves sensations, the sea is overwhelmingly quiet and the sun is staring. A faint breeze is dying on my cheek. The night of the soul will be long. For the soul has appetites. Intelligence, they say, has principles. But the night is long, and I jot down the words in pain. I am tormented.

I climbed at the back of the inn, and I turned the key. The pantry was damp and still. I looked at the feature of the door for a moment. The door had the shape of opportunity, like the love for the old country.

I wanted so badly to harness the piecemeal broken unity of my broken garden retreat. The more I retreated in myself, the more I wanted to murder him. Treason is a squall and a wreckage. In all my derelict, powerful humbleness I reached out for the poison vial in the dark and I emptied its contents in his glass.

I was invincible, and broken. I have learnt nothing.

Demon drugs were altering my sense of purpose, but that is no excuse. One should never tobacco oneself with one’s wares. Capital sin number one. ”

---

narrator:

Demons clash within Lorenzo, fighting for supremacy afore a storm

fight for his soul, hardened, destroyed, shipwrecked, out at sea, with no help from pain.

Lorenzo is haunted. He was a bully, he wanted to be a soldier. He is impulsive, and not very bright. But to endure is part of justice.

---

Lorenzo:

“The clouds are gathering, I am going to hit a tempest.

Test: I need to separate what is real, and what is imagined.

My mind projects sharks down there. There is no such thing, obviously.

Those dark clouds look real enough.

My fear is the most real thing I know.

‘inebriate of sin I am,

debauchee of oceans,

reeling through endless pain.

I shiver at the rain’s molten blues’

I shall never renounce my dreams, my drams, my ego.

I shall but drink the more!

This sail boat is surrounded by a dream. You cannot kill me with your storm, you false God!”

narrator:

in heavy seas, he falls overboard hanging on at ends of a rope, his boat is rocked by the angry seas.

poison lingers for decades. Lorenzo is drenched to the core, the storm envelops his soul, a habituation of stress, a habituation of pain.

Dulling the senses, there is only expectation of more sorrow, of subjugation to those instincts of dominance and abuse.

‘Create a need, exploit the addiction’

In his mind, random thoughts of survival and anger mix with ideas and dull memories. Are religious feelings a distraction?

Ghosting the noise and the barbaric waves, he braves back onboard. No-one is looking. No-one is waiting to hand him prizes. Only a voice inside, leading him on.