post card from Valparaíso

I watch the clouds roll in bringing new ships to the port early in the morning
the sky is grey and the streets below my window look like a box of crayons

I crawl back into bed and bury myself under a pile of maps and history books
and journals chronicling another adventure I will never take...

The coffee is cold and the bread is hard, the bed is lonely but warm
and the window I left open lets in a cool wind with smells from the world on the other side of the sea 

It is two in the afternoon when I decide to venture out of my winter den
It is summer back in Mexico, but here winter is falling on us... the nights are cold...

I stumble down the stairs like a wounded wolf rolling down the Andes
The clerk behind the counter smiles but is indifferent to me... I wander his halls like a ghost

I step out into the street and wander in search of a reason to go back home -
to Mexico, to the States, to the North... but there just are no good reasons... Panama has become the far North for me...

I walked into a café near the pier - I ordered a sandwich and a glass of wine... the sandwich was dry and the wine just kept coming... I sat there and wrote letters to imaginary friends and drank until the sun began to go down

The night is cold... I remember I left the window open... my bed will be cold tonight... I watched the ships in the harbor and thought of my child hood... as I would watch the ships come in and dream of escaping from the world on one of them some day...

Dreams change as we get older... most of them... until we reach a certain age and those child hood dreams come back to us... calling us from the harbor... from the train station... from the banks of a lonely river

It took me eleven years to get back home the last time I ran away... I do not know If I will make it back this time... probably not...

I will head South and get lost in forests and cold rocky beaches... and camp at the foot of the Andes and live like a savage... making my way to Puerto Williams and get lost in the fog and the rains and the snows... lost in the hills and the valleys and the green where I will stay forever...

Forgotten by the world and those I left behind - one day they will just stop wondering “what ever happened to Victor?  Where has Dash Deringer gone...”

Me on the left with my brother Alejandro - when we still spoke to each other

watching the ships come in...