The monkey who sees it all and smiles

His face was even darker from a growing beard and scorched from sun rays hitting the piteous side walk he sat on caked in grime, blood and sticky remnants of old food melting in the Athens summer.

We had just left our hotel clean, showered and all loved up, ready for a day of walking the ancient streets of this both bedraggled and beautiful city.

Not ten metres from the hotel front door was this man and his patch of concrete, needle in hand trying to steady his shaking as the needle punctured the skin.

Flash to now. I’m drinking a 5 euro fresh orange juice as I type this.

The juice sits on a marble table vibrantly fresh and my memory of him so grim and eclipsed in a heavy haze of dark shadows.

Back to him. The needle pierced his dark skin and I was staring and trying to cross the road at the same time looking back.

My feet were carrying me ahead but my head kept turning back. I passed other men with eyes bulging and clothes ragged and not quite all there, but far far away with a scars on cheeks and hunch backed — disposed vessels of humans. Like Hades’ shades coming out of hiding and blinking at the sunlight not sure where to turn.

It’s like they’re not sure how to handle it.

I’m not sure how to handle it.

We’re all a little hazy.

But him. The man, the needle.

He’s slumping backwards as I keep turning and watching. His hand is shaking as it falls to his side.

He’s probably now in that sweet spot. Where the chemical hits the veins and the whole world disappears into bliss that’s on the brink of being too beautiful and too horrible to handle in one moment tied to another moment all in one frail, tiny human casing.

I keep walking. The image doesn’t leave me though. It can’t. It’s the first time I’ve seen a real person shooting up at 9am on a busy street, a street in the country of my blood line that I have seen slowly degrade over time.

Although there’s been an increase of drug addictions and as a result Hep C and HIV in Greece since the economic crisis, he isn’t a Greek man.

There’s an increasing stream of refugees as well as Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan workers in Greece.

The wars. The displacement. The desire for a better life that leads people to unknown shores. Some Odysseanites make it to their figurative ‘home’, others get stuck en route. The sirens songs were too sweet. Circe’s wine too tempting.

Greece is the first port into Europe from the Middle East for many coming to seek a better life.

Apparently Turkey receives significant funding from the EU to house refugees but they take the funding and then ship them off to Greece to put pressure on the nation of 10 million. It benefits Turkey when Greece struggles you see. The bad blood between these countries forges on after hundreds of years.

We’ve just walked into this very cool bar called NOEL for lunch in a trendy area. It’s where I get my fresh juice. The walls are painted deep crimson, there’s paintings in gold frames and black and white checkered floors. It’s really very cool.

There’s this cute little monkey with a gold key and crown on its head at our table and as clueless as it looks, after seeing the man, the needle today the monkey just feels like another symbol of the utter weirdness of this world.

Patrick told me the other day that a friend of ours was asked by his girlfriend “If you could change one thing about this world what would it be”. He promptly said “Nothing”.

I wonder if the answer comes from a maligning feeling of powerlessness or a state of utter acceptance of the chaos of our world.

Whatever it is I’m just feeling the utter weirdness of this world today. Not in a bad way, not in a good way, just in a way. Like a dog that tips it’s head to the side when you ask it something it doesn’t understand. I’m a bit ‘Huh?’ right now.

How can there be so much gloss and sterile cleanliness and also such filth. How there can be such lavish wealth for some and impoverished misery for others. And then for some they have lavish wealth and utter misery at the same time. And others utter impoverishment but more flecks of joy that others. How someone could be forced to sell their body for food in one room and in another someone smoking a Cuban watching The West Wing. How a man can argue with a waiter over a euro and then pay to be dominated by a woman half his age in a dirty dungeon. How a clown at a children’s party make kiddies laugh and then head home and watch a snuff film. How can politicians spout promises and then take hand outs in the same breath. How can animals be raised in zoos with glass and plastic barriers being watched and pointed at, their instincts fading with every photograph. How children are having sex like porn stars to belong to the group And parents use payments to pay for heroin addictions

Where does milk come from kids? The supermarket! they laugh.

What am I even getting at?

I don’t really know.

It’s just this smell of glossy weird empty full alive deadness that’s been hanging around a long time hits my nose today.

The monkey’s looking at me. I’m looking at it.

I look at a wall in this bar made of spray painted bronze mannequin bodies, like a massacred orgy of plastic hanging on the wall as we listen to funk music and drink frappes.

There’s a faint vibration of sound that shakes the walls from the kids outside with their brass band playing for coins in the sweltering sun.

And right above my head is an ancient looking rickety fan spinning. Right above the heads of the punters in the next table is a dusty old chandelier with warm lighting.

And I’m wondering as I do in these states of mind.

I’m wondering at all the shades of freak in our world and all the freak accidents there are out there.

What would I change?

I’m smelling the stench of old rubbish and flies hovering, watching the needles go in, sneering at the fake smiles and right now

I too wouldn’t change a thing.

Maybe tomorrow I will want too. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have all the ideas and gusto return to change the world, to help and bring more peace and love.

But right now I drink my juice and wink at the monkey with the key and crown and thank the old Gods I’m not him.

His face was even darker from a growing beard and scorched from sun rays hitting the piteous side walk he sat on caked in grime, blood and sticky remnants of old food melting in the Athens summer.

We had just left our hotel clean, showered and all loved up, ready for a day of walking the ancient streets of this both bedraggled and beautiful city.

Not ten metres from the hotel front door was this man and his patch of concrete, needle in hand trying to steady his shaking as the needle punctured the skin.

Flash to now. I’m drinking a 5 euro fresh orange juice as I type this.

The juice sits on a marble table vibrantly fresh and my memory of him so grim and eclipsed in a heavy haze of dark shadows.

Back to him. The needle pierced his dark skin and I was staring and trying to cross the road at the same time looking back.

My feet were carrying me ahead but my head kept turning back. I passed other men with eyes bulging and clothes ragged and not quite all there, but far far away with a scars on cheeks and hunch backed — disposed vessels of humans. Like Hades’ shades coming out of hiding and blinking at the sunlight not sure where to turn.

It’s like they’re not sure how to handle it.

I’m not sure how to handle it.

We’re all a little hazy.

But him. The man, the needle.

He’s slumping backwards as I keep turning and watching. His hand is shaking as it falls to his side.

He’s probably now in that sweet spot. Where the chemical hits the veins and the whole world disappears into bliss that’s on the brink of being too beautiful and too horrible to handle in one moment tied to another moment all in one frail, tiny human casing.

I keep walking. The image doesn’t leave me though. It can’t. It’s the first time I’ve seen a real person shooting up at 9am on a busy street, a street in the country of my blood line that I have seen slowly degrade over time.

Although there’s been an increase of drug addictions and as a result Hep C and HIV in Greece since the economic crisis, he isn’t a Greek man.

There’s an increasing stream of refugees as well as Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan workers in Greece.

The wars. The displacement. The desire for a better life that leads people to unknown shores. Some Odysseanites make it to their figurative ‘home’, others get stuck en route. The sirens songs were too sweet. Circe’s wine too tempting.

Greece is the first port into Europe from the Middle East for many coming to seek a better life.

Apparently Turkey receives significant funding from the EU to house refugees but they take the funding and then ship them off to Greece to put pressure on the nation of 10 million. It benefits Turkey when Greece struggles you see. The bad blood between these countries forges on after hundreds of years.

We’ve just walked into this very cool bar called NOEL for lunch in a trendy area. It’s where I get my fresh juice. The walls are painted deep crimson, there’s paintings in gold frames and black and white checkered floors. It’s really very cool.

There’s this cute little monkey with a gold key and crown on its head at our table and as clueless as it looks, after seeing the man, the needle today the monkey just feels like another symbol of the utter weirdness of this world.

Patrick told me the other day that a friend of ours was asked by his girlfriend “If you could change one thing about this world what would it be”. He promptly said “Nothing”.

I wonder if the answer comes from a maligning feeling of powerlessness or a state of utter acceptance of the chaos of our world.

Whatever it is I’m just feeling the utter weirdness of this world today. Not in a bad way, not in a good way, just in a way. Like a dog that tips it’s head to the side when you ask it something it doesn’t understand. I’m a bit ‘Huh?’ right now.

How can there be so much gloss and sterile cleanliness and also such filth. How there can be such lavish wealth for some and impoverished misery for others. And then for some they have lavish wealth and utter misery at the same time. And others utter impoverishment but more flecks of joy that others. How someone could be forced to sell their body for food in one room and in another someone smoking a Cuban watching The West Wing. How a man can argue with a waiter over a euro and then pay to be dominated by a woman half his age in a dirty dungeon. How a clown at a children’s party make kiddies laugh and then head home and watch a snuff film. How can politicians spout promises and then take hand outs in the same breath. How can animals be raised in zoos with glass and plastic barriers being watched and pointed at, their instincts fading with every photograph. How children are having sex like porn stars to belong to the group And parents use payments to pay for heroin addictions

Where does milk come from kids? The supermarket! they laugh.

What am I even getting at?

I don’t really know.

It’s just this smell of glossy weird empty full alive deadness that’s been hanging around a long time hits my nose today.

The monkey’s looking at me. I’m looking at it.

I look at a wall in this bar made of spray painted bronze mannequin bodies, like a massacred orgy of plastic hanging on the wall as we listen to funk music and drink frappes.

There’s a faint vibration of sound that shakes the walls from the kids outside with their brass band playing for coins in the sweltering sun.

And right above my head is an ancient looking rickety fan spinning. Right above the heads of the punters in the next table is a dusty old chandelier with warm lighting.

And I’m wondering as I do in these states of mind.

I’m wondering at all the shades of freak in our world and all the freak accidents there are out there.

What would I change?

I’m smelling the stench of old rubbish and flies hovering, watching the needles go in, sneering at the fake smiles and right now

I too wouldn’t change a thing.

Maybe tomorrow I will want too. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have all the ideas and gusto return to change the world, to help and bring more peace and love.

But right now I drink my juice and wink at the monkey with the key and crown and thank the old Gods I’m not him.