t e k i k o k o r o / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
“This very heart which is mine will for ever remain indefinable to me. Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. For ever I shall be a stranger to myself.�
- Albert Camus
All pictures in VOL.III were shot with 35mm expired film. All pictures in VOL.II were shot with Nikon point and shoot camera. All text is TEKI. All pictures are TEKI. All planning/design is TEKI. ////////////// /////////// /////////////////////// ///////////////// TEKI is part of THEBLACKHANDCIRCLE THEBLACKHANDCIRCLE THEBLACKHANDCIRCLE THEBLACKHANDCIRCLE THEBLACKHANDCIRCLE THEBLACKHANDCIRCLE THEBLACKHANDCIRCLE
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Vol III consists of:
heavily altered pictures. useless rants. a short story. inthisparticularoder. iamnotaprofessionalanything. idothisandthatisall.
“sometimes people crash,
sometimes they burn.�
every time i wake up and remember most of what i dreamed, i try to write it down. i’ve never been able to do it right. i always get the feeling i end up changing everything once i’m talking or thinking about it. every time i try to be honest but even i see it as fucked up.
and i was scared at one point. i didn’t wish i was alive at another time at a another place. i just didn’t anymore.
“...but it is thought commonly that tomorrow, we will all be enemies�
Even in that dream.
Last time I saw you, you seemed different but not half as much as I’ve been told. I had a dream last night and I could barely recognize the way you behaved. You were obviously the same person. It was you. I know I wasn’t dreaming about someone else, but the way you looked, the way you acted baffled me. You looked frustrated, as if gravity affected you in a different way than to all of us and it was weighing all on you all of a sudden. You looked just like I feel half of the time when I stop and think about where everything’s going right now. It was just a blank stare into the space in front of you. Not controlling anything, but not wanting to have any control of it either. It’s hard to remember everything that happens in a dream and it has already been more than a couple of hours since I woke up so most of it is gone by now… but your look, and your mannerisms are stuck in my head. Usually I try to write up whatever dreams I have that seem strange enough for me but once I get to the writing, everything goes away and my mind goes blank. It always seemed so hard to get it right, to write the correct words along with the story of what I had dreamed of the night before. It was frustrating to be-
lieve everything was so vivid in my mind just seconds ago but as the minutes go by I just keep forgetting the details to what really happened. I have no idea where I was going or where I was but for some reason we were supposed to meet. We had probably talked before and arranged that meeting or probably on this dream we still talked. We met at this café right downtown, but we didn’t see each other as soon as I came in. I went in and waited for some time. I remember I was finishing up Ask The Dust, which I actually started reading again yesterday. I was sitting there reading, waiting for you to get to that place. I was feeling anxious and quite nervous to be honest. The place was crowded and I didn’t like that. Every time I think about talking with you it just seems like everything around should be quiet so we can only pay attention to what the other has to say, and not in any kind of loving way. But because we seem to give so much importance to what the other has to say. We seem to pay so much attention and we end up getting so involved in each other’s stories. I can’t recall ever having that again. It seemed strange that you had told me to meet you there. At a distance, I saw you, or at least I glanced at you and noticed you were talking to someone else. You looked joyful as you always did. You seemed interested in the conversation you were having. I could see right through it and know you were about to go out, but this person was only in your way and you couldn’t get them off your path but still, this person could never tell this was actually what you were thinking. They just thought you were really listening because you always made people think you did. Everyone would always comment on how nice and polite you were. Everyone would mention that they liked you so much even if they had just met you and it was only because of how you took care of everyone. It was the way you treated people. The ones you knew, the ones you didn’t know and the ones you had just met. You always had this pleasing smile on you that made the saddest landscape have flowers blooming right after you left. People would just be amazed at how comfortable you could make them feel. I never thought it was a bad thing, but I could see how every time it could come back to haunt you. I always
felt bad when I thought how people could say these nice things about you but then talk trash on your back. I always mentioned how people just weren’t as nice as you were and sometimes the same people thought everything you did was an act. I told you people were not always what you made them out to be, but you always said you didn’t really mind about it all. It was never an act. Sometimes there was too much on you for you to care as much as you usually did. Still, the way you looked made anyone feel at home. I guess this was the reason for your constant crying. Maybe I was the only one to see this side of you, the side of you letting go and just releasing everything you had built up inside. I just always wished you didn’t cry so much. It seemed you were suffering inside as much as you seemed to be blissful on the outside. The person kissed you on the cheek saying goodbye politely and left. You smiled courteously and went out. It was freezing that night and you were not wearing a coat when you walked outside. Seconds after, because of the cold you were holding yourself to keep in all your body heat. You didn’t really seem too cold or at least you didn’t show it. You were just looking out in the dark waiting for something. People came in and smiled at you and you smiled back. You pulled back your hair and rubbed your face as if you had just splashed water all over it and were trying to dry it up with your hands. You looked anxious too. I got up to go out and tell you I was there, waiting. A thousand different thoughts went through my head at the same time. All the way to the door I could not stop looking at you outside, waiting. You saw me walking right to you and you waved. You gave me you warmest smile and said “hi” even though you knew I wouldn’t be able to hear you through the glass. A soft smile from the left side of my mouth grew into a full one as we started laughing about how dumb I looked trying not to smile so much just because I was looking at you. We didn’t mention it but there was no need for it either. I came out and pushed you in a friendly way because we were laughing quietly at how serious I always wanted to look and how you always said I could
not be serious around you. I guess even in that dream I couldn’t help but smile. We stayed out just a couple of minutes. I put my coat around you so you wouldn’t be as cold. Once I started getting cold I asked you if we could go back inside. “Yes, of course, let’s go. I was just waiting outside for you because I thought you weren’t coming or something,” you said. I noticed (since this was a dream) we were at a local bar downtown, that actually faces another building once you stepped out but here dream, we were looking out in the dark at this huge forest that did not seem dangerous or scary at all. There was a lamppost less than a block away, in the middle of the snow that didn’t illuminate a lot of it’s surroundings. You could see the flakes falling down as you got closer and they fell down slower every time you. When we were out, you mentioned the lamppost and told me to just stare at it for a second so I could notice how because of the light it seemed as if really the snow was slower there than everywhere else. As if because of the light, the snow was melting as it was falling, becoming lighter by the second letting each flake float just a bit more. For the first time it seemed as if you cared about anything the way I looked at things. It just seemed as if you were analyzing the most trivial and unimportant thing you could see right then and right then was when I could see something was different. I would always over analyze sceneries or situations like that one but you never seemed to really care. At that moment, in my dream, you were feeling the same way I always did by noticing these petty things. We probably went inside and had something to eat and talked about our lives or any other useless topic. I just don’t remember this part of the dream. Even when I had just woken up I know I wasn’t aware of what had happened during that time we spent together at that place. And it is what made this dream so particular. I hadn’t had a dream like this but it just was as if during that space in time, that I cannot recall a single thing off of, everything changed. But maybe it all stayed the same. Either way, how I saw you afterwards was always supposed to happen in this dream.
You went out first. I paid for our meal and followed you out. We stood there again, in the same spot as before. You were ready to say something. You leaned against the wall right next to the door so you wouldn’t bother anyone coming in or out and lit a cigarette. As normal as it may have been, it was the oddest thing of all. You had never even tried smoking before, but there you were lighting one and offering me one. Doing it as if it was something you had done your whole life, as if the habit had been with you all along since I first met you. I didn’t mention it and just took the one you offered. So there we were, having a smoke right outside the café staring at the lamppost and at the snow falling with the trees in the darkest forest right in the back of it all. You started walking and I followed. Once we got to the light, you leaned against it and stared straight up into the it. I looked at you right in the eyes but you weren’t smiling anymore. You were trying to, but the full smile wouldn’t come out. You could only grin from one side almost as if you were too sad to do it. Just like when I saw you come in and was trying not to smile. You started talking and you started talking a lot. You were mad at something but I couldn’t make up all the words or what you were saying at times. All I did was nod and try to make up some of it. “It’s just what I was talking about the snowflakes before. Everyone, everyone is falling so fast and nothing can stop it, once they fall, they melt or become part of the snow and that is it. The ones in the light are melting on their way down ‘cause of the heat of the light and they get the chance to float a little longer but how do you know if it’s something that is supposed to happen that way?...” You were talking and telling me all these things I thought I was saying but I couldn’t make up the difference in the dream. I was trying to see if the reason why I couldn’t hear everything you were saying was because it was really me saying all these things and not you. And the reason I couldn’t hear it all was that I wasn’t saying it out loud but thinking it all while staring at you under the light. “I mean, we all just look at each other and nobody understands really what’s going on but we just seem to follow the same path one after the other. Following,
repeating, failing, falling. I’m just too sad and I cannot bear it anymore. I’m 24 years old and nothing is turning out the way we expected it to turn out. I guess we couldn’t hope for all of it to be the way we wanted it to, but at least some things can go right, right? It’s just... I’m looking at how everything has happened over the past few years and nothing has changed but me, but I’m guessing that that is just a feeling. Maybe it all changes and I just stay the same. I just feel for the first time ever that I am doing all of these things every single day and nothing really makes me smile. I can smile, of course. I can fake it easily, I can feign joy and pretend I am laughing but I know, I just know I couldn’t be more miserable right now. And I’m not whining about anything in particular, I’m just trying to explain how is it I feel right now because I don’t understand it. I never thought I could be so far off track as I am right now...All these phases we go through...are we really learning anything other than just how to adapt? Like...not making things better but just conforming to what the standards are. And I know I’m not making any sense right now but I was just hoping I could say this and be heard because I know I can’t really expect to be understood if I don’t really say everything I’m thinking “ But I knew exactly what you were thinking, probably because in the dream what you or I was saying was exactly all that went through my head. At times it felt it wasn’t you but I. As if I was dreaming about myself, because I was. “I just want to be clear. I’m not talking about school and I’m not talking about getting a real job or anything of that sort...these things are so insignificant and they just make up one of the biggest parts of our lives.” All your ideas, all my ideas were mixed up and in the dream at times you blurred out of sight and I was looking at myself talking. Saying all these things. Shouting angrily and desperate. “What I’m talking about is...how can I feel I haven’t just wasted all I have ever had? How can you be sure your time is well spent? Have we invested our lives into something that really makes up for anything at all?” we locked our eyes and you (or I) said, “I just wish you were there so I could tell you all these things whenever I thought of them, not just right now, not just
under this light while we look at the snow fall and make us feel just as small and useless.” It was then that I noticed how your face changed. Your look, your smile, they both faded completely. You looked at me and you were hoping for me to say the right thing or anything at all for that matter. You weren’t as comfortable as you made everyone feel. You couldn’t have looked more fragile right then, you were about to break. You were floating, like one of the snowflakes, falling, and right then and there you were about to hit the cold pavement. For once, I saw you as lost as I always felt. I thought I saw myself. I knew it was a dream but for some reason I know this is how you feel right now even if I don’t dare ask you or even mention this at all. I was the one thinking about all this and in this dream you could read me like an open book. You saw right through me; you said, “This is what I’m talking about. We are all so lost because we stay on the same path we were placed in from the beginning. I am not confused because I am aware of what is going on around me and how I want everything to be. I can see how nothing, nothing, is happening. Maybe we are supposed to go on different paths all the time, take every chance to turn we get. I was told years ago that whenever you find yourself inside a maze, all you had to do was turn to the right and you would be choosing the correct path. I think we should turn left. No matter the consequence. We are just lost because we are walking in this straight line that was shown to us long ago. I mean...I don’t understand why is it you still love me.” I just didn’t know anymore at that point if it was really you or myself I was referring to. I could see you (or I) genuinely cared for me when you said it, but it just wasn’t there anymore. There was nothing left. Even in that dream.
//TEKI// /MMXII// ///TBHC/