The hostel was big. Too big. Composed of three concrete stories dominating a central courtyard, with each story holding two 12-person dorms and a few privates, the hostel seemed more sardine can than anything else.
Alan stood in the center of it all, hovering at reception.
“It’s more of a complex really,” he said with a chuckle to the hostel volunteer in front of him.
She continued clacking on her keyboard without a hint she had even heard him.
“Hola!” he said, and she looked up.
Ah, Alan thought, Spanish time…
“Tengo un… uh… dorm… for una persona, por favor,” he forced out, cringing at the unimpressed boredom in her eyes.
“Nombre?” she said with a sigh.
“Huh?”
“Como te llamas, chico?”
Alan stared at her for a second as his brain struggled to process the most basic of Spanish phrases.
“Ah! Nombre, of course. Alan McWatts.”
As the volunteer typed with a disconcerting lack of passion Alan gazed at the tall, gray walls of the hostel around him. His introduction to backpacking, he didn’t know that the industrial tinge to the place was unusual for a hostel, but it still gave him a slight sense of foreboding.
Whatever, he thought, it’s five bucks a night, and the more people the merrier, right?
“Bien,” she said at last, looking up at him with her first smile, albeit a contorted one. She gave him a key and led him across the hall and into one of the bottom floor dorms.
The only light in the dim room came from the 5 o’clock sun dribbling in through a small window at the end of the dorm. When the volunteer hit the lights, they flickered briefly then clicked on, and still the dim gloom remained. Curtained bunk beds filled the room from top to bottom.
“Para ti,” she said, motioning towards the only empty bed. She handed him a set of rough, blue sheets.
“Gracias,” Alan said. She walked away and Alan stared after her, the silence of her exit settling softly.
Turning back towards the room, Alan’s attention immediately focused on the bunk under his. The open curtains revealed a human rat’s nest: Covering the bed were soiled clothes, trinkets of all sorts, and trash of ambiguous origin. On the pillow there lay an open bag of chicharron soaking in Valentina sauce. A dirty shoe poked out from under the covers. An outline of a human body in fetal position slithered through it all.
After plopping down his large suitcase and putting the sheets on his bed, Alan felt a surge of positivity. Here he was in North America’s most populated city with no obligations and no restrictions. Sure, he couldn’t speak the language, exactly, but it was a cosmopolitan place. He would be able to meet people easily.
Stepping out into the streets of Mexico City, Alan immediately felt like a lumbering giant. At 6’5” he towered over even the tallest native Mexican, and most hardly came up to his chest. The quick changes in direction needed for the navigation of streets packed with people buzzing around beneath him confounded his Missouri-suburbia sense of motion. So, he tottered awkwardly around, caught up in the beauty of the old city, living in a world a foot above the rest.
Alan felt like he was in Europe — well, what he thought must’ve been Europe. He hadn’t been there before, but he could imagine that intricately designed 18th century stone buildings nestled between tall metal skyscrapers and the occasional 7/11 fit the bill. He felt filled with direction, yet he moved totally at the whim of the city’s energy, pulled into various streets and shops without thinking.
At one point he was spit from a crowded tourist-goods street into a huge stone plaza. It was a shocking change: perfectly empty with at least 200 yards a side. Not even a tree marred the stone surface. The looming walls of the palaces and churches on each side of the square made Alan feel as though he was a pet in a habitat. But feeling small was a refreshing change of pace and so he stood for a while, marveling at the vast nothingness that could exist in a such an otherwise dense city
Later, back at the hostel, Alan was almost content. He had a delicious tlacoyo of creamy queso fresco and smoky nopales sitting in his stomach and the images of the gorgeous city imprinted in his head. But a day without real conversation — yes, he had exchanged some brief pleasantries with other gringos in a few lines and restaurants, but they had been completely devoid of substance — left him feeling a little lonely. While not entirely sure how he had ended up in Mexico, he knew it was not just to eat food. He had heard about hostels and their reputation for being the social havens of those on long adventures, and so he headed towards the stairway leading to the hangout area on the roof.
But as he made his way up the stairs, dread began to trickle its way through his body. His whole life had been spent in Missouri. He’d met maybe five people who were born outside the US. Approaching a new group of people was strange enough for him, but a new group of people from god knows where? It was a lot. And would they accept him? He had no idea.
So by the time he had reached the door leading from the stairway to the roof he was horribly unprepared to handle the main circle of people occupying the hangout area. They were talking and laughing together and looked so joyful and so tight knit. Alan felt dreadfully disconnected. As he walked forward his stomach rose up through his throat, pushing his mind out of his body, and powerlessly he began to move towards an empty table next to the group.
There were others sitting around the roof, but Alan certainly wasn’t going to sit down at a small table with a couple or trio. And so with burning self-consciousness he lowered himself into a chair at the empty table and immediately pulled out his phone, trying to look busy.
The longer he sat there, alone, sneaking awkward glances across to the boisterous group only 10 meters away from him, the more convinced he became that he would not be able to join them. The distance between him and this seemingly tight knit group thickened and then solidified. Finally, he decided to call it a night, shame burning in his throat. Walking back down the stairs he thought, tomorrow.
The next morning Alan left to explore the city’s lavish gardens. He was met with expansive rows of fragrant flowers exploding with color, sprawling patches of alien-looking cactus that came in all shapes and sizes, softy trickling streams, and shining lakes. A wonderland had been plopped down in the desert, 1,000 meters above sea level. It was preposterous, ambitious, a feat of human triumph over Nature’s cruel rules, and Alan was there to witness it, alone.
Looking across the rows of vibrant poppies and delicate lavender, Alan imagined the picture completed by a beautiful girl prancing through the flowers. She danced delicately towards him, smiling with bright, jubilant eyes.
“Hola!” she said with a shy wave, and Alan froze for a moment, annoyed she was another Spanish speaker. But then, as she stopped in front of him — an ethereal fairy, lacy white sundress exposing the tiniest hint of cleavage — she touched his arm and said, “you look lonely, how about I show you around?”
Her sparkling green eyes hinted at another meaning and Alan coolly responded, “I’d like that,” taking her hand in his.
And then Alan realized he was standing alone, and his peaceful solitude decayed into a loneliness that contrasted grotesquely with the abundant, communal beauty around him. He turned home, not noticing the pretty girl sitting alone on a bench who looked delighted to be surrounded by nature, alone.
It was only around 4 pm when Alan went up to the roof. He was sitting at a table hoping that if he was there before the night’s posse arrived, they might accept him as if he were a part of the hostel, not a loner desperate for friends.
The sun was just beginning to fall behind the distant skyscrapers when the first group came up. They were a brown-haired twenty-somethings and they sat at the table right next to Alan, yabbering away in loud French, giving Alan an excuse not to talk to them, but when a squad of Germans joined them the language switched to English and Alan still didn’t approach. As it got darker, people joined the big group in twos and threes, pulling up chairs to the growing circle, rolling joints and passing mezcal.
Again, Alan didn’t know how to join them. It seemed like they all knew each other already. Could he just walk up and ask to sit? Wouldn’t that be intrusive?
As his shame festered, Alan came to the conclusion all the people on the roof were assholes for not inviting him to sit. He was right there! The closest person in the group couldn’t be more than 10 feet away! It was like he didn’t even exist. He sat there on his phone, his shame frothing into fury, until enough was enough and he headed for his room.
Walking stiffly through the dull lobby he was approached by the girl who checked him in. Smiling, she said something in Spanish, motioning towards a picture of a temple on the wall. Alan was in no mood for attempting to hack through the perennial language barrier.
“No entiendo,” he said gruffly, and headed towards his room.
The only person there was the guy in his filthy bed. He was snoring fitfully. Alan climbed quietly into his own bed and as his head hit the pillow, he felt a disgusting comradery with the hermit.
Somehow, there was almost no one around the hostel at 9 am the next morning. Alan felt confused and weirdly cheated. Breakfast had seemed like a better time for socializing. How was he supposed to make friends in an empty hostel!
He groggily walked over to reception and asked, “Donde esta… everyone.” He motioned with both hands to the dorm rooms to bolster his Spanglish. Still, the volunteer simply looked at him with bored confusion.
“Uh… personas!” he continued, “donde?”
The volunteer took a second as she attempted to figure out why this pasty American was asking her where to find people in one of the most populated cities in the world.
“Ahhhh,” she said finally when it hit her, and pointed to the temple on the wall. “Teotihuacan”
Alan squinted at the poster, registering that below the picture it read:
TOUR TEOTIHUACAN | SALIDA 8:30 AM
TEOTIHUACAN TOUR | LEAVE 8:30 AM
The feeling of invisibility that had settled into Alan when sitting on the roof the previous night slithered its way back into his subconscious as he shuffled through the city that day. He noticed that he was having no discernable impact on his environment. The only people that talked to him were the street vendors who tossed their nonsensical gibberish in his direction and pulled back when it was clear he was uninterested. He didn’t know anybody, couldn’t really speak to anybody, and he fit perfectly into a tourist mold they held in their heads. He felt he was drifting through the city like a shade even as he blundered his way through the busy streets.
There’s nothing I can do to be noticed, Alan thought. I exist outside the system of the city. I’m simply an observer.
Alan traversed the city in a daze, forgetting where he had come from and where he was going. At one point Alan stopped abruptly just as he noticed a tiny body was sitting in his mindless path. It was a thin child whose face looked like it had been melted against a flaming frying pan. He was holding out his cup with both hands and staring directly at the tall American. Alan just stared back, unfazed, waiting for the obstacle to move, until he was pressed forward by the bustling throng and was forced to dance out of the way of the boy.
Later during this aimless drifting, a harsh wailing echoing down an alley to Alan’s left jarred him out of his daze. He looked around. Somehow, he was alone on the street. He must have moved far from the city center. He looked back down the alley. The wailing failed to cease.
Carefully, he crept down the small street lined by tall, dark buildings, and an anonymous silhouette began to materialize out of the shadows. As he got closer, he saw it was the figure of a young girl on her knees. She was holding something limp and black. It was furry and streaked with dark red. A dead cat.
The girl looked up at him with red eyes, still wailing. Her grossly contorted face popped out of the surrounding dimness and filled Alan’s world.
“Mi gato!” she cried with intense eye contact, and shrieked again, “MI GATOOO!”
Alan’s eyes grew wider and wider in horror and then he tore his eyes from hers and shakily stepped back, walking and then running to the light at the end of the alley. He burst into the street, gasping and whirling around wildly. Alan choked on the contrast between the emptiness of the street and the thick pain of the alley. There was no one there for her. As he rushed back to the hostel, the weird looks he received from fellow city goers — like everything else he passed — went unnoticed.
Laying in his bed fully clothed, Alan thought, this city is not for me. I was a person back home, right? Not a shade, living in a shadowed city, virtually invisible. But no, that’s not it. Home has nothing for me. There, everyone was a shade . There’s nothing there, no hopes or dreams or even new ideas. A city like this must hold everything.
Alan closed his eyes and saw himself finding a place in Mexico, breaking through the veil. But for the time being, he stayed in bed. In bed, he could ignore the millions of people he was failing to interact with.
As he was drifting off a clanging from the metal doorway signified the presence of an incoming resident. Alan twisted over to see a man about his age, new to the hostel. Before Alan could pretend to be sleeping the man noticed Alan’s gaze.
“Hi!” The man said. “My name is Jordan.”
Alan was shocked. “Alan,” he responded slowly.
“From the US?”
Alan nodded.
“Me too, man. It’s my first time in Mexico City. You?”
“Same.”
“Well shit man, I’m exhausted, I think you got it right with a little nap.” And with that he plopped his backpack on the floor and collapsed on his bed.
He’ll see soon, Alan thought, twisting back around to face the wall. This place doesn’t welcome newcomers.
Alan woke up feeling his isolation lodged in his throat. He checked his watch. It was 9:30 PM. He had slept for 4 hours in the middle of the day and he wasn’t sure if the pain in his stomach was hunger or disgust.
I can’t live like this, he thought.
With a burning awareness of the jovial group of travelers that was three stories above him, Alan freshened up. Considering himself in front of the mirror, he thought, I’m not that bad looking. I’m tall. Perhaps a little pasty, but the sun can fix that. I have a strong jawline, kind of. I’m a human. I’m here.
The softly trickling dread Alan felt when walking around the hostel picked up its pace as he climbed the stairs. When he was at the doorway onto the roof, he took a big breath, looked out into the common area, and was met with a sight that immediately sent jealous rage arching through his body. The newcomer was the center of attention. He was literally in the center, actually, miming something lewd and making the whole group laugh. The same group Alan had felt was impossible to penetrate.
Fury, in her iron suit of flaming armor, self-righteously tugged Alan towards the group for an act of revenge. While Shame, in her ratty cloak, clamped down with surprising force and squeezed the lost man into himself, away from the world. After a moment of tense hesitation, Shame — empowered by Alan’s self-awareness — won out over Fury. He stumbled back down the stairs, his vision going blurry, and fumbled his way back to his bed.
Over the course of the next few days, Alan didn’t speak a word to anyone. Every morning he would wake up painfully to the rustling of the early risers, dance on the edge of sleep and lucidity amidst the muddled wash of morning light, and finally drag himself out of bed when the pain in his stomach grew too great. To remedy this pain, he would go to the closest torta stand at which he didn’t have to use words. The torta, in its oily gastronomical brilliance, never failed to bring Alan out of the heavy mist that hung around his awareness. For most of the day, he lived closed off from the reality that he decided had rejected him, but when the tangy, fatty chorizo and decadent crème fresca met each other on the dance floor of his taste buds the world revealed its majesty.
For Alan, keeping open the doors to this side of the world was a heavy task. After eating, he continued his day in the doldrums. Every afternoon, he would head to the historic center’s bustling park, sitting on a tall concrete bench that encircled one of the park’s many fountains, one leg over the other, book in hand. He never would get very far in the book, being too focused on the river of people flowing around the park, or more accurately, being too focused on his conviction that he was a rock in that river, sinking to the bottom instead the current carrying him along.
The nights were the worst for Alan. The squalid, festering thoughts of the day turned mean. He would lay in bed and consider the fact that he was doing nothing in a city with so many people, so many ideas, so many routes to explore. His desire to make something happen for himself would clash with his disappearing sense of self.
And so it went, day by day, night by night.
One day in the park, walking towards his usual bench, Alan felt a dull pain in his left arm and quickly realized his unrelenting diet of fatty meat and continuous nights of poor sleep were doing their work. He stumbled and the pain became sharp and spread into his chest and he collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. The few seconds he writhed on the ground felt like eternity and when the pressure finally abated and he pushed himself to his feet he spun around wildly. Why had nobody helped him? What was wrong with these people?
But as he considered the event further, Alan realized he wasn’t surprised he could have a heart attack in the middle of the city without assistance. The river doesn’t notice the sunken rocks below.
That nigh in his own nest of a bed, a half full bag of chips by his head, his suitcase at his feet, his clothes spread everywhere, Alan drifted off with painful spikes of inadequacy digging into his flesh, and in his sleep, he found no respite.
He was back in the habitat-like central plaza. But as he gazed up, he found the looming faces of massive humans peering over the palace walls. Their grim mouths were the size of airplanes and their bored eyes looked like huge, shining UFOs. One of their hands raised a hundred yards above him would have blotted out a hundred suns. But they weren’t frightening. They just stared, blankly, horribly uninterested in Alan and the few other humans mulling about the square.
Alan raised his tiny, tiny fist and shouted angrily, “Hey! Hey! What’s going on here?”
There was absolutely zero recognition of his shouts.
“HEYYYYYY,” he bellowed.
Nothing.
He looked around. The few other people in the massive square also paid no attention to his calls. Alan ran up to the closest one. She was a middle-aged white woman wearing a sweater, walking with her head down.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” Alan asked.
She made no sign she could hear him. He put his hand in front of her face. He yelled. He grabbed her hand. Nothing.
“Muh-thur-fucker…” Alan said looking around.
Spotting another droning body across the square, Alan rushed over and again pleaded for attention, again receiving nothing.
Loneliness was nothing new to Alan, but in that plaza with nothing to confront but his isolation, it pierced his heart and forced him to the ground. He lay looking up at the grotesquely large, blank faces above him.
“What do you want from me?!” He shrieked. “What do — what did — I do?!”
Suddenly Alan felt a thud against his shin and heard a soft whimper. He looked down at his feet. One of the people in the square had tripped over his legs and was picking himself up from the ground. He was bleeding slightly from his elbow.
“Ah, so you can’t look at me, can’t talk, can’t even see me apparently, but you can bleed. Of course…”
Suddenly, without thinking, Alan launched himself at the man, tackling him to the ground. The man began to whimper softly. This egged Alan on further and he knelt on the man’s chest and beat his fists against the man’s body and then beat his face with increasingly more force. He pounded and pounded, his wild anger overpowering the pain in his fists, but still the man simply whimpered softly.
“What ARE you?” Alan screamed, his fists a whirlwind of bloody tissue. The man’s face was transforming into a pulpy mess and Alan could no longer feel his hands.
Finally, Alan stopped, realizing the whimpering was no longer coming from the man but from himself. He rolled off the body and onto his back. Above him hung the faces, but now every single one was focused on him, unblinking.
And then Alan was looking up at the dorm ceiling. The pre-sunrise light struggled to pass through the window. Alan felt grossly energized. He wasn’t sure why. The memory of the dream was already fading.
He spent the day strolling through the city center, and when he passed through his park he looked around, really looked, for the first time. The cosmopolitan procession of tourists and locals that usually made him feel lost and confused now made perfect sense. Everyone seemed to fit perfectly in place. In any other environment, a tall blonde touting a surfboard bag, a massive canvas backpack, and Bob Marley themed bean pants would clash comedically with the wrinkled and hobbling abuela making her way home behind him, but when placed together in the bustling center of Mexico City it made perfect sense.
Alan considered the fact that there was really something wrong with him to not be able to find a place here. He really was a rock in the flow of people. But now standing in that park, the vague feeling of his first day, when he felt like a giant among humans, grew stronger. He didn’t have to be a rock that sinks. He could be a rock that sits in the river and parts it flow. He could make a difference if he wanted to.
Some unknown force was driving his engine with a fervor. The removal from the world Alan had felt previously as isolation was now lending him a sense of importance. Everyone else was droning along, but here he walked with intention. He just had to prove it.
At some point Alan found himself at one of those trashy souvenir shops with colorful purses and gauche shot glasses. Not usually one for tourist appliances, his presence there was a surprise to him, but he was drawn to the selection of knives. He noticed one with a hilt of plastic ruby and gold. The blade was a dull silver but seemed sharp.
The woman at the shop noticed him examining it.
“Is good, is good,” she said, nodding vigorously.
“Yeah,” Alan muttered, “it is.” He hefted it in his hand. It felt good, powerful. The night had given him his drive, and the day had given him his tool.
Jordan had come to Mexico City from Oaxaca de Juarez, a city further south. He had been working his way up north from Columbia for the past six months and wasn’t impressed with the concrete megalith of a hostel he was staying at, but it was by far the cheapest option, and he needed to stretch his money all the way to Northern California where he would trim on a weed farm for the fall.
It was alright, though. The hostel had a good group of people that were also staying for the price, and together they made it a better experience. He had been there for a few nights already and usually they would hang out on the roof before heading to a bar or club. But it was a Monday, so tonight was poker night, no one was going out.
Although the French could be cliquey and a little stuck up, the Germans frustratingly anal about making things run smoothly, and the Israelis — well, Jordan would be crucified in the States for voicing what he thought about Israelis and poker — it was still a good time drinking and smoking and talking bullshit about travels and spirituality and the attractive woman in the city.
That night was especially fun. Two new Australians had come to the hostel that day. They could get tiring, but a sprinkle of Aussie boisterousness made a drunken night more exciting every time.
About an hour into the game, the pasty, tall American that was in Jordan’s dorm came onto the roof. While for the past few days Jordan had been uninterested in approaching him again, given his depressive demeanor and seeming unwillingness to interact with anyone, he was feeling especially friendly that night (not to mention glad to have more money in the pot), so Jordan stood up to welcome the man into the game. The man was walking stiffly, straight towards him, with a determined glint in his eye. Perhaps he was a big poker fan. A little tipsy from the encouragement of the Aussies, Jordan didn’t notice that the American had been holding his right hand behind his back since he had come up from the stairway. Didn’t notice, even as the man got closer, that his entire being was focused on Jordan, that there was an aggressive edge to his determination.
The man walked closer, his right arm beginning to shake, his pace speeding up. When he was about 10 feet away, Jordan said, “Hey! We’re playing poker, want to join?”
Instantly the man froze, like a deer in headlights. His mouth hung open. He blinked slowly a few times. Jordan just kept smiling, waiting for a response.
“I… uh… yeah,” the man said, “thanks.”
