Tag: art

Post-mortem for Motocross Legend, Love of My Life

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, EscrituraLeave a comment

You probably shouldn’t read this post unless you’ve gone through my novella Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, that you can start reading here.

Back in January of this year (2024), I was happily writing away at the last stretch of my hella-long novel We’re Fucked, when, for no discernible reason, I chose to rummage through my rarely-touched drawers and came across an external hard drive. Hoping that it contained albums I hadn’t heard in years, I checked its contents. I discovered the album Sweet Heart Sweet Light by Spiritualized. I had recently used one of their songs for We’re Fucked, and I didn’t recall ever listening to this other album, so I put it on. As the second song, titled “Hey Jane,” played, my subconscious stirred. Vivid images kept bubbling up, far stronger than usual daydreams. One image in particular lodged itself in my brain: a brown-eyed teenage girl leaning on her motorbike’s handlebars at night, smiling warmly at the person who was approaching her. I immediately recognized the strength of this feeling. My subconscious had gifted me such epiphany-level impressions only a few times throughout my life. If I’m lucky, it will do so a few more times in the future. I had been granted a story seed.

The rest of that day, and the following few, were taken over by the obscure workings of my subconscious as it wove together, almost entirely by itself, the tale of this stranger: who she was, why she seemed so comfortable on a bike, who was she smiling at so warmly, etc. I don’t recall how the narrative evolved into one about an aspiring motocross rider with a recklessness streak bordering on tragic flaw. However, it soon became clear that this tale wouldn’t be about love, but grief.

I suppose I have to mention, as I often do, that I’m quite fucked in the head. Was born with so-called high-functioning autism, and either developed after, or got as a side-effect of the abnormal neurological development, some level of OCD that fucks me up with intrusive thoughts, obsessions on top of autism’s own obsessions, and such. Like many on the fringes of typical human behavior, I’m fascinated by outsiders and edge experiences: UFOs, hidden history, weird artifacts, long-extinct animals… Regarding humans, which I rarely care about, I was drawn to the serial-killing kind. While some people, mainly certain types of women, obsess over such monsters and view them as heroes, even attempt to date them, I obsessed over their victims. I wanted to learn everything about who they were before they crossed paths with the man who ended up murdering them. I dreamed about the killings, and imagined myself intervening in those troublesome encounters to save the victims. Even when I didn’t dream about such events, I daydreamed about them. I wrote a couple of stories, of the ones I remember clearly now, of a jaded time-traveler that returned solely to prevent such killings.

With the widespread use of the internet, I came across blogs belonging to relatives of murdered people. One of them that impacted me significantly belonged to the mother of a poor teenager who was killed returning from a concert back in 2008 or so. She got in the car of the wrong person, who raped and murdered her. The mother never got over it (I certainly wouldn’t be able to), and her posts were a window into unending grief, the kind that shoves the person away from the mass of humanity into the fringes.

I know quite a bit about standing in the fringes of humanity. I’m 52% disabled according to the Spanish goverment. During my twenties, that were mainly wasted in long stints as a hikikomori (the pee-in-bottles, befriend-spiders kind), I visited centers for extremely disabled people, and got to interact with the types of human beings you simply do not come across in your daily life: otherwise normal-looking women who were unable to string a sentence together, very intellectually challenged people who casually walked over to groups and ripped loud farts nonchalantly, people so hideous it hurt to look at them, the twitching-and-shouting-insults kinds, the dangerously deluded, some who most weeks presented fresh tales about shitting themselves while “straight-jacketed,” etc. Parents of low-functioning children would often look on with horror at institutionalized low-functioning autistic adults as they were herded around while they twitched and groaned. “It this all I can hope for?” Many human wrecks out there are kept out of view from the public at large lest they disturb the delusion of a just and ordered world.

Whatever neurological configuration drives people to seek out face-to-face interactions has never quite worked for me: human beings in general feel like wild animals, and not the cuddly kind. I’m always wary of people and keep them at arm’s length, partly due to the anxiety I feel in social situations, partly because I lack the innate ability to read their intentions. Over the years, I’ve been tricked and manipulated. I’ve had people tell me, “Why do you keep talking so casually with those individuals? They clearly hate you,” and I didn’t have a clue. In general, people bring more trouble than they’re worth, and my experience with intimate relationships convinced me that such connections lead to mutual pain. Therefore, I’m bound to a life of solitude.

Anyway, what I meant to convey is that my subconscious compelled me to create a tale about someone dealing with unending grief, the kind that isolates him from the rest of humanity. Had I loved someone like Izar Lizarraga, I would have ended up like the narrator, if I hadn’t killed myself to begin with. This is the extent of my justification for why I write what I do. In truth, I simply write to fulfill the demands of my subconscious, hoping to satisfy it. Rational thought plays no part. In fact, I’m extremely suspicious of what’s generally considered intelligence.

I didn’t choose consciously the details of Izar as a character, as well as her relationship with the narrator, but my subconscious was clearly inspired in many cases by my past relationships. The closest in spirit to Izar was a sixteen-year-old basketball player named Leire whom I met online (she was a friend of a dude I used to hang out with), and who later on pursued me romantically. She was reckless, perhaps a bit touched in the head, given that she was interested in a lanky, pimply, clearly deranged teenage me. Anyway, we lay under the stars and had a romantic conversation full of idealism, the details of which I have completely forgotten. Some other day, she invited me to her home, where we made out. We ended up cutting that date short because her parents returned from a trip early.

After that day, I ghosted her. Why would I abandon such a sweet girl without a word? Because right then I understood something: that relationship would end in ruins, like they all would, and liking her as much as I did, like I never had before and never have since, meant that the end of that relationship would obliterate me. Even now, as a thirty-nine-year-old man, I consider that ending it before it truly began was the right choice, given my inability to sustain intimate relationships. However, I regret ghosting her. I regret having lost the opportunity to know her better. Due to my prosopagnosia (an autism-related inability to retain and process people’s faces), I don’t know if I ever saw her again. I can’t even stalk her online, because I forgot her last name. She didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Wherever life took you, Leire, I hope you’re happy.

Fellow autist and writer Patricia Highsmith famously told of a woman she briefly met while working as a toy saleswoman: a sophisticated, mommy-type blond to whom Patricia sold a doll, and with whom Patricia fell in love at first sight. They never saw each other again, but Pat, in her usual manner (she’s the author of Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley series, etc.), proceeded to stalk the woman’s home to get some modicum of understanding of who she was. In later years, Patricia referred to that woman as the love of her life. In a similar sense, Leire is very much the love of my life: the most fascinating girl I have ever met, with whom I would have enjoyed lovely adventures if I weren’t such a piece of rotten shit.

Deeper than that, and I suspect this revelation may disappoint some, Izar Lizarraga of this story’s fame is partly my subconscious itself. Maybe other people can identify with their subconscious as if it were an integrated part of themselves, but for me it’s this mysterious, intelligent being who presents me strange visions, who urges me to work on stuff that pleases her, and to whom I can show some part of a work of art I’m working on, from writing to music, and get a wordless response of the kind “this sucks” or “I love it.”

This subconscious of mine, a creature that feels female, is someone I’d rather interact with instead of any flesh-and-bone person, and who has guided me along in many adventures that I wouldn’t have experienced otherwise. I have never felt truly alone because my subconscious has always been there to bring me interesting dreams (I wouldn’t say beautiful, because plenty of them were horrifying). Back when I thought I could sustain normal human relationships, I regularly ached to return to my subconscious’ side, a more interesting and reliable person than pretty much anybody. I adore you, subconscious. I wish I could make love to you. If you had a butt, I’m sure it would be real nice.

I think that’s all the context I wanted to add to this story. Barely anybody read it, but those of you who followed the tale of Izar Lizarraga and the man she ruined, I hope you got something valuable out of it. And if you didn’t, hey, the one I intended to satisfy is pleased.

Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 20 (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.

On the afternoon of your death anniversary,
Hand in hand with my daughter,
My other hand holding a bouquet of red roses,
We arrived at the spot on the wooded lane
Where a grooved-bark, mature oak
Watched over your memorial stone,
Nestled in moss, twigs, and clover.
Mottled, watery sunlight bathed the stone
As if illuminating a sacred site.

The limestone or sandstone looked rough,
And had weathered over all these years.
Beneath the relief of a motocross rider,
A marble plaque bore the inscription,
“Izar Lizarraga Oyarbide (1981-1999).
She lived fast and died young,
But her light will shine forever.”
My childhood sweetheart,
My restless wildfire.

I crouched in front of the stone
To deposit the bouquet at its base.
I pulled out a pack of wet wipes
And wiped away the dust and grime.
I scrubbed off a white splatter of bird droppings.

The murmur of families filtered through the trees.
A flock of sheep baahed from the nearby hill.
In the stone’s relief, your helmeted figure
Clutched the bike’s handlebars,
Head tilted forward in intense focus.
Every time I laid my eyes on this figure,
My breath caught, my throat clenched,
And I struggled to loosen the knot
Twisted inside my chest.

“How long ago was nineteen ninety-nine?”
My daughter’s innocent voice asked.
After a pause, I said, “A long time ago.”
“Was she a friend of yours?”
“Yes, the best one.”

My daughter shifted her weight from foot to foot
As her attention drifted further down the lane.
I held her little hand tightly in mine,
And we stepped onto the sun-dappled sidewalk.
A familiar warmth built up behind my eyes:
Tears burning their way out.
The vision of a bumblebee weaving its waltz
Across clumps of yellow and white wildflowers
Became a watercolor blur.

Grief had ambushed me once again:
A monstrous hand reaching out of the deep
To grab me by the chest and drag me down.
I know it will remain my constant companion
For the rest of my days.

That week, I pondered why
I had brought my daughter to visit you.
I was terrified that, after my death,
Nobody who came across your name
Or gazed upon the memorial stone
Would understand what had been lost,
What you still mean to me.
I needed my child to be haunted by you,
To carry your spirit in her heart,
But I feared no amount of talk
Could transmit the depths of pain and love.
So, the memories of you would disappear,
Forgotten even by the spiders
That had built their webs within me.

One day, maybe not long from now,
After the kids we dragged into this world
Have freed themselves from their miserable parents
And claimed a home of their own,
I will lie in my deathbed alone,
Connected to beeping machines.
By then, you will feel like a sunken ship
Deep at the bottom of the sea.
Suddenly, I will breathe in a pungent odor of rust,
And from the center of my consciousness,
A sinkhole will open, a growing black hole.
As the edges of my self crumble and collapse,
Into that darkness, I will reach for your hand.

I doubt the value of words:
Pictures and music capture emotions better.
Yet, this old boy can only play with words,
And I’ve engaged in the game of pretending
That they can bridge the chasms between us.

For decades, a barbed pain has grown its tendrils
From the core of my heart throughout my body,
Creeping into every tissue and organ,
Embedding hooks deep in my bones,
As the pain reached the farthest ends of me.
My wish: that the right combination of words
Could sever a scion of this piercing truth
And graft it onto someone else’s heart.

So thank you, stranger,
For reading thousands of words
Of the only tale I care to tell,
My elegy for Izar Lizarraga,
Motocross legend,
Love of my life,
Who blazed through this world,
And burned away.

* * *

The night of April 27, 1999,
You parked in front of the candy shop.
Drenched under the torrential barrage,
We clambered off and removed our helmets.
The taste of rain mingled with your saliva
While the Aprilia’s idling engine rattled
Like a hiker hopping from foot to foot,
Eager to move on.

We wished each other good night.
Thunder growled as you straddled
Your gleaming yellow-and-white bike.
You pulled on your helmet,
Gripped the handlebars,
And lifted the side stand with a kick,
When I shouted, burning my throat,
“Wait!”

Startled, you straightened up,
One foot planted on the sidewalk,
And turned the reflective visor toward me.
I ran to you and hugged you,
Pressing my cheek against the cold helmet.
“You don’t intend to return home, do you?
Who would be so stupid to believe
That you’d go back to your father so soon?
I can’t let you leave, Izar;
If I do, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
Stay with me tonight.”

I held your gloved hand
As you stumbled off the Aprilia.
You lifted the visor of your helmet,
Revealing large chocolate eyes
That reflected a shimmer of amber light.
Your brows were furrowed in concern.
From one nostril hung a bead of watery mucus.
“I’d much rather do that,” you said,
“But your mother forbade me from coming back.”
“I’ve taken enough shit from her.
She can suck it up.”
You shook with silent laughter.

I opened the front door to the sight of my parents.
My mother scowled, deepening the lines of her face.
Beside the woman, two steps back, stood my father,
A bald, stooped, hesitant non-entity.

Upon noticing Izar, my mother’s eyes widened.
She opened her mouth to scold me,
But I cut her off.
“Look at what her father has done.”
I brushed away the damp strands of caramel hair
Clinging to the cheek that sported a bruise,
The mottled imprint of your father’s hand.
“Izar can’t go home tonight. It’s not safe.
She’ll stay with me, no matter what you say.”

A glance at the bruise loosened my mother’s brow.
You bowed your head.
“Sorry for bothering you.
I didn’t intend to cause trouble.”
My mother narrowed her eyes.
“You rode here through this downpour?
Girl, you don’t have any common sense!”
“Sorry.”
She tsked, then threw her hands up.
“You pair of idiots. Go take a warm shower.
No, take off your jackets and shoes first.
You’re going to leave puddles all over the house.
My goodness, look at how soaked you are!
Do you want to catch pneumonia?”

As you and I padded hand in hand to the bathroom,
My mother turned to my father, seeking support,
But he shrugged and said,
“Let them be. They’re in love.”

Locked inside the bathroom,
We peeled each other’s soaked clothes,
Then chucked them on the ceramic tiles,
Where they lay like beached jellyfish.

When you untied your ponytail,
The cascading hair stuck to your shoulders.
You rubbed your pruney fingertips.
“We might get sick for real,” you said,
Then sniffled some leaking mucus back in.

I embraced you firmly,
Pressing your stiff nipples against my chest.
You shuddered once, then continued to tremble.
I whispered in your ear,
“My love, in case you have any doubts,
I’ll run away with you.”
You sighed, your breath warm on my neck,
And slid your hands down my back.
“Thank you.”

As we melted into each other,
I caressed the contours of your skin,
The myriad details unique to you
That before you were born,
Hadn’t existed in the universe,
And after you died, never would again.

Yes, Izar, I would accompany you,
Riding pillion, clinging to your waist,
Through the rush of wind and rain,
To witness the sights you longed to see,
To experience what it meant to live.
We would create a shared language,
Speak words that others would find insane,
And build our own space far away.
Nobody could compete with you,
The sole real person in the world.
As long as you were with me,
I was home.

THE END

Author’s note: the last song is “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure.

Remastered “Behind the Door” from Odes to My Triceratops, Vol. 3

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Inteligencia artificial, MúsicaLeave a comment

I’ve produced about seventy-five songs with Udio, and “Behind the Door” is my absolute favorite. I’d say it encapsulates my whole self to an extent that if I died tomorrow, that’d be alright, because I made someone listen to “Behind the Door.” So now that I’ve become an audio mastering master, or at least better than the average person at this time-consuming task, I had to give it another shot. It sounds quite good to these battered ears of mine.

Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 19 (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

You can read this novella from the beginning through this link.

The eve of your death anniversary
Resurrected the old nightmare once more:
I was riding pillion, clinging to your waist,
While your Aprilia Red Rose growled
As it devoured the highway under its tires.
The rainfall hammering upon car roofs,
Drumming on our helmets,
Splashing against our drenched clothes,
Overwhelmed the steady roar of the engines.
The wind drove icy raindrops into my face.

The beam of your bike’s headlamp
Sliced through the rain sheets,
Lighting the rear wheels of the truck in front,
That spat up trails of rainwater.
In the oncoming lane, twin beams appeared
And quickly expanded toward us,
Cutting luminous swaths across the blackness.
On my right, traffic signs, trees, buildings,
They all blurred into smudges,
And the sparse streetlamps revealed themselves
Like floating, shimmering haloes.

Lights glinted off the gleaming, mirrorlike tarmac
In ripples of red and blue-tinged white.
Above, lightning leaped from cloud to cloud,
Followed by grumbling thunderclaps.

In my embrace, your body trembled;
You were crying, or at least on the verge,
And you channeled that anguish
Igniting your steel beast’s roar
With a wrench of the throttle.
My heart thrummed with dread.
The acceleration pressed against my bones,
Tightening my chest and freezing my breath.
Along with the golden tracers of streetlamps,
Oncoming vehicles whooshed past us.

Lighting the way ahead, we were falling headlong,
Whipping through the darkness like an arrow.
Teary-eyed from the sting of rain,
I raised my voice over the rushing wind,
Over the rumbling engines.
I shouted, I yelled, I gripped your sides tighter,
Imploring you to slow down.
As if you couldn’t hear me, as if I wasn’t there,
You revved the throttle further,
Making the speedometer needle climb sharply.
Your bike’s chassis shuddered under the strain.
The raindrops felt like dozens of fingers
Poking my numb face to wake me up,
But you kept racing through the storm,
Maybe wishing to outrun yourself,
Outrun all the voices telling you to stop.

As we approached a curve, your Aprilia wobbled,
Its front wheel skidded on the rain-slick tarmac,
And the bike lurched sideways,
Flinging us off.

The color spectrum gleaming through the downpour
From headlights, tail lights, streetlamps, and lightning
Spun into a blur of light and dark
While my body flailed, limbs striking out,
Scraping against the road as I slid
With rainwater gushing over me.
The friction ripped through my clothing,
Seared my skin, and tore the flesh off my bones.
Screams lodged in my throat.

Your Aprilia Red Rose was flipping end-over-end,
Scattering pieces of its decimated bodywork.
My frantic gaze glimpsed flashes,
Illuminated by the headlights of passing cars,
Of your body cartwheeling uncontrollably.

A murky shape, the guardrail,
Rushed out of the rain-haze toward us
Like a reef thrusting from a savage ocean.
You smashed against the metal barrier,
Which launched you into the darkness.
I clenched my eyes shut, bracing for impact,
And awaited the final, wet crunch.
When I slammed into that guardrail,
A loud snap reverberated through my spine
In a starburst of pain.

The impact had squeezed my lungs,
Knocking the air out.
As I gasped, mouth agape,
A thunderous crash against the guardrail
Sent a shockwave through the cold steel,
Making me, slumped against it, shudder violently.
Fragments of the bike ricocheted off the barrier
And stung my arms and face like shrapnel.
The metallic clang lingered as a discordant ringing.

Your Aprilia lay on its side close by,
Gleaming darkly in muddy rainwater,
Its windscreen shattered,
Frame bent, chassis mangled,
Front wheel still spinning.
A rearview mirror dangled from its stem,
And reflected the electric clouds.
Fuel leaked out of the dented tank.
The headlamp’s white beam,
Shining through the cracks in the lens,
Faltered, flickered, then faded away.

The ozone scent of the storm mingled
With the chemical smell of gasoline,
The burnt stench of grinding metal,
And the bitterness on my tongue.
A tingling white noise had spread
To the farthest reaches of my body,
And in the places that hadn’t gone numb,
My shredded flesh screamed
In a fiery, knifelike pain.

Instead of writhing in the gutter
Like a crushed insect,
I would return to your side,
But when I tried to stand,
My limp legs refused to move.
I grabbed the cold, wet guardrail,
Then heaved myself over it.
I hit the grassy, upward slope chest-first,
And mud splattered on my face.

I crawled onward, clawing at the grass and soil,
Coating my hands with squelchy mud.
The relentless pounding of heavy rain
Along with the deep rumble of distant thunder
Isolated me in a cocoon of noise.
Every creep up the slope ripped me open with hurt.
In jagged gasps, I breathed razors.
Where are you, Izar? Where are you?

The blades of grass glistened
With a fresh spray of blood.
Silvery light from turning headlights
Swam in waves over a body splayed face up
Like a doll tossed in a tantrum.
Your drenched, ripped red jacket gleamed.
Gashes oozed through the torn jeans.
The crushed helmet still clung to your head.

Beside you, I pushed myself up onto my knees,
And lifted the cracked visor of your helmet.
Raindrops splattered in concentric circles
On the blood pooling within the face aperture.

I attempted to take your helmet off,
But your neck strained, its muscles taut,
As if your head might snap off.
You couldn’t breathe.
“Stay with me, Izar. Don’t leave me, please.”
When I scooped blood out of the hole,
My fingers didn’t graze your face.
I sank my hand up to my wrist, to the elbow,
But I couldn’t reach you.

I woke up with a start, drenched in sweat,
Gasping for breath, clutching at my throat.

My fingers are calloused
From decades of clawing
At the dark soil of this world
To drag myself back to you.

Author’s note: the song for today is “I Lost You” by The Walkmen.

The next part will conclude this story.