On the whim of browsing through the abandoned sides of the internet for a potential direction, quite anything really, that could point me to Salvia, the potent natural psychedelic able to pull one's eyes right out of one’s sockets, letting them hang loose between objects and images of the mind. To some success, I obtained an address, most likely not in use anymore, from a forum with the blocky structure true to the 00s. Worth a go, and if there was to be a go it needed to be convincing. So I learned a funny phrase in Spanish: "Bendita sea tu corazon", or "Blessed be your heart". I wanted to express my gratitude by finishing a letter like the kindest old lady would.

Waking up my bet was surely the letter since I thought warmth wouldn't be met with a blank piss-off wall, it was, my spirit was not acknowledged. One option down, but I've got many. I forgot that I commented on some random Facebook post a while ago.

'I have some, don't know what to do with it though, haha.'

'Give it to me, I know what to do with it, haha.'

The commenter resided in La Plata. I, in Buenos Aires, with his blessing, decided to go down south for a small trip. The first time didn't work out because firstly, his ex-girlfriend wasn’t aware that a stranger would be in her home and that the stranger would take plants out of her garden, so she was obivously not happy with my arrival — and secondly, the man was nowhere to be seen. He had vanished. I wasn't surprised or disappointed, it made perfect sense, and it made me laugh. The guy was somewhere in the skies, he had posts on his Facebook feed on themes of buddhism and spirituality, harmless in their simplicity. To build a better picture, think of the stock imagery with a human figure, crossed legs, through his heart a beam of light travelling, and a quote along the lines of "Isolation kills, solitude enriches" written somewhere.

A few months pass by. I contemplate what to write about. The man reappears, this time as a subject. He apologizes for the last time, says he has the Salvia, and says that if I wanted to pass by and pick it up, I could do so on any day. A 3-hour ride is hardly a pass by, but I decide to go as this time the situation gave off no foul smell. One of the nights asked for any action. The morning heard it. I get on the bus that goes straight to La Plata. The driver was a man with wrinkles cutting into the edges of his eyes. He was a lovely man, and his puns put a stamp on my thoughts about his wrinkled face.

The bus seats are soft, the light kind on the eyes, and the shakings of the bus comforting. I wake up sometime later and check on the driver that previously caught my attention. He waved at his colleagues in the passing buses. Señor left no one short of a handwave, executed by a graceful palm in which crackers and matte also took turns. We exchanged winks through sunglasses, he had brown aviators on, and I, black round ones, which I put on copying him. Many smiles, sweet life.

I get out of the bus and almost leave without tributing him. I rush back to wave him goodbye and catching my breath, wish him a very good day. I put a lot of intention into that "very" — you could tell by the amount of spit. Well, that was done, so I started looking for the next ride. The sun is setting in and maps don't fast track me to a culmination. The local drivers of the buses I hop on, rightfully can't either.

'Which stop?'

I show the red drop poking out among grey areas of information, only pieces of concrete are numbers, but they only further the confusions.

'Do you even know where you're going?'

'I don't know!' I was glad to say.

The driver laughs, and after an honest while of trying to help but not being able to, lets me off, leaving me for the next driver to deal with. Getting off the bus, I see a stray dog following me. He isn't violent, but he is persistent with his following, begging eyes. His silent wait give him away as hunger-driven, so I share all of my sandwiches with him, which by this point are already mush from being in my bag. I don't caress the things that I carry. I think the tuna leakage attracted him, maybe left the trail too. As I make a small bowl out of the plastic bag generously filled with egg-tuna porridge, doggo bites my hand through the wrap. Apparently that nice touch took too much time and was inconsiderate. The marks are faint. Message received. Checking the bag the fish has stunk up, nothing inside but the smell that accompanies me now as the dog leaves unsatisfied.

The dolls of plastic shimmer, scattered across the side of the road, catching the light and curiosity of passers. They lead the eyes to a house drenched in heavy air, toys latching onto the structure by their hair, dolls still on wires, faces of some melted into the metal grids. In this doll’s house, a stranger looking up through a curve in the window, barely mouths something upon taking notice of my presence. A few people circle through the entrance now. I am seeking the face of the person who welcomes them by the swinging curtain, however, the figure disappears the moment it suggests revealing itself. This intrigue I decide to uncover later, as I would have been done with something less enticing, matters like it are cursed anyway when met with the first conclusion.

With every step I take, something about the space transforms. Ordinary red stone houses traveling through the many chords connecting them. Further down, the narrowing roads lose their weight and end as ruins with metal sheets on top to keep inside every breath of warmth. A couple of friends drinking mate by the patio and conversing, children trying to get each other on the run, some old man fixing his car. The eyes of the people disrupted were directed towards me. Disrupted by what? They were occupied by themselves — what have I done to change the idyllic but walk?

Visibly aimless, I march on with a spring in me, excited by all and growing progressively confused by the second. I reach an intersection, similar to a dead end, the shadows outling geometrical patterns as the little sunlight slowly dies away, gradually leaving no more space for the shadows to decorate the ground with their hard angles, intensifing the charm of the concrete walls. I shout the name of the man who invited me. He appears and leads me into a path. My shoulders can't rest. We enter through a gate that serves as a folding screen, the sides exposed to the neighbours, only the front intending to hide anything. Some plants that the man cares for sit a foot’s reach from a wide grey river down the way from his garden, with mud surrounding it the water. Considering the soil is said to be extremely rich, it is strange to see that his plants were the only green specks of colour among the dull spectacle of a view.

I observe all, attempting to encounter more of the captivation. We make our way into the house, and he begins talking, and as he does, a thinning thought passes through my mind. "What am I here for?" I forgot. It doesn't matter. The chilling stillness that I feel around me right now and the things I might see soon do matter though.

'I work as an event promoter, always looking for more ways to make money,' he says. 'I am great at it, and with the amount of connections I make and the amount of people I meet, people always seem to want me close. One time, I received hundreds of messages and invitations on Christmas night, and I didn’t reply to any of them because I just could not be bothered.' He laughed, and arrogance came along with his laughter.

'Asshole,' I say.

He thanks me for coming all the way, shaking my hand and tensing his mouth. He has a caricature of a smile, its corners stretch around the face, but the eyes remain unaffected, wide open, bloodshot, vibrating slightly.

‘Why would you not go to a party people want you to go to? You could at least say you weren't going. More compassion would do you right,’ I continue.

‘Maybe,’ he replied. ‘You see, this is why I am glad you´ve come! I was like that at a time, pursuing things of no value. I have found a peaceful home here, with the calm river and all of my wonderful friends. They help me a lot. The things I have gathered in this house were gifted to me by them mostly, and I would love to help them too when I have the chance to do so. My boss is chill also, she's a bartender, and often I get a cocktail made for me while working on the construction site, and she doesn't care much if I'm on time — I can sleep in, just today I did so. I have found peace, everything is so calm for me.’

He took a slow breath, smiling — really smiling, softly, taking his time to look around at all of his belongings right there in his home. The love of many that the place had been built with was in the mini-fridge with a Looney Tunes sticker, in the old rocking chair, in the abstract picture on the wall above the bed's head big poster of buddhist chants, in bedsheets with flowers, and in the boney frame of the structure that he had yet to finish building. The soft, orange light was seeping through the metal-sheeted roof, reflecting onto the wall in enchanting waves.

‘Living by the river must be nice,’ I say. ‘I have noticed that all of the homes are so open, you guys are so reliant on each other. Where I've been to in the capital, you see metal as a protection from the others, high walls with spikes, some also weirdly decorated with crosses as if banishing the demons. I've lived in the province too — San Fernando zone. maybe you know it.’

He asks me whether or not I believe in energies and spiritual teachings.

‘Energy in a way, but teachings I don't trust.’

My ears then preceded to endure tremendous amounts of spiritual bullshit. For a guy obsessed with grounding techniques, his sureness of us two being on another dimension and other people just not comprehending the ways of the universe, absorbed by their fears, was proportional. My main problem with the conviction of his lies were the empty spaces, the questions that he could not answer that he claimed to have the asnwer to. Space left by a missing puzzle piece in an otherwise complete picture is not a piece itself. His beliefs slacked off as habits and tautology. I was initially interested in discovering who he was and what his truth was, but as revealed it, my interest slowly diminished.

‘My family... I moved away from them a year ago. When I built this house, I stopped talking to them. I have this river, and they-- They just don't care to reach out to me anymore. They are okay without me. They don't understand me.’

‘They probably won't. Have you reached out to them?’

He doesn't pay any attention to my question, nor anything I say, and continues expressing how unjustly he is forgotten. An erratic neighbour with a fun demeanor suddenly comes rushing through the door. It turns out to be a friend of his asking to fix the CBD bottle he had sold him recently. I am relieved by his presence as it interrupted our conversation. A kiss on the cheek, a few jokes, a fixed bottle, another kiss, and he's out. My relief was short.

‘I have a lot of experience. I've been around a lot, so you can just be honest with me.’ He says. 'I'm wide awake at this point.'

‘I sense that you feel unsafe. You know, I might be an affectionate and unusually open kinf of a person, but don't think of it wrong. I started to see you were uncomfortable when my friend came in. Just be honest with me.’

‘Thank you for trying to calm me down. It was getting awkward. I do feel unsafe, just not because of your friend — he was actually fun and cheerful. It's getting dark, and I worry about making it back home.’

‘Ah, yeah. Of course, you have a home to go back to.’

He starts tearing up, as if sad that I have to go, leaving him alone again. He sulks like a toddler, turning his head downwards facing the ground, playing with a piece of paper in his hands, looking at me from time to time making sure that I notice his disappointment, and if his gestures don't do the trick, the silent treatment might. All of it annoys me. I sit next to him for a bit.

‘You can leave anytime you like, and I will walk you back to the bus station. I don't know why I didn't do that when you got here — it must have been scary.’

‘Yeah, it wasn't really scary then, but it might become scary now. It is about to be dark, and I am a woman after all.’

‘I understand, but just know, you can feel safe with me here. I won't harm you. I can walk you back anytime, and if anything happens, I'll be there for you.’

‘Okay.’

Minutes pass in an intense silence.

‘You know, I still want to leave. I am going to leave right now,’ I say.

Something in him that nerved me while in the shadows before, stands out in full terrifying glory.

‘I'm starting to feel bad,’ he says. ‘I want to lay down. I won't be able to walk you. I told you you can feel safe here. I'm not a bad person.’

‘Yeah, you may say that, and it may or not be true, but I still feel unsafe. Compassion, remember.’

‘I'm not bad! I'm a good person. I'm not bad, I swear. I'm not bad. Everybody thinks so, but I am not!’

Switching to mumbling, he repeats his worries about the family leaving him.

It's just that I feel so alone... so alone... so alone!

Through violent sobs, his heart screams, and no tears come out, but his mouth does bubble.

‘Nobody understands me. I thought you would. I i-imagined us ta-talking for hours. But I invited you at a bad time, my house is a mess, and of course you do not want to stay. I can't offer anything. I knew I shouldn't invite guests until I could, and now it turns out this way.

‘It's not the house — it's you.’ He continues ignoring me. I suspect he will ignore anything that doesn't show pity for him.

‘What do I do? What do I do? Please tell me.’

‘You know what to do,’ I say.

I found it too fun of a phrase not to add as a probe for my theory, a moment before my leaving. I have access to the door now that he rolls on the bed. I am shaking by this point.

‘I don't know. I don't know,’ he replies.

I stand up swiftly from the rocking chair. His fluttering lower lip and him blacking out every single word that I say, calling him for introspection, angers me, and in a low, firm voice, I call out, ‘Will you or will you not just stand up!’

He weeps, and lifting his body enough to face me, says , ‘I thought, if you could just hug me, I might stand up,’ and silently waits for my reaction.

‘Bye.’

I leave to the sound of ruminating, ‘So alone.’ He puts himself to sleep with this chant, and not with any of the Oms he hung on the wall above the bed.