Joe Woke Up.

When Joe awoke each morning the world was still dark and quiet. The cacophony of sounds, the flurry of activity, that all came later. The light would sneak up on him, birds would welcome him back as the trees shook timorously. He appreciated the showing of day, even reveled in it. But he sure didn’t appreciate the buzz-saws when they’d begin their destructive grind or the trucks moving laboriously along the lumber roads.

He‘d moved out onto the island several months earlier. There was nothing, nobody tying him to the city, not anymore. That was just the way it was. He had enough money but not enough peace of mind, felt sure it was out there. And until the machines began saying otherwise it seemed he’d found what he was looking for.

He didn't really wanna leave only felt compelled to. What he wanted was what he’d found and lost. What he wanted was the machinations of civilization to leave him the hell alone. Short of that he seemed left with no alternative, and soon Joe was staring straight into a Mexican sunset.

But although the sunsets were lovely the city was incredibly noisy. It was also crowded smelly and dirty.  But mostly it was noisy, also crowded smelly and dirty. So he got out as quickly as possible, boarded a bus for the town of Xalapa. He’d been told it was a charming peaceful mountain town and perhaps it was. Unfortunately, after nearly ten hours on a rattling old bus Joe arrived smack dab in the midst of carnival time. So he kept on going, to the ocean.

Barre de Navidad was one of those small dusty Mexican beachfront towns where mangy dogs roamed in packs, the roosters were strangely well organized, tourists were mostly young and hotels mostly cheap. Situated an hour north of Manzanillo on the coast highway, five hours south of Puerto Villarta, the little town seemed nice and Joe thought he might stay awhile. But the barking dogs, the crowing roosters and the partying tourists all conspired against him. He packed up his satchel, caught a little fishing boat to cross the bay, walked through a coconut grove to a long white-sanded beach. He climbed up one side of some cliffs and clamored down the other, onto a small private beach, his perfect little spot.

Each day Joe would drink in the soothing isolation. He listened to the surf rolling in. The fish got used to him. The fruit was sweet in the grove. It was a new world for Joe and he liked it, until he saw the sharks. Every morning he’d talk to the falcons in the cliffs. He’d swim around to the grove, pick some fruit before climbing back to his beach. Life was good. Of course he had to swim often. It was hot, really hot. He had to swim. But from the cliffs he saw the ghostly forms and Joe knew then he‘d have to leave.

In Hawaii Joe trekked on down into a dormant volcano called Haleakala. There was the promise of discovering the quietest most peaceful spot on earth, only the flies down there made a constant racket. So he headed to India, the land of mystics, sages, Buddha, Krishna, peace. He got the flu in Belgium, was hauled off the 'Orient Express' in Yugoslavia by rifle-toting border guards just to check him out. He had severe indigestion in Athens, bed-bugs in Istanbul, had his private parts grabbed on a street in Tehran and sent back to Kabul from the frontier for a cholera vaccination he already had.

Joe arrived in Amritsar by train during a stifling heat-wave. The first thing he did was buy a cold-drink at a nearby shop. The proprietor produced a 'campa cola' from out of the refrigerator that was in fact not the least bit cold. He sat against a big tree sipping the warm cola when a bird actually fell off a branch above and landed with a pathetic little thud right beside him.

In Dharmsala he decided to check into the Toshiba retreat centre for a while. The grounds were green, lush, spectacularly private. There were cute little reddish brown monkeys playing in the trees. His small room was in a sprawling white-washed flat-top building and it looked out upon the gardens. What could possibly go wrong? It had a window with shutters and metal bars, no glass, no screens. The door was heavy wood planks hung together with iron hinges that looked like straight outta the middle-ages. There was a friendly old Tibetan who’d feed him, a timeless and pervasive sense of calm all ’round if not within him. And Joe sincerely hoped it would seep in like osmosis as the days passed. But he wasn’t there long enough.

Monkeys, he soon realized, are extremely concerned with three things: feasting, fighting and fornicating. And they're clever. One stole Joe’s favourite shirt off the railing over which he’d draped it, wouldn't return the thing until he forked over some fruit. Almost immediately after, another stole a pair of his undies. Joe told him to keep it but the monkey threw it back anyway. They weren’t nearly so cute as he’d first thought.

There was an overwhelming amount of sexual activity going on all around him. Rather than a calm seeping into his consciousness it was the relentless sights and sounds of the monkeys’ fighting and fornicating getting in. It was terrible. They were rutting in the court-yard, in the trees, on the walls, even in the bath-house. They had no sense of decorum. The memory of their furry bodies slapping together excitedly were images he knew would stay with him.

In Delhi Joe got delhi-belly. In Jaipur the hotels were solidly booked up. There was some sort of international cricket match going on and rooms were all taken. One hotel beside a tire factory finally rented him a rope-cot on the roof at a ridiculous price and after thanking the manager profusely if not sincerely he went on up.

There were hordes of all manner of people up there. Sitting on his cot with his head in his hands Joe watched packs of kids playing wildly while mothers tended pots on kerosene stoves. There was a huge cloud of dark grey smoke wafting up from the market-place below bringing with it the added pungent odours of burning rubber and street-foods. Somewhere someone screamed in horror or pain for whatever reason. The level of noise was deafening, the smells over-powering.

Joe was tired, deeply deeply tired. He wasn’t so sleepy as he was simply tired. There’s a distinction to be made between sleepy and tired, empty, hollow. Sitting on the cot with one leg up and the other dangling off he closed his eyes. There was a pressure in his chest, a quiet sense of desperation as he thought about his life.

Joe was lost deep within the recesses of his mind as he sat there. At some point he shifted, leaned against a pillar that was beside the cot and still he sat. It may have been an hour. It may have been twenty minutes. And every so often he’d ask himself: ‘How in the world have I ended up here?’ But there was no answer, only the constant awful din and pervasive smells.

Eventually of course Joe opened his eyes and looked around. He slowly shook his head as he stood up and stretched. The light of day faded yielding to the other-worldly effect he’d noticed about Indian sunsets. He had become somewhat awed by Indian sunsets even when he couldn’t actually see it. And as he stood beside his cot appreciating dusk it dawned upon Joe that he actually felt good. He actually felt better than good. And that revelation, for that’s what it was, precipitated Joe to sit right back down again on the edge of his cot to wonder.

Not more than a moment later, however, a mostly deflated soccer ball flew up and hit him smack in the face. Wiping the sting from his eyes Joe saw two little guys and a girl standing not far off with expressions of shock and maybe fear. Which for some reason made him laugh as he grabbed the ball and joined the game.

Later on when the kids were called by their respective families Joe retreated to his cot. One of the boys brought him a plate of food. And the thought occurred to Joe that of all the places he‘d looked for peace, that noisy smelly crowded Jaipur roof-top was somehow the best.