10.21

It’s 10am and the shop hasn’t figured out the car yet, but I don’t care about the car. I think I lost my mind.

I shat out a cell phone in the middle of the night. It is still here this morning sitting in the wicker potpourri basket in this fancy hotel. The phone is covered in shit. I wipped my ass again this morning and it was bloody.

I know better than some people what crazy is like. Right before I left for Uganda I ended a two year stint as a case manager – every client had major mental illness. I remember talking with Greg about his psychotic breaks. He could remember much better than most and he was always bring it up. He was always cheerful and happy to chat about it. He would bring it up and laugh. “I thought I would be perfectly fine in the dumpster because I was some sort of holy prince or whatever. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

I went to bed drunk last night and woke a 2am and shat. A long hard shit. Then the shit started ringing. I could see the telephone inside it. I reached into the toilet with my hand wrapped in TP and answered. It was Pastor.

Pastor was our mechanic in Tororo. He fixed our secondhand motorbike that broke all the time. I watched him straighten the front strut by laying the bike on its side and beating it with a long thick pipe. He was my friend.

“Hello Mr. Cot,” he said. I could hear the broad smile on his face over the telephone.

“Who is this?”

“This Pastor” He said with a thick and jolly Japadola accent.

“Pastor?”

“Yes Mr. Cot.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“Hmmmm. Difficult question.”

“You don’t have a phone.”

“hmmmm. I do have phone.”

“Ok. Fine. What the hell’s going on? Is Z. OK?”

“Mr. Cot you are on a different planet. You have been there few months. I wanted to tell you before, but I never got around to it. Too busy with the motorbike.” I asked confused questions and he elaborated. I hung up on him and told myself I was dreaming and went to sleep.

I looked in the call register on the phone when I woke up. I called the number that called me in the middle of night. Pastor answer and confirmed everything me told me last night. I never went to Africa. I went to “an outer space planet – Z is still there.” And I am not in the USA. I am on yet another planet. I have lost my mind. And now I have shit on my face and hands. My own shit. It rubbed off the telephone. And now there is shit on my keyboard.