Another 8th birthday party booking. They all seem to be turning 8 this year. Maybe that's also the age where parents finally lose interest in the novelty of their children's birthday parties, and decide to just book a magician.
Still, I shouldn't complain, at least work is steady this year. Means I'm putting in less hours at the petrol station.
Though it's Steph's birthday soon, should probably buy her something good, but it's not like the money is pouring in. She'll understand.
I get to the kid's house, forty of them, it's usually the whole school class and a few extras - cousins, friends from different classes, the token friends of any siblings, or children of the parent's friends. It'd be weird if parties later in life were attended in a similar fashion.
I go through the motions, I think half these kids have seen me before. I hear one whispering the conclusion of the trick to her friend. If I see her at another show she can be the "volunteer" for the custard pie trick. I always save that one for the little shits.
So, I do some giant size card tricks, a stuffed rabbit in a hat, the knotted handkerchief and a small scale swords through a box routine with the birthday boy.
Afterwards I loiter by the food, chowing down on cocktail sticks skewering pineapple and cheese chunks, and I have a slice of plasticky Transformers cake.
"Hey, great stuff," an overly enthusiastic father says, shaking my hand and placing a friendly mitt on my shoulder. "I loved the magicians when I was a kid, had one at every birthday for about five years running. Thought I wanted to be one, until I heard about investment banking!"
He laughs a big cackle. The howl of the well off.
"I got these big, ungainly hands anyways," he says. "Could never get the cards to stay wedged in there. My parents wastes a small fortune on magic kits for me. At least yours backed the right horse, huh?"
I swallowed my mouthful of sponge. "My parents don't know I do this."
"Shit, you are living the boyhood dream, huh?! Ran away and joined the circus, right!"
"They're dead."
His face turned sour and he quietly, quickly made some new friends on the other side of the room.
I tossed my paper plate towards the bin - though it failed to make its target.
After collecting the rest of my pay I packed up and left. Children's birthday parties are no place to hang out, though in my younger days I met some willing single mothers, and once one that wasn't single. Though Steph put paid to all that.
It's not that I yearn for it or anything, that stuff is far more exciting in theory than practice. But there is a certain frisson to those chance encounters now lacking in the inevitability of my days.
I know what bed awaits me, I know who's there, and this malaise comes from somewhere, but, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change things. Not between me and Steph.
I should try and think of something nice to get her. I think I've let her down these last couple of years, I'm sure she's already wondering how I'll complete the hat trick. But, and perhaps I'm ignorant, forgetful or complacent, I just don't remember what she likes.
I resolve to try and listen that bit harder, hear the clues in what she says. Maybe there's something that she keeps hanging out there, like a carrot for a mule, seeing if I'm going to putz it up one more time.
I drive home, passing the petrol station, unconsciously - I think - I slow the car and take a long, lingering look at the place. I've got the night shift there tomorrow, 11pm to 7am.
I take the next junction and, eager to have a drink and slip into bed, I press my foot down a little.
I look forward to the feeling of Steph's body pressed against mine before we fall asleep.
I see a flash.
It's dark. Sudden.
There's a thud, followed by an uncomfortable clatter.
I brake, look back, and see the body lying in the road.
Leaving the car I'm thankful that the street is quiet. A few houses, but not a light on in any of them.
Getting closer I see that it's the body of a young boy, dressed in an unhelpfully dark hoodie and jeans. His face is pale, about from the blood stripe across it. His eyes are wide, lifeless.
I look up and down the road, still noone around. I've been fortunate.
I crouch by the body, hold my hands over his most obvious wounds and I close my eyes.
His sharp intake of breath alerts me.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
He's bewildered, sits up and shuffles back.
"You should wear a hi-viz, or at least something colourful, if you're going to dash across roads at night."
The boy holds a hand to his chest, breathes deeply, as if ascertaining the veracity of the situation against his memory of it.
"You hit me? With your car," he finally utters, though doubting himself.
"Clipped you," I correct him. "Nothing serious, but you should see a doctor just to be sure."
"O-okay..."
I give him my card in case there are any problems. I offer him a lift home but he points to his house, we're right in front of it. I get in my car and drive away.
When I get home Steph is asleep, though she stirs and mumbles a hello as I climb in next to her, kiss her cheek.
As I lie sleepless in bed, I'm brought back to the vacant look in that boy's eyes as he lay dead on the road. That look which confirms the disconnection between body and spirit, or soul, or whatever.
Now I know that if I'm quick then that spirit lingers, as if taking one last look at its vessel and I can encourage it to take up its residence for just a little longer.
I wish I'd known that then, before I killed them.
I told Steph about the accident, sure I left out a few details, like my powers. But she insists that it was, as I say, an accident. But I know more, and I can never find forgiveness.
I've told Steph about that, though I've never told her how she died once. That we were putting up a painting, she was on a short ladder, missed her footing and her head collided with our kitchen worktop.
From somewhere within me came this urge, this futile rage, a seemingly impotent hope. I looked into her eyes, saw that the life had gone. I placed my hands on her, and then it was back.
And she never knew why I cried and held her so close, so tight.
That I couldn't bear the abyss of my life without her.
Yet I know that with every passing day the tide comes in, our lives must end, and it dulls the magic, it dilutes my hope.
Perhaps, I make excuses for myself, I'm so tired, so listless, because I love her so much. If I cared less maybe our eventual deaths wouldn't concern me.
Though I cling onto the idea that there is a soul, that it is that which I coax back to those vacant bodies, and if it were to roam free it would find a fitting afterlife. I can't help but think we are all doomed, and that is what I see in the eyes of those children as I reveal their card, as I pull the rabbit from the hat, as I push the pie into their face.
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Friday, 12 September 2014
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Saudade
Nobody ever tells you something's wrong until it's too late. Then you blame them. It wasn't your fault, somebody should have told you.
At first it was little things, trivial things, a phone bill quietly mounting up because the phone company never told me that I'd exceeded my price plan for the month. Then, when I get the bill, I stare in disbelief and think; Why didn't anybody tell me?
The bank had done it to me before, I asked them; Why don't you let me know when I'm going past my overdraft limit?
I'd cynically sneer that it was because they wanted money, it's greed. That's how I'd justify it.
When it's gone, when the bill comes, when the bank charges, you're so helpless and you waddle, metaphorical cap in hand, and hope for kindness, for a change of heart. "But they were legitimate charges," they say, and you know they're right. Why are you so incapable of looking after yourself?
I've been sad for years and I've never come to terms with it. I'm waiting for everything to change, and things to go back to how they were before. Because I know it's possible, that's what we were trying to do, we were trying to change the world.
She had stepped into the coccoon, closed the hatch and blew me a kiss.
Then the machine was propelled into the sky and somewhere, up in the atmosphere, I saw it evaporate, sent on its journey through time.
We had calibrated the machine to send her back to the 1960s, a time where we knew she would be able to find the means to return. Where she could find open-minded and understanding people who wouldn't lock her up in some ward, a loony with wild ideas. It was the safest destination for a test drive.
And it worked.
I saw her in a photograph, looking through a book called Brighton In The 1960s, there were images from a student protest in June 1968 and she was there, smiling into the camera, as if smiling out at me, a knowing look that confirmed; "I've made it! It worked!"
Even though she probably knew the outcome of the protest she was still there, still holding a placard, fighting for their rights. Is it worth fighting a battle that's already been won? I wondered.
At the same time I reflected upon the now; that every day I was seeing things I cared about slip away, the malevolence of their disappearing only evident by its silence. As the government tip-toed in and gradually, quietly, dismantled that which made us great. Yet I sat wallowing, thinking it'll all work out, I mean, if it was really going to be bad somebody would tell me, right? Somebody would give me that slap around the chops, warn me.
She never held back from me, that's why I loved her. She'd call me out on every bit of apathetic complacency I seemed to couch upon. Snuggling into ignorance, like a wrongly convicted prisoner who's given up and grown so used to their corner of the jail that - with revolution raging outside - they don't trust a suddenly open cell door and miss their chance to escape. Then, when the revolution has passed, they find themselves - with no fanfare - locked away to be forgotten. A victim of cowardice.
That's why I let her volunteer, we were both capable of manning the craft, both capable of operating the controls. But I was afraid, ultimately selfish, that something would go wrong and I would be hurt. How cruel of me, how cowardly.
Yet how wrong I was. If anything the success has been worse. Knowing she's out there, somewhere in time, and she doesn't want to come back, because if she did she'd be back by now.
And I cannot accept it, even though it has happened, I don't feel like this is what I deserve, this debt, this pain, this loss, even though I earned it by stepping back and doing nothing. I never loved her enough. I only loved myself.
Maybe, in that photograph, she does know that I can see her, but maybe she's smiling because she doesn't have to see me?
We cannot get something back when it's gone. We thought we could go back and change things, undo the mistakes we had made in our lives. In a sense that is what she did, and left me to pay the price for my own.
Friday, 4 October 2013
Choices
Not quite from the archives, but I wrote this back in June 2013 and completely forgot about it...
Choices
Wearily I rub my eyes, my colleague is sat on the seat opposite me, our train heading towards the office.
"Feels like Thursday," she pines, it's only Tuesday.
I nod in agreement.
At work I head upstairs immediately, flick the kettle on, grab my preferred mug and am about to spoon in a miniature mountain of coffee, when I realise the jar is empty.
I try to cast my mind back to yesterday, remember that last cup of coffee I had, and I'm certain - adamant - that there was definitely enough coffee in the jar for at least three more cups. I can't imagine who else might have had a coffee, it's a small office, my boss is away on business, and everybody else prefers tea. Could I have been wrong?
I pop to the corner shop to buy some more coffee, hesitating at the display comprised almost exclusively of Nescafe brands and one cheap alternative that, experience suggests, will taste distractingly acrid. I could walk further down the road to a supermarket, but I feel bad for not being at work, I want to conserve my free-time for more important opportunities, so I nab the smallest jar of Nescafe - reasoning that I can get a more ethical alternative quite quickly - and head back to the office.
I text my girlfriend, just something inconsequential, but, after half an hour, I still haven't received a reply. I try to imagine all the things she might be doing that would prevent her from checking her phone, wonder why she doesn't realise that I just want a little bit of validation, just something to remind me that she still cares about me. I guess that's pretty desperate.
Perhaps I was being too optimistic, I reason, even going so far as to call her my girlfriend is a bold gesture. I mean, we've been seeing each other for a while, but I guess I'm more emotionally invested than she is. She says it's all quite new to her, I think she's treating it as a bit of fun, a little bit of experimentation, but for me it's serious, I mean, for her it's a choice, but for me it's not a choice, I was born this way, it's who I am.
Maybe I'm being naive to think that I can get her to change her mind, see me the way I see her, I guess? But, at the same time, I don't want to force someone's hand, we've always been very honest with one another, but I can't help how I feel, or, at least, how I think I'm going to feel and when it comes down to it; to that decision between seeing her and not seeing her, I'm always going to go for the former. I guess I'm selfish like that.
Because that's what it will be ultimately, me forcing someone, who has told me from the start that this is just a bit of fun for them, to sit there whilst I parade my emotions in front of them, a little song and dance, tell them how much they mean to me, but, at the very same time, feel overwhelmingly cruel and guilty that I'm essentially trying to blackmail them into one of two things.
Either they go back on themselves, cave in, try and take things seriously - against their wishes. Or, they're the executioner, and they tell me in plain terms that it'll never happen and we probably shouldn't see one another anymore. I know these are the only two conclusions, but I'm too cowardly to accept that.
It's hypocritical of me, the amount of times I've told people that my lifestyle is not a choice. It's one of those questions you wind up tolerating; "Oh, so, when did you choose to be..." You try not to let the eye-roll show.
I struggle to sleep tonight, I wake up, feeling like I've been in bed for hours, though the clock says it's only 2am, yet the sky is a blue-black, like the sun's feeling impatient this morning. I nod off again, molding the pillow into a makeshift body for me to hold, and then, in what feels like seconds, I wake up again to a blazing, bright day and the clock tells me it's 7am.
However, there's something unnatural about the morning, the feel of the streets, the manner of my fellow commuters, it's calm and orderly, like it would be after the rush hour. But each clock I check just reiterates the time, it's ok, I'm not running late.
At noon I stand in the supermarket staring at the range of microwave meals that often comprises my lunch. There's a nice looking mushroom risotto for £4, but another in the cheap section. Out of both boredom and curiosity, I inspect the labels of each.
Whilst the list of ingriedients blurs into insignificance it's the place of manufacturer that ultimately grabs my attention, with both risottos having been produced and packaged in the very same factory in Chertsey. Ultimately, I realise, the only thing different about these two items is the packaging, one designed to look decadent and delicious, the other functional and basic.
But I still buy the more expensive one.
I sent a text to Iwona again, even though she hasn't replied to me since yesterday. It's been a few days since I saw her and I miss her, though I'm loath to mention this as it might seem a bit too clingy.
Are we the unstoppable force and the immovable object? Should one of us bow out gracefully before somebody gets hurt? I can't help but daydream that there must be some reason, some unconscious something, that is why we haven't done this yet. Though I suspect that we're both too selfish, we both want to get all we can from the other and only relinquish our hold when we absolutely have to. In that respect, how is this unlike any other relationship?
She told me she thought I was open minded, I think that's another stereotype people assume, that because they think it's a choice they imagine that all people are hard-wired to want the same relationships as everyone else, so anyone who chooses otherwise can flip-flop between the two. If you're a guy who likes guys then there's nothing stopping you from liking girls, if you're a girl who likes girls then there's nothing stopping you from liking guys, but if you're a girl or guy who likes the opposite sex then getting with someone of the same sex just isn't the done thing.
My mum re-married shortly after my father died. I wasn't shocked, I'd known for years that they weren't happy together, in fact, she'd been sleeping on a sofa in the lounge for the last year or so of their relationship. I think, if he hadn't had that heart attack, they would have got divorced around about the same time. At least I hope they would have.
They didn't want to be married, that was obvious to me and my sister, but they stayed together until we both left home. I was there last, saw the strained conversations most clearly, in that final Summer, after I'd finished University, earning some money before I moved up to the city.
I know that they only stayed together because of us, to make sure that we came from what they considered to be a stable family. It wasn't a stable family, whatever mask of domestic happiness they thought they had created barely covered their lies, eyes the most telltale feature, and stern mouths held fast as inappropriate comments passed idly over awkward dinnertimes. The farce of my mother carrying duvets and pillows downstairs every night, making her little nest, and then waking up first - or so she often believed - and re-creating the illusion of their normality.
My sister doesn't trust marriage now, but it once felt like the only way for people to move forward in life. These ceremonies, she argued, represented the illusion of progression. We had, as a society, created a series of events designed to act as milestones, deceiving us into thinking that we had achieved something, that we had accomplished a goal as a person, distracted us from the fact that we were, in actuality, unchanging, still fraught with the despair of our youth.
Nobody chooses to be born.
My mother once said, though she was half-asleep when she told me this, that I was an unwanted pregnancy. That her and my father had been fighting, she'd gone out and had some drinks, came home to find him crying, and she took pity on him. She didn't even think about the fact that she might have gotten pregnant, I guess she had deluded herself to think a child could only be conceived in love. When she started showing, when the doctor could confirm that she was going to have a daughter, she thought it was too late to abort me, though she wanted to, she wanted to say to the doctor there and then, Please, make it go away. But, the look in the doctor's eyes had frightened her, made her feel guilty, she couldn't bring herself to do what was in her heart and months later, I was born.
Both my parents remained quite distant from me, I was raised more by my sister, only a handful of years my elder, but still, as an eager five year old, she'd help change my nappies as best she could.
I was an anchor though, holding my mother to that relationship. If I had never been born she could have been free.
It's the end of the month, payday, and for a few fleeting hours my bank account will bob up to the surface, out of debt, draw a deep breath and then sink back under the waves. I have never really understood it, I try and budget, I don't go out as much as I used to, I home cook as much as possible, don't drink as regularly. But still, the money goes.
I scour through my statements trying to find the anomaly, the leak, an unknown standing order perhaps. But there's nothing out of the ordinary, and when I add it all up, it's exactly right, somehow - despite my best efforts, despite getting a raise again recently - that money still goes and I'm left pawing at the dappled sunshine seen through water, caught in the undertow.
I want to move out, move on, get a place to myself, start to make what little effigy of happiness I can, but I don't think I can do this on my own.
That's when I think I'm putting too many of my hopes and dreams in Iwona, too much responsibility unknowingly hoisted upon her shoulders. But surely, she wants these things too? And I'll wait, I don't want them now. But is it naive to keep scratching at the door, like some optimistic puppy, hoping to be taken in?
I feel guilty for feeling the way I do, as if I've allowed Pandora's Box to be opened. But I don't feel like I was complicit in the decision, this emotion was lumbered upon me as much as I am lumbering it upon Iwona. I feel like my mother, pregnant with something unwanted, desperate to get rid of it, but incapable - perhaps afraid - of doing so. For me, it's because I never want to be alone. What did my mother want? Once I was born the slow wait for me to leave began, was it so she could move on with her life, regain what was long lost? It wasn't her fault that she and my father fell out of love? I have to wonder if they were ever really in love to begin with? But, how do we know?
Love is subjective, which is maybe why it's easy for some and difficult for others. I wish I could care less, I wish spending time with Iwona wasn't so wonderful. I feel like a slave to unconscious decisions, but at the same time I am the only one who has the power to do anything about them, but it's only really the power to stubbornly battle on or to walk away. What kind of choice is that? There is no fork in the road, just one path, and we can either continue or turn around and retreat. Perhaps cowardice is just a derogatory term for wisdom? I know that I'm going to get hurt, but I keep moving forwards.
I had an important meeting this morning, but my train was delayed due to signalling problems and I missed my connecting service. I wound up getting into work 90 minutes late, having missed the meeting. A colleague had stepped into my absent place and done, so my boss told me, a brilliant job filling in. I began to feel my tenuous grasp on my job slipping a little from my fingers, and all I could do was say I'm sorry, it wasn't my fault the train was delayed. Feebly adding, It won't happen again, but it's not like I can control that.
For the rest of the day I'm shaking, my emotions are heightened, I'm perhaps a little too curt on the telephone to clients. I don't know why I feel this way, this is a job I've never enjoyed, yet I've stuck it out, never really looking for another role somewhere else, because I can get by doing this, I'm making a decent wage, I don't want to set myself back. But I'm not making any progress either. Sure, they up my salary every now and then, but where does it go from here? What am I trying to achieve?
Two weeks later they give me my notice, I have a month left at the office and I should start seriously hunting for a new career, but I give in to procrastination just as I have done for these past three years. Expecting someone else to pick up the pieces when it all falls apart.
I've been standing still, too afraid to walk forwards, too proud to walk back. I've let others find me, try and urge me to walk on, or at the very least, go back, see what it was I was heading towards, and try again. But we don't know, the path began without our permission, it just appeared, one day nothing and the next day expectation. Except, you can't see the end of the path, you don't get to dictate that either, and maybe you'll walk for a hundred years or maybe you'll walk for a day. Me, I shrink into myself, someone will come along soon, someone will put their arm in mine, they'll want to walk side by side, keeping me company, making sure I'm smiling, and they'll give me hope that there is something to look forward to. All paths have to lead somewhere.
Choices
Wearily I rub my eyes, my colleague is sat on the seat opposite me, our train heading towards the office.
"Feels like Thursday," she pines, it's only Tuesday.
I nod in agreement.
At work I head upstairs immediately, flick the kettle on, grab my preferred mug and am about to spoon in a miniature mountain of coffee, when I realise the jar is empty.
I try to cast my mind back to yesterday, remember that last cup of coffee I had, and I'm certain - adamant - that there was definitely enough coffee in the jar for at least three more cups. I can't imagine who else might have had a coffee, it's a small office, my boss is away on business, and everybody else prefers tea. Could I have been wrong?
I pop to the corner shop to buy some more coffee, hesitating at the display comprised almost exclusively of Nescafe brands and one cheap alternative that, experience suggests, will taste distractingly acrid. I could walk further down the road to a supermarket, but I feel bad for not being at work, I want to conserve my free-time for more important opportunities, so I nab the smallest jar of Nescafe - reasoning that I can get a more ethical alternative quite quickly - and head back to the office.
I text my girlfriend, just something inconsequential, but, after half an hour, I still haven't received a reply. I try to imagine all the things she might be doing that would prevent her from checking her phone, wonder why she doesn't realise that I just want a little bit of validation, just something to remind me that she still cares about me. I guess that's pretty desperate.
Perhaps I was being too optimistic, I reason, even going so far as to call her my girlfriend is a bold gesture. I mean, we've been seeing each other for a while, but I guess I'm more emotionally invested than she is. She says it's all quite new to her, I think she's treating it as a bit of fun, a little bit of experimentation, but for me it's serious, I mean, for her it's a choice, but for me it's not a choice, I was born this way, it's who I am.
Maybe I'm being naive to think that I can get her to change her mind, see me the way I see her, I guess? But, at the same time, I don't want to force someone's hand, we've always been very honest with one another, but I can't help how I feel, or, at least, how I think I'm going to feel and when it comes down to it; to that decision between seeing her and not seeing her, I'm always going to go for the former. I guess I'm selfish like that.
Because that's what it will be ultimately, me forcing someone, who has told me from the start that this is just a bit of fun for them, to sit there whilst I parade my emotions in front of them, a little song and dance, tell them how much they mean to me, but, at the very same time, feel overwhelmingly cruel and guilty that I'm essentially trying to blackmail them into one of two things.
Either they go back on themselves, cave in, try and take things seriously - against their wishes. Or, they're the executioner, and they tell me in plain terms that it'll never happen and we probably shouldn't see one another anymore. I know these are the only two conclusions, but I'm too cowardly to accept that.
It's hypocritical of me, the amount of times I've told people that my lifestyle is not a choice. It's one of those questions you wind up tolerating; "Oh, so, when did you choose to be..." You try not to let the eye-roll show.
I struggle to sleep tonight, I wake up, feeling like I've been in bed for hours, though the clock says it's only 2am, yet the sky is a blue-black, like the sun's feeling impatient this morning. I nod off again, molding the pillow into a makeshift body for me to hold, and then, in what feels like seconds, I wake up again to a blazing, bright day and the clock tells me it's 7am.
However, there's something unnatural about the morning, the feel of the streets, the manner of my fellow commuters, it's calm and orderly, like it would be after the rush hour. But each clock I check just reiterates the time, it's ok, I'm not running late.
At noon I stand in the supermarket staring at the range of microwave meals that often comprises my lunch. There's a nice looking mushroom risotto for £4, but another in the cheap section. Out of both boredom and curiosity, I inspect the labels of each.
Whilst the list of ingriedients blurs into insignificance it's the place of manufacturer that ultimately grabs my attention, with both risottos having been produced and packaged in the very same factory in Chertsey. Ultimately, I realise, the only thing different about these two items is the packaging, one designed to look decadent and delicious, the other functional and basic.
But I still buy the more expensive one.
I sent a text to Iwona again, even though she hasn't replied to me since yesterday. It's been a few days since I saw her and I miss her, though I'm loath to mention this as it might seem a bit too clingy.
Are we the unstoppable force and the immovable object? Should one of us bow out gracefully before somebody gets hurt? I can't help but daydream that there must be some reason, some unconscious something, that is why we haven't done this yet. Though I suspect that we're both too selfish, we both want to get all we can from the other and only relinquish our hold when we absolutely have to. In that respect, how is this unlike any other relationship?
She told me she thought I was open minded, I think that's another stereotype people assume, that because they think it's a choice they imagine that all people are hard-wired to want the same relationships as everyone else, so anyone who chooses otherwise can flip-flop between the two. If you're a guy who likes guys then there's nothing stopping you from liking girls, if you're a girl who likes girls then there's nothing stopping you from liking guys, but if you're a girl or guy who likes the opposite sex then getting with someone of the same sex just isn't the done thing.
My mum re-married shortly after my father died. I wasn't shocked, I'd known for years that they weren't happy together, in fact, she'd been sleeping on a sofa in the lounge for the last year or so of their relationship. I think, if he hadn't had that heart attack, they would have got divorced around about the same time. At least I hope they would have.
They didn't want to be married, that was obvious to me and my sister, but they stayed together until we both left home. I was there last, saw the strained conversations most clearly, in that final Summer, after I'd finished University, earning some money before I moved up to the city.
I know that they only stayed together because of us, to make sure that we came from what they considered to be a stable family. It wasn't a stable family, whatever mask of domestic happiness they thought they had created barely covered their lies, eyes the most telltale feature, and stern mouths held fast as inappropriate comments passed idly over awkward dinnertimes. The farce of my mother carrying duvets and pillows downstairs every night, making her little nest, and then waking up first - or so she often believed - and re-creating the illusion of their normality.
My sister doesn't trust marriage now, but it once felt like the only way for people to move forward in life. These ceremonies, she argued, represented the illusion of progression. We had, as a society, created a series of events designed to act as milestones, deceiving us into thinking that we had achieved something, that we had accomplished a goal as a person, distracted us from the fact that we were, in actuality, unchanging, still fraught with the despair of our youth.
Nobody chooses to be born.
My mother once said, though she was half-asleep when she told me this, that I was an unwanted pregnancy. That her and my father had been fighting, she'd gone out and had some drinks, came home to find him crying, and she took pity on him. She didn't even think about the fact that she might have gotten pregnant, I guess she had deluded herself to think a child could only be conceived in love. When she started showing, when the doctor could confirm that she was going to have a daughter, she thought it was too late to abort me, though she wanted to, she wanted to say to the doctor there and then, Please, make it go away. But, the look in the doctor's eyes had frightened her, made her feel guilty, she couldn't bring herself to do what was in her heart and months later, I was born.
Both my parents remained quite distant from me, I was raised more by my sister, only a handful of years my elder, but still, as an eager five year old, she'd help change my nappies as best she could.
I was an anchor though, holding my mother to that relationship. If I had never been born she could have been free.
It's the end of the month, payday, and for a few fleeting hours my bank account will bob up to the surface, out of debt, draw a deep breath and then sink back under the waves. I have never really understood it, I try and budget, I don't go out as much as I used to, I home cook as much as possible, don't drink as regularly. But still, the money goes.
I scour through my statements trying to find the anomaly, the leak, an unknown standing order perhaps. But there's nothing out of the ordinary, and when I add it all up, it's exactly right, somehow - despite my best efforts, despite getting a raise again recently - that money still goes and I'm left pawing at the dappled sunshine seen through water, caught in the undertow.
I want to move out, move on, get a place to myself, start to make what little effigy of happiness I can, but I don't think I can do this on my own.
That's when I think I'm putting too many of my hopes and dreams in Iwona, too much responsibility unknowingly hoisted upon her shoulders. But surely, she wants these things too? And I'll wait, I don't want them now. But is it naive to keep scratching at the door, like some optimistic puppy, hoping to be taken in?
I feel guilty for feeling the way I do, as if I've allowed Pandora's Box to be opened. But I don't feel like I was complicit in the decision, this emotion was lumbered upon me as much as I am lumbering it upon Iwona. I feel like my mother, pregnant with something unwanted, desperate to get rid of it, but incapable - perhaps afraid - of doing so. For me, it's because I never want to be alone. What did my mother want? Once I was born the slow wait for me to leave began, was it so she could move on with her life, regain what was long lost? It wasn't her fault that she and my father fell out of love? I have to wonder if they were ever really in love to begin with? But, how do we know?
Love is subjective, which is maybe why it's easy for some and difficult for others. I wish I could care less, I wish spending time with Iwona wasn't so wonderful. I feel like a slave to unconscious decisions, but at the same time I am the only one who has the power to do anything about them, but it's only really the power to stubbornly battle on or to walk away. What kind of choice is that? There is no fork in the road, just one path, and we can either continue or turn around and retreat. Perhaps cowardice is just a derogatory term for wisdom? I know that I'm going to get hurt, but I keep moving forwards.
I had an important meeting this morning, but my train was delayed due to signalling problems and I missed my connecting service. I wound up getting into work 90 minutes late, having missed the meeting. A colleague had stepped into my absent place and done, so my boss told me, a brilliant job filling in. I began to feel my tenuous grasp on my job slipping a little from my fingers, and all I could do was say I'm sorry, it wasn't my fault the train was delayed. Feebly adding, It won't happen again, but it's not like I can control that.
For the rest of the day I'm shaking, my emotions are heightened, I'm perhaps a little too curt on the telephone to clients. I don't know why I feel this way, this is a job I've never enjoyed, yet I've stuck it out, never really looking for another role somewhere else, because I can get by doing this, I'm making a decent wage, I don't want to set myself back. But I'm not making any progress either. Sure, they up my salary every now and then, but where does it go from here? What am I trying to achieve?
Two weeks later they give me my notice, I have a month left at the office and I should start seriously hunting for a new career, but I give in to procrastination just as I have done for these past three years. Expecting someone else to pick up the pieces when it all falls apart.
I've been standing still, too afraid to walk forwards, too proud to walk back. I've let others find me, try and urge me to walk on, or at the very least, go back, see what it was I was heading towards, and try again. But we don't know, the path began without our permission, it just appeared, one day nothing and the next day expectation. Except, you can't see the end of the path, you don't get to dictate that either, and maybe you'll walk for a hundred years or maybe you'll walk for a day. Me, I shrink into myself, someone will come along soon, someone will put their arm in mine, they'll want to walk side by side, keeping me company, making sure I'm smiling, and they'll give me hope that there is something to look forward to. All paths have to lead somewhere.
Thursday, 12 September 2013
The Morning Show
"Your marriage contract may be swiss cheese, but your TV commitments are air tight." He placed the two documents down, side by side, on the glass table, Steve and Sandra reflected across from him. Steve chewing the end of a biro, Sandra staring at the stains in an empty coffee cup, neither one having heard the words they wished to hear.
"Six months," Hilary added, making an attempt to emphasize it as a short, fleeting expanse of time.
The show always gave them a Summer break, starting in July, two new presenters - unmarried, younger, insipid - would step in until September. The contract had been for five years, ending at the start of the next break. This Friday lunchtime meeting was, they had both hoped, supposed to set them free from this commitment.
"Bloody Hell, we could annul our vows in an hour or two, this has dragged on all sodding month, and you're saying there's nothing?" Steve flicked the pen with his thumb and the plastic lid sailed like a champagne cork across the desk and over the shoulder of Marcus Davitt. Davitt took a long, slow sip of water, thinking to himself how much it was costing his client.
The lights dipped down, the countdown to titles went quiet, in the distance the theme music played, in her peripheral vision Sandra saw the second hand nimbly pass over the hour, and as cameras tracked towards them the lights came back up, pulling the corners of their mouths with them.
"Good morning," the two of them chimed into the round monocular machine that lunged forth.
"On today's show..." Sandra beamed, she always took Monday, and so on, alternating Fridays.
She curled her fingers back and forth, it was the first link, VT jumping hastily over them to deliver a - rare - pre-recorded menu of the day's programme. She pursed and pouted her lips, swilling salivia across her teeth and gums, nothing but bad taste.
"Did it show?" he asked, craning his neck towards a floor-runner, the behind of their ears as wet as the post-Uni flu twinkling around their nostrils.
"Did - did what show?"
"My contempt."
The show continued without incident, as they discussed the best holiday destinations for a warm winter break, the plots of last night's soaps, a sombre yet uplifting story about a woman's double masectomy, Sandra and Steve began to reflect the calendar in their head that slowly peeled back time, edging them on tip toes closer and closer to the release from their contractual obligations.
Steve had an in with a radio station, he wondered whether he'd get the driving to or driving from work slot, weighed up the pros and cons of each.
Sandra knew that Bonnie Hodder was going to be giving up her chair on Chit Chat in May, she hoped that being stuck on The Morning Show until July wouldn't put the producers off of considering her to fill the void.
So lost in their respective thoughts were they that they'd completely forgotten to sign off from Ethel's conclusion that had neatly, sweetly summarised her perspective coming out of surgery and how women shouldn't be afraid to see their doctor with any concerns. Instead, Ethel just sat there, her eyes drifting gradually, reluctantly, to look into the lens, a relationship only ordinarily broached by the two hosts.
"Wake up!" barked the producer, lips kissing the microphone and relayed, distorted, into their ear-pieces.
"Fuc-th-th-thank you, Ethel, inspiring stuff," Steve's limbs patted down his own body, checking his was all there, slowly returning to the studio, to this version of reality, and adopting the thoughtful, yet still cheerful, voice he always used following these 'life affirming' segments.
"Very," was all Sandra could offer in response, before facing the camera, "Stay tuned, after the break we'll be making a five minute cheesecake and Cat's Eyes will be playing their new single."
Simultaneously they plucked ear-pieces out and Ethel caught a fleeting snatch of expletives being bellowed from the gallery.
"Where were you?" Sandra turned on her ex-husband.
"Me? Did you read the script? That was my link to commercial, you're supposed to have wrapped up that natter."
"Ah yes, always reassigning blame," Sandra flattened her skirt as she stood and walked over to the kitchen set.
Steve, realising she'd somehow managed to re-reassign blame back to him leapt, propelled by impotent rage, from his chair in pursuit, leaving Ethel to look awkwardly around in search of a runner that wasn't either entranced by this erupting tiff or hiding their head in embarrassment.
A few calls had already come in querying the exact nature of Steve's earlier stutter, but there was only 15 minutes of the show left to get through, a speedy, activity filled cookery segment and a pop band miming along to their single, cutting away to a few noddies.
Harry's eyes grew wide and then quickly fixed themselves on his chopping board as the pair bounded over. Sandra's lips pursed, whilst Steve gracelessly flung himself from one end of the studio to another, managing to take the lead and blockade himself ahead of her.
"Don't you think," his teeth were clenched, his finger wagging, "not for one second, that you can make me look bad by deliberately fluffing your own lines and pretending it was me. You may have got the house, but you'll see which one of us gets the career."
"You think that's what this is?"
"Has it ever been anything else?"
"Grow up you fucking child."
Lights up, cameras moving in, the tableau of an argument still lingering, a palm clapped to forehead can be heard without amplifcation from the gallery booth.
"Welcome back," Harry, nervously, takes the helm, "now we join Harry Compton in the kitchen for some exciting, fast-paced dessert ideas. Harry, how are you?"
"This isn't over," Steve snarls, turning towards the glistening, terrified chef standing a little too close behind him. "Christ!"
"Harry," Sandra snatches the reins, "how are you?"
"Fine," it's gulped not spoken, "Yourselves?"
"You're going to make us a five minute cheesecake today, yes?" Steve grins, pronouncing forced enthusiasm from some long-since-scraped-dry reserve.
"Yes," Harry leans across for a pre-prepared bowl of mascarpone, Steve, startled, steps back and his sudden elbow connects.
"Ow! My boob!" screams Sandra, slapping Steve firmly across the back of the head in response, like a reprimanded Dickensian urchin.
"Cunt!" howls Steve.
There were costs involved, fees and fines to various departments responsible for keeping pre-watershed television clean and safe, but they weren't paid too begrudgingly.
At first the producers had wallowed in their own hypothesised demises, until their social media intern showed them the morning's trending topics, the gifs posted to tumblr, the 'Ow! My boob!' memes that had already been re-applied to numerous pop culture stills, the shakily filmed on a mobile phone from Tivo playback clips uploaded to Youtube of awkward pauses, curled lips and the sweary deneoument in all its glory, with a muffled commentary of giggles and a wealth of thumbs up button hits.
Fingers drummed on her dressing table, she flinched at every footstep passing her door, waiting for the summons up to the conference room for the inevitable reprimand.
But it never came, and she tentatively picked up her bag, play-acted walking to the door a few times before committing and, when she found that she wasn't stopped, continued walking to the exit, got in her car and drove home for the afternoon.
He watched the cold latte he had been handed swirl down the plughole, his half-asleep eyes drifited over to the pink pages on his dressing table, late additions to the show. It was getting near nine, he had to go to make-up.
As they brightened his face and calmed down the dark circles he'd fostered in the hotel bar last night he heard Sandra stomping through the corridors, she was berating someone somewhere via her mobile phone, so he grabbed the nearest possible distraction - a copy of Hiya! magazine - and buried his face in it, feigning interest.
"And at half ten," he found himself reading from the teleprompter, "we'll be talking to Adrian and Charley Simmons, who went to a marriage rehabilitation centre, about their experiences..." His features scrunched up into a question and his gaze stared beyond the camera.
"You seem puzzled," she relished the acknowledgment. "Did you not read your notes this morning?"
"No, I, just... just something in my, er, nose..." he hastily lied and scratched at the aforementioned proboscis to illustrate.
She shared her eye-roll with the viewers at home. "Now, here's Carol with today's weather. Carol..."
"Maggie!" Steve yelled, not remembering that his cry could be heard on the weather set in the corner of the studio.
"Keep it down," came Maggie's voice in his ear.
"What's this marriage rehab bollocks?" he whispered, "We're not having on-air counselling."
"It's not for you two, it's human interest, their experiences, the usual fluff."
"Good, because don't try and turn this into something it isn't."
"Wouldn't dream of it, dear."
Sandra nodded sympathetically along with Charley as she told her story, with a bittersweet smile, about how her and her husband had begun drifting apart shortly after their second child.
"I mean, I was never a glamour model," she smiled and Adrian gave her a theatrical leg squeeze, "but after our second my figure wasn't what it was, an' I think that Adrian just lost interest in, y'know, bedroom things."
"Right, right," Steve nodded, hunched forward, his index fingers propping up his chin.
"I think," Adrian added, "all couples go through things like that. But it caused a rift between us, the rehab centre, well, that put things in perspective."
"How do you mean?"
"Hmm?"
"What 'perspective' did you get?"
"About?"
"About your marriage, I mean, what were the magic words? People change, they fall out of love, you can't expect to stay besotted with someone as they reveal themselves to be a crooked, distortion of that person you believed they once were."
Sandra shuffled.
"But if you loved someone, then there must be something there, something that never goes away."
"Nah," Steve arched back, "that's boll-a load of rubbish."
"I think we're getting away from the point," Sandra interjected.
"Are we?" Steve wheeled his attention back to the wide eyes of Adrian and Charley, "Tell me guys, what do you think the most important thing in a relationship is?"
With almost rehearsed precision they looked at one another and responded in sync; "Trust."
Snapping his fingers and then pointing towards his ex Steve grinned, "She said stability."
"That's important," Sandra protested.
Leaning further forwards, censoring her from the conversation, "Roughly translated: money."
With a huff of indignation Sandra aimed to kick Steve in the shin, but missed and instead inched his chair back, causing his already flimsy perch to shift away and Steve toppled face first into the small, round glass coffee table in front of himself, remarkably, instantaneously, re-decorating it with a sudden red wash of blood from his nose.
Fortunately it had been a slow news day, exotic conflicts relegated to inside page column inches, so the bloody nose incident was all over the front of the red tops; Morning Gory was the pick of the headlines.
Steve, not wishing to concede any sort of hypothetical 'victory' was sat on the sofa, running through the script, a large, square bandage taped across his face, a dull reddish brown stain from yesterday's gush. His sip of coffee was soundtracked by a wince as the plastic lid, ever so gingerly, tapped the end of his nose.
"He's got that martyr's air," Sandra griped quietly to a runner who stood awkwardly holding a clip mic, uncertain as to whether she was supposed to put it up Sandra's top or not. "If he makes one light-hearted reference about it, one pun, I'll..." Sandra calmed herself down, realising the futility of her own threat.
Moving onto a makeshift cocktail bar set the two of them shook the hand of the highly groomed mixologist who would be showing them a few recipes and tricks.
"Cocktails this early," Steve smiled, "I'll hand you over to Sandra on that one."
She heard a cameraman snort a laugh.
"Well," Jim blinked the comment away and grabbed his shaker, "let me show you some simple and colourful cocktail recipes, that'll be sure to go down a storm at parties."
Jim shuffled down the bar towards the prepared fruits, Steve flipped up the counter-flap and scurried after him, staying with the camera. Sandra, naively expecting courtesy, found herself under a descending counter-flap which, though it managed to dodge most of her, took a strong liking to the little finger of her left hand, clamping it tenaciously in its hinged section causing, the now off-camera Sandra, to let forth with an unexpected cry of:
"The absolute fuckery!"
They, once again, cut to an impromptu episode of Shed Loads Of Cash, despite Steve's protestations that he could finish the show alone whilst Sandra was hurried to hospital, her finger carried by an intern now struggling to contain their breakfast.
And so it continued, some days were quiet, the rage bubbled under the surface, yet tensions were all too perceptible whether the faces showed scars or not. A cross word here, a snide remark there, a jibe about how they looked, what they wore, a turn of phrase.
Papers continued to reproduce pixelated, blurred stills of the couple's on-screen friction, and the internet gathered together, in an ever growing huddle, for each new episode, hands poised over keys, ready to live-tweet their hysterical shock, outrage and hilarity. You could do an online test to find out if you were a Steve or a Sandra, it became a popular costume choice for couples attending fancy dress parties, they could jokingly dismantle their own relationship through the playful pretence that they hated one another, it was a coping tool that put their foibles in perspective in many ways.
And it brought in so much revenue, fearing the end the channel nudged up the price of advertising slots, first in tentative increments, but soon doubling, tripling airtime, for which companies were all too eager to stump up the cash to capitalise on that daytime, disposable-income demographic.
It became, for the hosts, par for the course, a succession of fluff until the first one would crack. It was inevitable one of them would, and they barely flinched now at the elbowed rib, the tripped foot, the palm to the skull, the jab in the arm, the kicked shin, the slapped face.
Under ethereal Christmas tree lights sat presents that Steve and Sandra handed out to the guests of that Friday's episode, and come the end of the gift giving the only empty hands were their own. As a pop band joined them all to sing a carol, fingers curled, lacking a brightly wrapped package, they became balled fists and, with nothing holding them back, the two quietly, sadly, pummelled one another in the back of shot.
And the camera pushed in.
And the ratings kept climbing.
"Six months," Hilary added, making an attempt to emphasize it as a short, fleeting expanse of time.
The show always gave them a Summer break, starting in July, two new presenters - unmarried, younger, insipid - would step in until September. The contract had been for five years, ending at the start of the next break. This Friday lunchtime meeting was, they had both hoped, supposed to set them free from this commitment.
"Bloody Hell, we could annul our vows in an hour or two, this has dragged on all sodding month, and you're saying there's nothing?" Steve flicked the pen with his thumb and the plastic lid sailed like a champagne cork across the desk and over the shoulder of Marcus Davitt. Davitt took a long, slow sip of water, thinking to himself how much it was costing his client.
The lights dipped down, the countdown to titles went quiet, in the distance the theme music played, in her peripheral vision Sandra saw the second hand nimbly pass over the hour, and as cameras tracked towards them the lights came back up, pulling the corners of their mouths with them.
"Good morning," the two of them chimed into the round monocular machine that lunged forth.
"On today's show..." Sandra beamed, she always took Monday, and so on, alternating Fridays.
She curled her fingers back and forth, it was the first link, VT jumping hastily over them to deliver a - rare - pre-recorded menu of the day's programme. She pursed and pouted her lips, swilling salivia across her teeth and gums, nothing but bad taste.
"Did it show?" he asked, craning his neck towards a floor-runner, the behind of their ears as wet as the post-Uni flu twinkling around their nostrils.
"Did - did what show?"
"My contempt."
The show continued without incident, as they discussed the best holiday destinations for a warm winter break, the plots of last night's soaps, a sombre yet uplifting story about a woman's double masectomy, Sandra and Steve began to reflect the calendar in their head that slowly peeled back time, edging them on tip toes closer and closer to the release from their contractual obligations.
Steve had an in with a radio station, he wondered whether he'd get the driving to or driving from work slot, weighed up the pros and cons of each.
Sandra knew that Bonnie Hodder was going to be giving up her chair on Chit Chat in May, she hoped that being stuck on The Morning Show until July wouldn't put the producers off of considering her to fill the void.
So lost in their respective thoughts were they that they'd completely forgotten to sign off from Ethel's conclusion that had neatly, sweetly summarised her perspective coming out of surgery and how women shouldn't be afraid to see their doctor with any concerns. Instead, Ethel just sat there, her eyes drifting gradually, reluctantly, to look into the lens, a relationship only ordinarily broached by the two hosts.
"Wake up!" barked the producer, lips kissing the microphone and relayed, distorted, into their ear-pieces.
"Fuc-th-th-thank you, Ethel, inspiring stuff," Steve's limbs patted down his own body, checking his was all there, slowly returning to the studio, to this version of reality, and adopting the thoughtful, yet still cheerful, voice he always used following these 'life affirming' segments.
"Very," was all Sandra could offer in response, before facing the camera, "Stay tuned, after the break we'll be making a five minute cheesecake and Cat's Eyes will be playing their new single."
Simultaneously they plucked ear-pieces out and Ethel caught a fleeting snatch of expletives being bellowed from the gallery.
"Where were you?" Sandra turned on her ex-husband.
"Me? Did you read the script? That was my link to commercial, you're supposed to have wrapped up that natter."
"Ah yes, always reassigning blame," Sandra flattened her skirt as she stood and walked over to the kitchen set.
Steve, realising she'd somehow managed to re-reassign blame back to him leapt, propelled by impotent rage, from his chair in pursuit, leaving Ethel to look awkwardly around in search of a runner that wasn't either entranced by this erupting tiff or hiding their head in embarrassment.
A few calls had already come in querying the exact nature of Steve's earlier stutter, but there was only 15 minutes of the show left to get through, a speedy, activity filled cookery segment and a pop band miming along to their single, cutting away to a few noddies.
Harry's eyes grew wide and then quickly fixed themselves on his chopping board as the pair bounded over. Sandra's lips pursed, whilst Steve gracelessly flung himself from one end of the studio to another, managing to take the lead and blockade himself ahead of her.
"Don't you think," his teeth were clenched, his finger wagging, "not for one second, that you can make me look bad by deliberately fluffing your own lines and pretending it was me. You may have got the house, but you'll see which one of us gets the career."
"You think that's what this is?"
"Has it ever been anything else?"
"Grow up you fucking child."
Lights up, cameras moving in, the tableau of an argument still lingering, a palm clapped to forehead can be heard without amplifcation from the gallery booth.
"Welcome back," Harry, nervously, takes the helm, "now we join Harry Compton in the kitchen for some exciting, fast-paced dessert ideas. Harry, how are you?"
"This isn't over," Steve snarls, turning towards the glistening, terrified chef standing a little too close behind him. "Christ!"
"Harry," Sandra snatches the reins, "how are you?"
"Fine," it's gulped not spoken, "Yourselves?"
"You're going to make us a five minute cheesecake today, yes?" Steve grins, pronouncing forced enthusiasm from some long-since-scraped-dry reserve.
"Yes," Harry leans across for a pre-prepared bowl of mascarpone, Steve, startled, steps back and his sudden elbow connects.
"Ow! My boob!" screams Sandra, slapping Steve firmly across the back of the head in response, like a reprimanded Dickensian urchin.
"Cunt!" howls Steve.
There were costs involved, fees and fines to various departments responsible for keeping pre-watershed television clean and safe, but they weren't paid too begrudgingly.
At first the producers had wallowed in their own hypothesised demises, until their social media intern showed them the morning's trending topics, the gifs posted to tumblr, the 'Ow! My boob!' memes that had already been re-applied to numerous pop culture stills, the shakily filmed on a mobile phone from Tivo playback clips uploaded to Youtube of awkward pauses, curled lips and the sweary deneoument in all its glory, with a muffled commentary of giggles and a wealth of thumbs up button hits.
Fingers drummed on her dressing table, she flinched at every footstep passing her door, waiting for the summons up to the conference room for the inevitable reprimand.
But it never came, and she tentatively picked up her bag, play-acted walking to the door a few times before committing and, when she found that she wasn't stopped, continued walking to the exit, got in her car and drove home for the afternoon.
He watched the cold latte he had been handed swirl down the plughole, his half-asleep eyes drifited over to the pink pages on his dressing table, late additions to the show. It was getting near nine, he had to go to make-up.
As they brightened his face and calmed down the dark circles he'd fostered in the hotel bar last night he heard Sandra stomping through the corridors, she was berating someone somewhere via her mobile phone, so he grabbed the nearest possible distraction - a copy of Hiya! magazine - and buried his face in it, feigning interest.
"And at half ten," he found himself reading from the teleprompter, "we'll be talking to Adrian and Charley Simmons, who went to a marriage rehabilitation centre, about their experiences..." His features scrunched up into a question and his gaze stared beyond the camera.
"You seem puzzled," she relished the acknowledgment. "Did you not read your notes this morning?"
"No, I, just... just something in my, er, nose..." he hastily lied and scratched at the aforementioned proboscis to illustrate.
She shared her eye-roll with the viewers at home. "Now, here's Carol with today's weather. Carol..."
"Maggie!" Steve yelled, not remembering that his cry could be heard on the weather set in the corner of the studio.
"Keep it down," came Maggie's voice in his ear.
"What's this marriage rehab bollocks?" he whispered, "We're not having on-air counselling."
"It's not for you two, it's human interest, their experiences, the usual fluff."
"Good, because don't try and turn this into something it isn't."
"Wouldn't dream of it, dear."
Sandra nodded sympathetically along with Charley as she told her story, with a bittersweet smile, about how her and her husband had begun drifting apart shortly after their second child.
"I mean, I was never a glamour model," she smiled and Adrian gave her a theatrical leg squeeze, "but after our second my figure wasn't what it was, an' I think that Adrian just lost interest in, y'know, bedroom things."
"Right, right," Steve nodded, hunched forward, his index fingers propping up his chin.
"I think," Adrian added, "all couples go through things like that. But it caused a rift between us, the rehab centre, well, that put things in perspective."
"How do you mean?"
"Hmm?"
"What 'perspective' did you get?"
"About?"
"About your marriage, I mean, what were the magic words? People change, they fall out of love, you can't expect to stay besotted with someone as they reveal themselves to be a crooked, distortion of that person you believed they once were."
Sandra shuffled.
"But if you loved someone, then there must be something there, something that never goes away."
"Nah," Steve arched back, "that's boll-a load of rubbish."
"I think we're getting away from the point," Sandra interjected.
"Are we?" Steve wheeled his attention back to the wide eyes of Adrian and Charley, "Tell me guys, what do you think the most important thing in a relationship is?"
With almost rehearsed precision they looked at one another and responded in sync; "Trust."
Snapping his fingers and then pointing towards his ex Steve grinned, "She said stability."
"That's important," Sandra protested.
Leaning further forwards, censoring her from the conversation, "Roughly translated: money."
With a huff of indignation Sandra aimed to kick Steve in the shin, but missed and instead inched his chair back, causing his already flimsy perch to shift away and Steve toppled face first into the small, round glass coffee table in front of himself, remarkably, instantaneously, re-decorating it with a sudden red wash of blood from his nose.
Fortunately it had been a slow news day, exotic conflicts relegated to inside page column inches, so the bloody nose incident was all over the front of the red tops; Morning Gory was the pick of the headlines.
Steve, not wishing to concede any sort of hypothetical 'victory' was sat on the sofa, running through the script, a large, square bandage taped across his face, a dull reddish brown stain from yesterday's gush. His sip of coffee was soundtracked by a wince as the plastic lid, ever so gingerly, tapped the end of his nose.
"He's got that martyr's air," Sandra griped quietly to a runner who stood awkwardly holding a clip mic, uncertain as to whether she was supposed to put it up Sandra's top or not. "If he makes one light-hearted reference about it, one pun, I'll..." Sandra calmed herself down, realising the futility of her own threat.
Moving onto a makeshift cocktail bar set the two of them shook the hand of the highly groomed mixologist who would be showing them a few recipes and tricks.
"Cocktails this early," Steve smiled, "I'll hand you over to Sandra on that one."
She heard a cameraman snort a laugh.
"Well," Jim blinked the comment away and grabbed his shaker, "let me show you some simple and colourful cocktail recipes, that'll be sure to go down a storm at parties."
Jim shuffled down the bar towards the prepared fruits, Steve flipped up the counter-flap and scurried after him, staying with the camera. Sandra, naively expecting courtesy, found herself under a descending counter-flap which, though it managed to dodge most of her, took a strong liking to the little finger of her left hand, clamping it tenaciously in its hinged section causing, the now off-camera Sandra, to let forth with an unexpected cry of:
"The absolute fuckery!"
They, once again, cut to an impromptu episode of Shed Loads Of Cash, despite Steve's protestations that he could finish the show alone whilst Sandra was hurried to hospital, her finger carried by an intern now struggling to contain their breakfast.
And so it continued, some days were quiet, the rage bubbled under the surface, yet tensions were all too perceptible whether the faces showed scars or not. A cross word here, a snide remark there, a jibe about how they looked, what they wore, a turn of phrase.
Papers continued to reproduce pixelated, blurred stills of the couple's on-screen friction, and the internet gathered together, in an ever growing huddle, for each new episode, hands poised over keys, ready to live-tweet their hysterical shock, outrage and hilarity. You could do an online test to find out if you were a Steve or a Sandra, it became a popular costume choice for couples attending fancy dress parties, they could jokingly dismantle their own relationship through the playful pretence that they hated one another, it was a coping tool that put their foibles in perspective in many ways.
And it brought in so much revenue, fearing the end the channel nudged up the price of advertising slots, first in tentative increments, but soon doubling, tripling airtime, for which companies were all too eager to stump up the cash to capitalise on that daytime, disposable-income demographic.
It became, for the hosts, par for the course, a succession of fluff until the first one would crack. It was inevitable one of them would, and they barely flinched now at the elbowed rib, the tripped foot, the palm to the skull, the jab in the arm, the kicked shin, the slapped face.
Under ethereal Christmas tree lights sat presents that Steve and Sandra handed out to the guests of that Friday's episode, and come the end of the gift giving the only empty hands were their own. As a pop band joined them all to sing a carol, fingers curled, lacking a brightly wrapped package, they became balled fists and, with nothing holding them back, the two quietly, sadly, pummelled one another in the back of shot.
And the camera pushed in.
And the ratings kept climbing.
Tuesday, 3 September 2013
Earlybird
The problem with being psychic is you get nostalgic for things that haven't happened yet.
I was watching a squirrel move erratically around the base of a tree, I couldn't tell if it was looking for food or had already found some but forgotten where it had buried it, and I began thinking about Lea.
We wouldn't meet for another four years, which was a shame, because I already have so much love for her, I'm impatient with it, it's like buying someone a present you know they're going to adore, but you've found it months before their birthday and you just can't wait to give it to them, to see them smile.
My colleague, Amy, roused me from my daydreaming, handed me a wad of papers, told me that they needed to be signed off by the close of business. I drew the blinds so that the squirrel, and the future memories, wouldn't distract me.
I've never been able to shake the thought though, the horrible sense of waiting that comes from its inevitability. January 17th, that's when I'll meet her, I don't need to make a note of the date, ever since I first knew the future it's been etched into my thoughts.
But I've always been impatient, I could never wait for anything as a kid, I would bawl and scream for my lunch as soon as I'd finished my breakfast, and then dinner straight after that, it was as if the world were too slow for me. I think that's what caused me to become psychic, this impatience, this desire to have tomorrow today, and over time my reach got hungrier, stretching our beyond tomorrow's tomorrow until I saw all my tomorrows, and now I'm no longer thirsty for that knowledge, instead I crave the experiences of what I know is due me.
That's why I chose to find her, I remembered a conversation we are going to have about the past, about what she was doing now, where she was studying, and I decided to take a week off of work and hang around in the city where she would be, where her present life is, before the chain of events that would lead us to meeting, and I walked the city's streets, I went to the bars she may have mentioned in off-handed remarks in reminisces that she's now initially experiencing.
Irregardless of chronology we shared a moment, perhaps spurred on by my own search, so when my eyes finally found hers there will filled with a strange kind of optimism, and she felt it too. She didn't know how much like destiny it felt, though she said it seemed so predetermined that very evening, as if there were something magical about it all, it fuelled the romance of that night.
We drank, we laughed, she was the first to make contact, to run fingertips across my bare forearm and we fell silent, our eyes looking up from the touch to one another, to lips in need of moisture, a sure sign, and we walked along the late night street away from the bar, into the square, dizzy hands, draped playfully around lamp-posts in a parody of theatricality, emphasizing the moment, the muchness of it all, and we kissed.
I had beaten time and fate, I had taken my future and kicked my feet eager against the sides, spurring it on.
But it was not to last, the next day she was full of regret, shame and sadness, she had a boyfriend, they'd been together for two years, I'd forgotten about him, and she was a mess of tears for what she'd done. I sneaked out, gave her my number, told her to call me.
She said that she felt something, something special for me, and she didn't want to sound crazy, but it was like she knew she would meet me one day, but, knuckles paw hastily, pre-emptively against a damp eye, it wasn't supposed to be yesterday. She sighed, jokingly cursed about having a boyfriend, but didn't take kindly to my suggestion that if she felt that way about me then maybe she should end things with him, that maybe she should just follow her heart, and she smiled sweetly but seriously and told me life isn't like that. It should be, I spat back, a little too petulant.
We kissed goodbye, I told her that if she ever needed to she could call me, no matter how much time had passed, no matter where she imagined I might be. Her smile was sad. I caught the train home.
Four years later on January 17th I was waiting for her, but she wasn't there. I had written the date down in my diary as well, as it was becoming harder to keep it in my head, the future was harder to see in general, I know I'd changed things, but I wasn't prepared for this lack of foreknowledge, this foggy lack of clarity, because as hard as I try all I can see now in my future is nothingness.
I was watching a squirrel move erratically around the base of a tree, I couldn't tell if it was looking for food or had already found some but forgotten where it had buried it, and I began thinking about Lea.
We wouldn't meet for another four years, which was a shame, because I already have so much love for her, I'm impatient with it, it's like buying someone a present you know they're going to adore, but you've found it months before their birthday and you just can't wait to give it to them, to see them smile.
My colleague, Amy, roused me from my daydreaming, handed me a wad of papers, told me that they needed to be signed off by the close of business. I drew the blinds so that the squirrel, and the future memories, wouldn't distract me.
I've never been able to shake the thought though, the horrible sense of waiting that comes from its inevitability. January 17th, that's when I'll meet her, I don't need to make a note of the date, ever since I first knew the future it's been etched into my thoughts.
But I've always been impatient, I could never wait for anything as a kid, I would bawl and scream for my lunch as soon as I'd finished my breakfast, and then dinner straight after that, it was as if the world were too slow for me. I think that's what caused me to become psychic, this impatience, this desire to have tomorrow today, and over time my reach got hungrier, stretching our beyond tomorrow's tomorrow until I saw all my tomorrows, and now I'm no longer thirsty for that knowledge, instead I crave the experiences of what I know is due me.
That's why I chose to find her, I remembered a conversation we are going to have about the past, about what she was doing now, where she was studying, and I decided to take a week off of work and hang around in the city where she would be, where her present life is, before the chain of events that would lead us to meeting, and I walked the city's streets, I went to the bars she may have mentioned in off-handed remarks in reminisces that she's now initially experiencing.
Irregardless of chronology we shared a moment, perhaps spurred on by my own search, so when my eyes finally found hers there will filled with a strange kind of optimism, and she felt it too. She didn't know how much like destiny it felt, though she said it seemed so predetermined that very evening, as if there were something magical about it all, it fuelled the romance of that night.
We drank, we laughed, she was the first to make contact, to run fingertips across my bare forearm and we fell silent, our eyes looking up from the touch to one another, to lips in need of moisture, a sure sign, and we walked along the late night street away from the bar, into the square, dizzy hands, draped playfully around lamp-posts in a parody of theatricality, emphasizing the moment, the muchness of it all, and we kissed.
I had beaten time and fate, I had taken my future and kicked my feet eager against the sides, spurring it on.
But it was not to last, the next day she was full of regret, shame and sadness, she had a boyfriend, they'd been together for two years, I'd forgotten about him, and she was a mess of tears for what she'd done. I sneaked out, gave her my number, told her to call me.
She said that she felt something, something special for me, and she didn't want to sound crazy, but it was like she knew she would meet me one day, but, knuckles paw hastily, pre-emptively against a damp eye, it wasn't supposed to be yesterday. She sighed, jokingly cursed about having a boyfriend, but didn't take kindly to my suggestion that if she felt that way about me then maybe she should end things with him, that maybe she should just follow her heart, and she smiled sweetly but seriously and told me life isn't like that. It should be, I spat back, a little too petulant.
We kissed goodbye, I told her that if she ever needed to she could call me, no matter how much time had passed, no matter where she imagined I might be. Her smile was sad. I caught the train home.
Four years later on January 17th I was waiting for her, but she wasn't there. I had written the date down in my diary as well, as it was becoming harder to keep it in my head, the future was harder to see in general, I know I'd changed things, but I wasn't prepared for this lack of foreknowledge, this foggy lack of clarity, because as hard as I try all I can see now in my future is nothingness.
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Anhedonia
They all shouted Surprise! and someone stretched out a cake towards me, a big beaming smile on their face illuminated by the glow of the candles. I dread to think what expression those multi-coloured candles brought to light on my own mug.
A friend of mine once told me that I have a Fuck-Off vibe, and this was why I found it hard to make new friends from strangers when we all went out. I would sit enviously, perched in the corner of a nightclub, staring out into the little gatherings of people, laughing, chatting, getting to know one another, and many, ultimately, slobbering across one another's faces. I was partially envious, but also full of contempt. Perhaps the second expression registered more strongly, and that is why nobody approached me to engage me in conversation?
I don't think contempt is the face lit up by the birthday candles - 30 of them - I find it hard to muster any kind of feeling at present, because despite their joyous cheer this is anything but a surprise. Sure, I wasn't expecting it, but a birthday surprise is, to some extent, an entirely forseeable inevitability. Of the limited range of things that could occur on a person's birthday this is probably one of the most obvious. Especially on a so-called milestone like this.
It's hard to be surprised when you think about things as much as I do, I mean, there's very little that can genuinely surprise you. If you're crossing the road the chances of being hit by a car are greatly increased, so you think about that, you look both ways, you do your best not to be hit by a car, but there is always a chance that you will be, so it can't really come as that much of a shock.
More so than that though, if a friend is late I will begin by assuming the worst - they have died somehow - I will list the many ways in which they could have conceivably died - hit by a car, mugged and stabbed, a slate fell from a rooftop, choked on some food, etc. - and follow this train of thought to reasons why they may be late, right up to them just being not very good at time keeping, so that by the time they do arrive I have already imagined every possible excuse they could possibly have presented outside of the absurd.
Only the absurd is left to shock me, and things like that never happen, and I mean it would have to be truly bizarre, not even the arrival of an alien species could throw me, because it is entirely probable that one day this might happen, and, unless the aliens took on a form so utterly impossible to imagine there is no way that I would feel at all disturbed by their presence.
I think I began to really take things in my stride when she broke up with me by accident. A mis-sent text, it all seemed so inevitable, I guess suspicion can act as a cushion, plus I'd had my heart broken before. It didn't really bother me, I figured that she should be happy, and if she's not happy with me then that's fine, she should leave me and seek happiness wherever it may be. So, for me, it was all so simple, meet up, finalise the termination of our relationship, and move on with our lives. I was surprised she cried when we hugged goodbye, but some people cry when leaving one job to go to another better one, such a strange emotional expression.
When I felt the urge to cry, which I haven't in years, I would stop myself, it seemed like such a waste, usually because I was alone, so firstly why should I perform these crying theatrics for an absent audience, and secondly I should probably save my tears for something really devastating, and not just splurge them frivilously on my petty depressions. But, events that other people might perhaps consider devastating came and went, and I did not cry.
However, it's cheap of me to wish to only use my emotions to effect others, though I'm not sure how else to ever derive a reaction from people. I feel so utterly unnecessary as a part of any human interaction, that I have often found myself slowly edged out of circles of friends, often literally - a conversational circle was close in front of me, meaning I am standing on the outside, facing someone's back, peeking hopelessly over their shoulders. Whenever I speak the enthusiasm on other's faces seems to visibly vanish, leaving a bemused expression expecting me to say something to reassure them that I'm not devoid of character, and consistently I fail.
Why, I think, should I even continue to attempt to become a part of groups that don't want to incorporate me? But how will I ever meet someone if all my efforts are in vane? Though why bother at all? I enjoy my own company, I can entertain myself and I don't need the approval of someone else to live my own life, do what I want to do, and why should I have to share my time, my needs? But, the choice to share, that'd be nice.
They cut the cake into large segments, start passing it around on paper plates, I try my best to avoid taking a slice, I don't really like cake, but there's this pressure upon me - as the cake was made, without my consent, for me - that I should eat a piece and enjoy it, offer approving noises, and everyone will watch, take photographs, and make ridiculous cooing sounds as I am forced to shove a stodgy lump of icing encased sponge into my maw. I don't want to, but I oblige.
A friend of mine once told me that I have a Fuck-Off vibe, and this was why I found it hard to make new friends from strangers when we all went out. I would sit enviously, perched in the corner of a nightclub, staring out into the little gatherings of people, laughing, chatting, getting to know one another, and many, ultimately, slobbering across one another's faces. I was partially envious, but also full of contempt. Perhaps the second expression registered more strongly, and that is why nobody approached me to engage me in conversation?
I don't think contempt is the face lit up by the birthday candles - 30 of them - I find it hard to muster any kind of feeling at present, because despite their joyous cheer this is anything but a surprise. Sure, I wasn't expecting it, but a birthday surprise is, to some extent, an entirely forseeable inevitability. Of the limited range of things that could occur on a person's birthday this is probably one of the most obvious. Especially on a so-called milestone like this.
It's hard to be surprised when you think about things as much as I do, I mean, there's very little that can genuinely surprise you. If you're crossing the road the chances of being hit by a car are greatly increased, so you think about that, you look both ways, you do your best not to be hit by a car, but there is always a chance that you will be, so it can't really come as that much of a shock.
More so than that though, if a friend is late I will begin by assuming the worst - they have died somehow - I will list the many ways in which they could have conceivably died - hit by a car, mugged and stabbed, a slate fell from a rooftop, choked on some food, etc. - and follow this train of thought to reasons why they may be late, right up to them just being not very good at time keeping, so that by the time they do arrive I have already imagined every possible excuse they could possibly have presented outside of the absurd.
Only the absurd is left to shock me, and things like that never happen, and I mean it would have to be truly bizarre, not even the arrival of an alien species could throw me, because it is entirely probable that one day this might happen, and, unless the aliens took on a form so utterly impossible to imagine there is no way that I would feel at all disturbed by their presence.
I think I began to really take things in my stride when she broke up with me by accident. A mis-sent text, it all seemed so inevitable, I guess suspicion can act as a cushion, plus I'd had my heart broken before. It didn't really bother me, I figured that she should be happy, and if she's not happy with me then that's fine, she should leave me and seek happiness wherever it may be. So, for me, it was all so simple, meet up, finalise the termination of our relationship, and move on with our lives. I was surprised she cried when we hugged goodbye, but some people cry when leaving one job to go to another better one, such a strange emotional expression.
When I felt the urge to cry, which I haven't in years, I would stop myself, it seemed like such a waste, usually because I was alone, so firstly why should I perform these crying theatrics for an absent audience, and secondly I should probably save my tears for something really devastating, and not just splurge them frivilously on my petty depressions. But, events that other people might perhaps consider devastating came and went, and I did not cry.
However, it's cheap of me to wish to only use my emotions to effect others, though I'm not sure how else to ever derive a reaction from people. I feel so utterly unnecessary as a part of any human interaction, that I have often found myself slowly edged out of circles of friends, often literally - a conversational circle was close in front of me, meaning I am standing on the outside, facing someone's back, peeking hopelessly over their shoulders. Whenever I speak the enthusiasm on other's faces seems to visibly vanish, leaving a bemused expression expecting me to say something to reassure them that I'm not devoid of character, and consistently I fail.
Why, I think, should I even continue to attempt to become a part of groups that don't want to incorporate me? But how will I ever meet someone if all my efforts are in vane? Though why bother at all? I enjoy my own company, I can entertain myself and I don't need the approval of someone else to live my own life, do what I want to do, and why should I have to share my time, my needs? But, the choice to share, that'd be nice.
They cut the cake into large segments, start passing it around on paper plates, I try my best to avoid taking a slice, I don't really like cake, but there's this pressure upon me - as the cake was made, without my consent, for me - that I should eat a piece and enjoy it, offer approving noises, and everyone will watch, take photographs, and make ridiculous cooing sounds as I am forced to shove a stodgy lump of icing encased sponge into my maw. I don't want to, but I oblige.
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
Lovesick
I had been drinking. I was depressed, things weren't going so great with Lucy, we'd had one of those awkward conversations that feels like a precursor to us breaking up. Right now, it seemed so inevitable, it almost felt like we had broken up. All I could think about was how much I loved her, how much I didn't want things to be over.
So, sitting here, toast growing cold on the plate in front of me, cup of tea doing little to dull the throbbing in my head, and me, swimming in shame that I went out last night, got drunk, and kissed a girl I met in a bar.
There's a text on my phone from her, though I'd drunkenly put her name in as Aabygull, I'm assuming I meant to type Abigail, but I daren't read it, because it seems - from the few previewed words - so full of joy and happiness, and I know already that I have to tell her it was just a thing, just a drunken slip, because I'm in love with Lucy.
I ignore the message for too long, to the point where I'm starting to think that maybe I can get away with not replying, but then another text comes through, and it shows no diminished sense of optimism, instead it looks like she's suggesting evening plans. I'm going to have to respond.
Sure enough, it's a buoyant, bright message asking if I want to go to the cinema. I hate cinema dates, you have to sit there in silence with this person you barely know, concerned that the film isn't entertaining them, that you're not entertaining them, but, at the same time, you don't want to talk all the way through the film. On the plus side, at least it gives you something to talk about afterwards, but what if they don't really like talking about films? You assume they must if they're going to suggest a cinema date, but... Wait, it doesn't matter, I've just got to make this a clean cut thing, we can't keep seeing one another, I made a mistake.
But I hesitate, she wants to see a screening of John Carpenter's The Thing at the Prince Charles Cinema, I'd love to see it on the big screen. Maybe, I think, I can negotiate this into a friendship, I mean, I've kissed girls before and become friends with them, good friends.
So I reply, say that'd be good, we arrange to grab a quick drink beforehand.
Lucy sends me a text an hour later, apologising for the argument yesterday, though I didn't quite frame it as an argument, we were just discussing what we wanted for our respective futures and the contradictions that threw up, which had ultimately lead me to believe that things would have to come to an end to allow either of us to move on with our lives, at least as far as our non-romantic ambitions were concerned. Yes, in the midst of that debate I was thinking about things cynically, I was taking our relationship for granted, and it was only afterwards that the full potentiality of what I stood to lose presented itself clearly in my mind, and it was then - as I drank - that my love for Lucy was ever more cemented in my head and my heart. But, it's ok, I've got everything in order now, I know what I want, and this is a good sign if she's reaching out, offering the olive branch.
Abigail texts back, a happy face made of letters, she says she's looking forward to seeing me and puts an upper and lowercase kiss at the end. This is going to be difficult.
All I can think about when Abigail and I meet up that evening is Lucy, I'm aware of myself conversing with Abigail, but it feels responsive rather than an engaged process, nevertheless she doesn't seem to be aware of my distance. We have a couple of quick beers, head to the cinema, watch the film, half-way through I can see her hand moving gradually from her lap, onto the arm of the chair and then fingertip-toeing onto my arm, down towards my fingers, and then we're holding one another's hand. When I return her grip she lets herself ease back into her seat a little more. I wish Lucy was here instead.
Lucy and I meet up the next day for lunch, and I'm overwhelmed with guilt and shame, I can't look her in the eye because I keep remembering Abigail's hands on my skin, how, when we kissed goodbye, they pulled me ever so close to her, clutching my shoulders, and I let the kiss linger, I let it mean more than it should have, but not to me, to me it was just a nice kiss without deeper meaning, but how do you explain that to someone, someone who seems so smitten.
She can sense my awkwardness, and it affects her immediately, makes her uncomfortable and suspicious. She keeps asking me what's on my mind, and I can't tell her. Eventually, I'm so evasive, that Lucy suggests we take a break, and I don't think for a second it's what she wanted to say, I feel like my attitude today has coerced her into having to make this decision, and I suddenly come to life, pleading with her desperately, but it's unconvincing. She doesn't cry, she doesn't show any emotion, she just gets up, gives me a sterile hug and a kiss on the cheek and leaves. When she's gone tears silently fall from my eyes and refill my coffee.
I'm so full of virulent anger, chastising myself over and over in my own mind, standing on the tube, trundling furiously home, and I can feel it infecting the other people in the carriage, I can see the little huffs and puffs of nuisance becoming magnified when someone opens their paper into another's personal space, or turns with a backpack nudging the back of someone's head, or bitchy little remarks made under the breath as someone doesn't ask to get by and has to lurch awkwardly over someone else. I know that I am responsible for this atmosphere of contempt, that it is radiating out of me like a leak at a nuclear power plant, that I am the toxic centre of this little universe.
By the time I've reached my stop I feel like my reserves of hatred have run dry, and they've been replaced by a longing and despair, that somehow I've been the root of all this, that over the past two days I've sabotaged my own life obliviously. I feel, even moreso than I did previously, that Lucy is lost to me, that love is gone from there, it has moved somewhere else, it still exists but it has been passed like an infection from Lucy to another, and I realise that the love she gave me I have given to Abigail, that I was foolish, drunk and cowardly, that instead of being honest with my emotions, going to Lucy when I needed to, I spread the disease of love to Abigail and I must deal with the consequences. I cannot get her to love another, we don't choose who we love, but we must be responsible for those who love us, and I resent Abigail, I resent her for the love she has for me, because she is not the person I want to love me, but I'm afraid of being alone and maybe, until the love is cured, I can cope with this. I shall let the love wither us both, because that is all it is good for, like all emotions love is a wasting disease.
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
A Perfect Day
His perfect day began at 7.15am, he woke up prompted by his alarm clock and got out of bed. He went downstairs and made toast, coffee, ate them at the kitchen table. Showered and brushed his teeth. Got dressed in grey jeans, a red short sleeved shirt, and his white trainers. He caught the 8.47am train and went to work.
His job is simple, mindless, he stands by a production line, doing quality control. On his perfect day there were no problems.
After work he met some friends for a drink, he had two beers and saw her standing at the bar. He went up, introduced himself, they started talking and kept talking until the bar staff had to ask them to leave.
He walked her to the bus stop, she kissed him, and gave him her number.
Full of hope and happiness, he walked home and went to bed.
It hadn't taken long for things to go wrong after that, sure, for a while they were happy enough, but no day seemed as carefree as that first. He was constantly concerned that he meant less to her than she did to him, that perhaps she was treating him as an island between things, a stopover on her way somewhere better.
He became paranoid, ugly, suspicious and would ask leading, provocative questions that frayed at her nerves until she could stand it no longer. She, quite understandably, left and didn't answer any of his calls.
When he finally realised that she didn't care for him anymore he went to bed, cried into his pillow briefly, and then fell asleep.
He woke up at 7.15am, prompted by his alarm clock and got out of bed. He went downstairs and made toast, coffee, ate them at the kitchen table. Showered and brushed his teeth. Got dressed in grey jeans, a red short sleeved shirt, and his white trainers. He caught the 8.47am train and went to work.
It was only then, on that train ride, that he was reminded of his perfect day, and how it had begun just like this about seven months ago. He suddenly became optimistic, an electric tingle inside of him, as if he was - just like the train - on a predetermined path to an unchangeable destination, moving forwards.
He stood by the production line, checking each item for faults, they were all fine. Things were in his favour.
He had called his friends, the same friends, at lunchtime, to arrange drinks after works and when one had shown signs of hesitation he had insisted, pleaded and the friend had relented.
They went to the pub, he had two beers and then stood at the bar, waiting.
Waiting.
His friends came up in turn, asked if he was ok, tried to draw him back to the table, but he was resolute and continue to wait as they returned, one by one, to say goodnight.
When the bar staff asked him to leave he walked alone to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked home and went to bed.
The following day he woke up at 7.15am, prompted by his alarm clock and got out of bed. He went downstairs and made toast, coffee, ate them at the kitchen table. Showered and brushed his teeth. Got dressed in the same grey jeans, red short sleeved shirt and white trainers, they had wisps of last night clining to them like an invisible mist.
He caught the 8.47am train and went to work.
He stood by the production line, checking each item for faults, some seemed a little less than perfect, but he let it slide.
He had called his friends, two were incredulous, made their excuses, he begged but they refused. One was surprised but agreed nonetheless.
They went to the pub, he had two beers and then stood at the bar, waiting.
His friend joined him, started talking, but he wasn't interested in listening and his friend became disinterested, finished his drink and wandered off, leaving the pub without saying goodbye.
When the bar staff asked him to leave he walked alone to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked home and went to bed.
One week later, like he had done every day, he woke up at 7.15am, prompted by his alarm clock and got out of bed. He went downstairs and made toast, coffee, ate them at the kitchen table. Showered and brushed his teeth. Got dressed in the same, starchy, grey jeans, clammy red short sleeved shirt and off-white trainers.
He caught the 8.47am train and went to work.
He stood by the production line, he neither knew nor cared whether the products were perfect or otherwise, they filed by him as the hours wore on.
He called his friends, but the calls just rang out or went to voicemail.
He went to the pub, he had two beers and then stood at the bar, waiting.
When the bar staff asked him to leave he walked alone to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked home and went to bed.
One month later, he woke up at 7.15am, prompted by his alarm clock and got out of bed. He went downstairs, but there was no bread, no coffee, he sat at the kitchen table for twenty minutes. Showered and brushed his teeth. Got dressed in the tatty, stained grey jeans, stinking red short sleeved shirt and dull trainers.
He caught the 8.47am train and went to work.
He stood outside the building, no longer allowed admittance and watched the people come and go, they all seemed so perfect.
He called his friends, but his phone disconnected immediately, he had no calling credit.
He went to the pub, he had two beers and then stood at the bar, waiting.
When the bar staff asked him to leave he argued that it wasn't yet closing time, they were firm, insistent, threatened him with the police, he reasoned that he wasn't causing anyone any harm. They let him stay until close.
He walked alone to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked home and went to bed.
Some time later, he woke up at 7.15am, naturally. He walked down the street, past bakeries and coffee shops, staring in through their windows. In a public bathroom he ran water through his matted hair, rubbed soap on his face and hands. Itched at the worn away jeans, the red short sleeved shirt and trainers that had fallen apart to resemble sandals.
He hopped the barrier and caught the 8.47am train.
He stood outside the building, watched the people come and go.
He stood outside the pub.
He walked to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked away to find a place to sleep.
His job is simple, mindless, he stands by a production line, doing quality control. On his perfect day there were no problems.
After work he met some friends for a drink, he had two beers and saw her standing at the bar. He went up, introduced himself, they started talking and kept talking until the bar staff had to ask them to leave.
He walked her to the bus stop, she kissed him, and gave him her number.
Full of hope and happiness, he walked home and went to bed.
It hadn't taken long for things to go wrong after that, sure, for a while they were happy enough, but no day seemed as carefree as that first. He was constantly concerned that he meant less to her than she did to him, that perhaps she was treating him as an island between things, a stopover on her way somewhere better.
He became paranoid, ugly, suspicious and would ask leading, provocative questions that frayed at her nerves until she could stand it no longer. She, quite understandably, left and didn't answer any of his calls.
When he finally realised that she didn't care for him anymore he went to bed, cried into his pillow briefly, and then fell asleep.
He woke up at 7.15am, prompted by his alarm clock and got out of bed. He went downstairs and made toast, coffee, ate them at the kitchen table. Showered and brushed his teeth. Got dressed in grey jeans, a red short sleeved shirt, and his white trainers. He caught the 8.47am train and went to work.
It was only then, on that train ride, that he was reminded of his perfect day, and how it had begun just like this about seven months ago. He suddenly became optimistic, an electric tingle inside of him, as if he was - just like the train - on a predetermined path to an unchangeable destination, moving forwards.
He stood by the production line, checking each item for faults, they were all fine. Things were in his favour.
He had called his friends, the same friends, at lunchtime, to arrange drinks after works and when one had shown signs of hesitation he had insisted, pleaded and the friend had relented.
They went to the pub, he had two beers and then stood at the bar, waiting.
Waiting.
His friends came up in turn, asked if he was ok, tried to draw him back to the table, but he was resolute and continue to wait as they returned, one by one, to say goodnight.
When the bar staff asked him to leave he walked alone to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked home and went to bed.
The following day he woke up at 7.15am, prompted by his alarm clock and got out of bed. He went downstairs and made toast, coffee, ate them at the kitchen table. Showered and brushed his teeth. Got dressed in the same grey jeans, red short sleeved shirt and white trainers, they had wisps of last night clining to them like an invisible mist.
He caught the 8.47am train and went to work.
He stood by the production line, checking each item for faults, some seemed a little less than perfect, but he let it slide.
He had called his friends, two were incredulous, made their excuses, he begged but they refused. One was surprised but agreed nonetheless.
They went to the pub, he had two beers and then stood at the bar, waiting.
His friend joined him, started talking, but he wasn't interested in listening and his friend became disinterested, finished his drink and wandered off, leaving the pub without saying goodbye.
When the bar staff asked him to leave he walked alone to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked home and went to bed.
One week later, like he had done every day, he woke up at 7.15am, prompted by his alarm clock and got out of bed. He went downstairs and made toast, coffee, ate them at the kitchen table. Showered and brushed his teeth. Got dressed in the same, starchy, grey jeans, clammy red short sleeved shirt and off-white trainers.
He caught the 8.47am train and went to work.
He stood by the production line, he neither knew nor cared whether the products were perfect or otherwise, they filed by him as the hours wore on.
He called his friends, but the calls just rang out or went to voicemail.
He went to the pub, he had two beers and then stood at the bar, waiting.
When the bar staff asked him to leave he walked alone to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked home and went to bed.
One month later, he woke up at 7.15am, prompted by his alarm clock and got out of bed. He went downstairs, but there was no bread, no coffee, he sat at the kitchen table for twenty minutes. Showered and brushed his teeth. Got dressed in the tatty, stained grey jeans, stinking red short sleeved shirt and dull trainers.
He caught the 8.47am train and went to work.
He stood outside the building, no longer allowed admittance and watched the people come and go, they all seemed so perfect.
He called his friends, but his phone disconnected immediately, he had no calling credit.
He went to the pub, he had two beers and then stood at the bar, waiting.
When the bar staff asked him to leave he argued that it wasn't yet closing time, they were firm, insistent, threatened him with the police, he reasoned that he wasn't causing anyone any harm. They let him stay until close.
He walked alone to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked home and went to bed.
Some time later, he woke up at 7.15am, naturally. He walked down the street, past bakeries and coffee shops, staring in through their windows. In a public bathroom he ran water through his matted hair, rubbed soap on his face and hands. Itched at the worn away jeans, the red short sleeved shirt and trainers that had fallen apart to resemble sandals.
He hopped the barrier and caught the 8.47am train.
He stood outside the building, watched the people come and go.
He stood outside the pub.
He walked to the bus stop, waited for the bus and waved it goodbye, then walked away to find a place to sleep.
Thursday, 21 February 2013
The Time Traveller
Another one from the 'archives', also from the same 2007 notebook as the two previous stories and, like Underground Tigers, this was written on my commute.
The Time Traveller
He wished his train was a time machine and that he'd end up just over a month ago, but he would remember what he knows now. He hopes that when he reaches his destination it is that place that he used to stay at, that small village he had begun to resent.
How could a place blind him so much? Was it selfishness on his part, the need to 'make something' of his life, to prove his parents wrong? Why had he run so far?
Now all he could do was listen to his life fall apart over the telephone.
But in the underground there is no signal, it's almost like the conversations never happened, it's almost like nothing exists.
He wills the train to go faster until that low hum and clatter of transportation rises into a high squealing pitch that only dogs can hear. He hopes that the next stop will plunge him into daylight, that outside those windows he will see the familiar fields and trees of the countryside and not the old stale tiles of the Piccadilly line.
Everyday he is reminded of everything he has lost and he is forced to trace the journey back, in his mind, toward the first domino that toppled. He remembers how they met, it was hard not to in that town, but it stills feel miraculous, fateful.
Where did this fog come from that clouded all of this from his mind for so long? It's as if his past is flashing before his eyes, he sees each silly moment of the relationship pass by like billboards. He sees haircuts, burnt suits, scrambled eggs, picnics in front rooms, beach bonfires, but he also sees how distant he was, how hurtful he had been and now he can hate himself for he sees that was not how he felt. Well, that is not how he feels.
He had pushed her away before and that time around his time machine had worked, it had been a coach then, perhaps that was it, he needed a smaller vessel?
No, there is something tragically permanent about this time, something sickeningly inevitable. It no longer feels like an emotion but a tumour, and for all the guilt it may incur he pities himself that he may curl up into a tiny ball and wither.
Soon she will be far away and happy, her eyes will be opened to the optimism of a world without him, he thinks she knows it exists already and is eager to see what else it has to offer her. This is why he needs a time machine.
He has failed at this attempt of life, he has lost and the damage feels irreparable. If the machine doesn't work then he will battle wearily on, but shall most probably be forced to watch from the sidelines, as if imprisoned in an invisible cage, as someone else lives the life he can now only dream of.
He can envisage their first flat together, her and this better man, he can picture their furniture and dining set, their books and records, the view out of the window, he can smell his cooking and feel the way he kisses her cheek in the morning, he can sense the tender grip of his fingers curling round hers as they watch television, and he can hear her laugh at his bad jokes and silly voices, or when he does a puppet show with the teddy bears.
Now he sees further into the future, as if floating over everything, detached from his body.
He can see them making love, how warm their bodies are, how he holds her and she feels safe and special, touching her hands to his chest and being comforted by the distant drum of his heartbeat. He can see the conception of their first child, it's a girl and they name it Freya like she always wanted. They start looking for a house as the pregnancy begins to show, they're engaged now and soon after the child is born they'll be getting married. The wedding will be held outside, it's a beautiful day, and her father and mother will love this man, they'll be as proud of him as if he were their own son. Not long after there is a brother for Freya on the way, and the time-traveller watching overhead can hear her thoughts and, for the first time in years, she thinks of him. The child is a boy and she remember what he would have called his son, but she dismisses this notion as quickly as it arrives and that is the last time she ever thinks of him.
So that is all the time traveller sees before he is stirred by the unsteady rocking of the tube train, there is no lullaby and goodnight being whispered softly in his ears, yet he longs to bawl and cry like a baby.
Has he just had a nightmare? He hopes so. He hopes he will soon realise that the past two months were all a bad dream and he's on his way to London Victoria, he has to catch a connecting train, he's been for a job interview. Or perhaps he didn't move so far away, and after work he's on his way over for dinner and to watch a film.
The truth climbs over his back, crashing down upon him with the unnegotiable force of a wave. He is reminded of drowning, of feeling trapped in the ocean, being held in its unchanging grip, stuck between the safety of the shore and the deep, murderous depths. That is where he is now, between life and death.
He begins to suspect that this underground train is transporting the recently deceased from the waking to the after life.
He closes his eyes, they're wet with tears, and he longs the sound of the pre-recorded announcments to silence and for the sensation of movement to cease and the smell in his nostrils to expand, like cinemascope, and be the distinctive aroma of a hospital room, and, even though he cannot move, he will be elated to realise that he is in a coma. Yes, if he had slipped underwater all those months ago and had not died, but been pulled to shore where his condition had stabilised, and, though people would be sad, it may have just saved his life.
How funny, he thinks, that drowning might have saved him, that if his life had taken that turn then he might not be dead now. For the one and only time he will find comfort in the idea of a cold, sterile hospital room.
But it's hot, like a warm, clammy bath and he's brought back to this train, this journey that lasts forever and, most cruelly of all, takes him closer and closer to her. Maybe he should continue, forget his job, just arrive at her door, fall to his knees and beg her to turn back the clock, wipe the slate clean and let him wrap his arms around her and weep.
Tears will fall from his eyes, tracing the shape of his face and dribble into his mouth, perhaps they will fill his lungs and he will drown. His mind is alive with possibilities, he suspects he's been looking in the wrong place, that the time machine is not a vehicle or a transport outside of himself, but it is himself. He is both the time traveller and the time machine and he is fuelled by sorrow and despair.
He lets himself cry, he drinks his tears, but he struggles to force them into his lungs, and they unhappily fall into the safety of his gullet.
He considers filling a sink, but knows he could not cry enough and the cruel heat of this early summer would evaporate any he tried to collect over time.
Perhaps a full bath laced with tears will do just as well? He feels a great surge of hope as he stands undressed, watching the water level rise, and he is pleased by the temperature as he climbs in. Neither too hot or cold, like in the fairytale, it is just right.
He finds it surprisingly easy to sink underwater, opening his eyes wide and seeing the ceiling with an odd sense of clarity. He did need a transport after all, but smiles because he never would've guessed it would be a bath tub.
Now he finds it easy to relax and open his mouth, the water doesn't scare him as it pushes impatiently down his throat, and it feels like the soft and romantic massage of a lover as it fills his lungs.
He closes his eyes.
He must be travelling, he can feel himself being buffeted as if he's still on the train. He can also feel himself flying, as if he has departed from his body once more.
Yes, he thinks, he is travelling through time.
He can see again, he can see her and she takes his hand, applying a small amount of pressure, enough so that he knows she will never let go and she leans close to him, he's lying down, his eyes are shut but underneath his eyelids he is staring ahead and now he can feel her breath upon his ear, and her free hand strokes his hair, pushing it away from his eyes, her voice, though it is cracked and fragile, she sounds like she has been crying and has almost exhausted every syllable she could ever utter, but she has saved enough breath for one last sentence, and his skin grows cold as she speaks to him for the final time.
She is with him now and he is happy, perhaps he has not failed after all, because before everything goes dark and silent he can hear her say 'I love you.'
The Time Traveller
He wished his train was a time machine and that he'd end up just over a month ago, but he would remember what he knows now. He hopes that when he reaches his destination it is that place that he used to stay at, that small village he had begun to resent.
How could a place blind him so much? Was it selfishness on his part, the need to 'make something' of his life, to prove his parents wrong? Why had he run so far?
Now all he could do was listen to his life fall apart over the telephone.
But in the underground there is no signal, it's almost like the conversations never happened, it's almost like nothing exists.
He wills the train to go faster until that low hum and clatter of transportation rises into a high squealing pitch that only dogs can hear. He hopes that the next stop will plunge him into daylight, that outside those windows he will see the familiar fields and trees of the countryside and not the old stale tiles of the Piccadilly line.
Everyday he is reminded of everything he has lost and he is forced to trace the journey back, in his mind, toward the first domino that toppled. He remembers how they met, it was hard not to in that town, but it stills feel miraculous, fateful.
Where did this fog come from that clouded all of this from his mind for so long? It's as if his past is flashing before his eyes, he sees each silly moment of the relationship pass by like billboards. He sees haircuts, burnt suits, scrambled eggs, picnics in front rooms, beach bonfires, but he also sees how distant he was, how hurtful he had been and now he can hate himself for he sees that was not how he felt. Well, that is not how he feels.
He had pushed her away before and that time around his time machine had worked, it had been a coach then, perhaps that was it, he needed a smaller vessel?
No, there is something tragically permanent about this time, something sickeningly inevitable. It no longer feels like an emotion but a tumour, and for all the guilt it may incur he pities himself that he may curl up into a tiny ball and wither.
Soon she will be far away and happy, her eyes will be opened to the optimism of a world without him, he thinks she knows it exists already and is eager to see what else it has to offer her. This is why he needs a time machine.
He has failed at this attempt of life, he has lost and the damage feels irreparable. If the machine doesn't work then he will battle wearily on, but shall most probably be forced to watch from the sidelines, as if imprisoned in an invisible cage, as someone else lives the life he can now only dream of.
He can envisage their first flat together, her and this better man, he can picture their furniture and dining set, their books and records, the view out of the window, he can smell his cooking and feel the way he kisses her cheek in the morning, he can sense the tender grip of his fingers curling round hers as they watch television, and he can hear her laugh at his bad jokes and silly voices, or when he does a puppet show with the teddy bears.
Now he sees further into the future, as if floating over everything, detached from his body.
He can see them making love, how warm their bodies are, how he holds her and she feels safe and special, touching her hands to his chest and being comforted by the distant drum of his heartbeat. He can see the conception of their first child, it's a girl and they name it Freya like she always wanted. They start looking for a house as the pregnancy begins to show, they're engaged now and soon after the child is born they'll be getting married. The wedding will be held outside, it's a beautiful day, and her father and mother will love this man, they'll be as proud of him as if he were their own son. Not long after there is a brother for Freya on the way, and the time-traveller watching overhead can hear her thoughts and, for the first time in years, she thinks of him. The child is a boy and she remember what he would have called his son, but she dismisses this notion as quickly as it arrives and that is the last time she ever thinks of him.
So that is all the time traveller sees before he is stirred by the unsteady rocking of the tube train, there is no lullaby and goodnight being whispered softly in his ears, yet he longs to bawl and cry like a baby.
Has he just had a nightmare? He hopes so. He hopes he will soon realise that the past two months were all a bad dream and he's on his way to London Victoria, he has to catch a connecting train, he's been for a job interview. Or perhaps he didn't move so far away, and after work he's on his way over for dinner and to watch a film.
The truth climbs over his back, crashing down upon him with the unnegotiable force of a wave. He is reminded of drowning, of feeling trapped in the ocean, being held in its unchanging grip, stuck between the safety of the shore and the deep, murderous depths. That is where he is now, between life and death.
He begins to suspect that this underground train is transporting the recently deceased from the waking to the after life.
He closes his eyes, they're wet with tears, and he longs the sound of the pre-recorded announcments to silence and for the sensation of movement to cease and the smell in his nostrils to expand, like cinemascope, and be the distinctive aroma of a hospital room, and, even though he cannot move, he will be elated to realise that he is in a coma. Yes, if he had slipped underwater all those months ago and had not died, but been pulled to shore where his condition had stabilised, and, though people would be sad, it may have just saved his life.
How funny, he thinks, that drowning might have saved him, that if his life had taken that turn then he might not be dead now. For the one and only time he will find comfort in the idea of a cold, sterile hospital room.
But it's hot, like a warm, clammy bath and he's brought back to this train, this journey that lasts forever and, most cruelly of all, takes him closer and closer to her. Maybe he should continue, forget his job, just arrive at her door, fall to his knees and beg her to turn back the clock, wipe the slate clean and let him wrap his arms around her and weep.
Tears will fall from his eyes, tracing the shape of his face and dribble into his mouth, perhaps they will fill his lungs and he will drown. His mind is alive with possibilities, he suspects he's been looking in the wrong place, that the time machine is not a vehicle or a transport outside of himself, but it is himself. He is both the time traveller and the time machine and he is fuelled by sorrow and despair.
He lets himself cry, he drinks his tears, but he struggles to force them into his lungs, and they unhappily fall into the safety of his gullet.
He considers filling a sink, but knows he could not cry enough and the cruel heat of this early summer would evaporate any he tried to collect over time.
Perhaps a full bath laced with tears will do just as well? He feels a great surge of hope as he stands undressed, watching the water level rise, and he is pleased by the temperature as he climbs in. Neither too hot or cold, like in the fairytale, it is just right.
He finds it surprisingly easy to sink underwater, opening his eyes wide and seeing the ceiling with an odd sense of clarity. He did need a transport after all, but smiles because he never would've guessed it would be a bath tub.
Now he finds it easy to relax and open his mouth, the water doesn't scare him as it pushes impatiently down his throat, and it feels like the soft and romantic massage of a lover as it fills his lungs.
He closes his eyes.
He must be travelling, he can feel himself being buffeted as if he's still on the train. He can also feel himself flying, as if he has departed from his body once more.
Yes, he thinks, he is travelling through time.
He can see again, he can see her and she takes his hand, applying a small amount of pressure, enough so that he knows she will never let go and she leans close to him, he's lying down, his eyes are shut but underneath his eyelids he is staring ahead and now he can feel her breath upon his ear, and her free hand strokes his hair, pushing it away from his eyes, her voice, though it is cracked and fragile, she sounds like she has been crying and has almost exhausted every syllable she could ever utter, but she has saved enough breath for one last sentence, and his skin grows cold as she speaks to him for the final time.
She is with him now and he is happy, perhaps he has not failed after all, because before everything goes dark and silent he can hear her say 'I love you.'
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