I think empathy is a quality. I also believe it is a quality many people seem to be lacking. As a human being I am conscious of others people’s perceptions of me. How I am perceived is important to me. My life is based around a vast number of images of myself and that is how I assess what sort of a person I am. There are people for whom these images are warped. I mean, I’m sure my own perceptions are distorted but not to a degree where I think I am much different than the reality proves. For some, other people’s perceptions of 42
them aren’t an issue. They either just don’t care or their minds do not have the capacity to see things from another’s viewpoint. For example, I wouldn’t like to be perceived as someone who talks to someone else as though they were a piece of shit, no matter what they’d done. I could be horrified, baffled, angry, frustrated, hurt…… but I still wouldn’t want to be an individual who was capable of talking to another human being, made up of all the same particles that I and everyone else are made, as though they had no value at all. I think sometimes that can be one of the most hurtful things you can experience.
And no, I didn’t have an unhappy childhood.
Fifty-one
Samuel Bagpile lives in a small village in a remote place. He is very old. He is a good man with bad habits but has never done anyone any harm. Someone somewhere has felt sorry for him and has decided to give him another chance. Re-incarnation. However, the somebody who has decided to do this for Mr Bagpile, is a blundering fool.
Samuel has an out of body experience and goes down the tunnel towards the light and finds it not all as he expected it to be. Does Samuel continue to exist in both dimensions? Do the dimensions cross each other and is Samuel aware that he may bump into himself?
Will he recognize himself? Is he the only one in this situation?
A journey of discovery for Samuel Bagpile. At the end of his journey, if he gets there, he may find his true self, which may be an assimilation of the other characters in the story……
43
…possibly. Or possibly that would just be a shit story idea.
The End.
Fifty-two
It’s blowing a gale. The elements at their most magnificent make me glad I’m indoors. I might light a fire but that usually results in near asphyxiation. I’m writing but I don’t know what about. It just makes me feel better.
My partner’s driving around in this weather. It’s marginally better than being driven insane which is what he’d be if he was stuck in with me in this mood.
I took the dogs out earlier and my hair was in my face as I irresponsibly opened the gate and nearly sent them both under the wheels of nextdoor’s car. I’ve had a bad week with dogs. Yesterday I nearly stood on one, no, I actually did stand on one. A ratty little thing in the park which ran under my foot. I’ve just wormed my two and they’re currently looking at me as if I was Satan. If I believed in Satan that is. It’s probably more apt to say they were looking at me as if I were Jeremy Beadle. I hate that man. I wish someone would go round to his house and for a really funny ‘prank’, stick a film camera up his ….
Fifty-three
I’m remembering one night I went out for a meal with my ‘colleagues’. God I was bored. Fucking bored.
44
Infact I nearly walked into the kitchens and stuck my head in the chef’s oven. If it wasn’t gardening, children’s sporting activities, pensions or paintwork then it simply wasn’t worth talking about. I am sorry.
I have a shallow head.
Why are some people such tight-fisted bastards? I am the poorest person amongst the people I know yet still find myself arguing with folk who feel it more than justified to leave a two pound tip after going out with a group of people for a meal that cost £200 and was the nicest selection of food you’ve ever eaten. I imagine that it’s about as insulting to the restaurant as pulling down your kecks and doing a great big mess on the table. Thank you so much for the delightful meal, I’ve left a shit on the table for your trouble.
Don’t forget to split it with the chef.
There’s a line in a film I recently saw. It goes something like this -
Do you like what you’re eating? Yes, I do. Tastes like veal…Well, it’s actually sea snake. Urgh! (cue spit out food in disgrace).
I find that odd. The character cannot believe he’s been served up sea snake as opposed to a succulent infant mammal.
How does society justify itself?
Fifty-four
If Harry Potter was your son, you’d have no alternative but to beat him to death with a stick.
45
I want to write a novel. Something bizarre. I have no idea how I’m going to do it. At the moment I’m just writing as I’m thinking. Most of it’s nonsense but in a funny way I’d actually like to write a book that made no sense at all. People would come up with all sorts of metaphorical explanations and interpretations I never intended.
I’m rooting around my old room. I’ve just found a pad. One of many I used to and still do, scribble old rubbish in. This particular pad has details of a job I used to do in it. It brings back memories of when I worked for a farming magazine, selling advertising space for people wanting to sell shitty tractors. In all honesty, I was shitty at the job. Couldn’t find the pleasure in it. I guess I ask too much.
I hate a lot of people. I didn’t think I did until I sat down and really thought about it. People really fuck me off.
Smoking. That’s an odd one. I’ve smoked on and off for years. It’s off at the moment. It’s a cruel addiction.
The first thing I did when I was told I didn’t have cancer was light a cigarette.
I am quite aware that I am a twat.
I received a letter in the post from the university I left a couple of years ago, demanding I paid the £126.70
which I apparently owed them. First I’d heard of it.
Yet probably true. Why wait two years? I was there doing a post-graduate study course which I left because I couldn’t afford to continue. I was a little concerned. Mainly because I haven’t got £126.70.
That was of course until I reached the end of the letter. It kindly informed me that if I hadn’t contacted the university within the next seven days….wait for 46
it…it may result in the invalidation of my student card and the revocation of my library privileges. After that, it, along with my sad memories, went headfirst into the bin to sit alongside the dog sick I cleared up earlier.
I don’t know if I’ll ever make a writer. I’ve been trying for half an hour to align my paragraphs and they’re still all over the fucking place.
Fifty-five
………
Fifty-six
Couldn’t think of anything useful to say in Chapter Fifty-five. I was thinking of writing about the time I watched someone commit suicide but I changed my mind.
Fifty-seven
I know someone who looks like she is sucking a lemon. Permanently. It’s quite frightening. It’s 47
obviously taken years to perfect. Actually, it’s a cross between that and the look of a person who’s just smelt dribbly dog shit.
I like things that don’t make sense. My head is probably one of them.
I used to attend a Christian youth camp. Yes, I realize that it seems highly unlikely. Unfortunately it happens to be true. I sat and sang songs whilst others played guitars. Ate back to front dinners where we had desert first and basically bothered god. I met all sorts of misfits there far more screwed up than other people I knew. A friend I made there, I’ll call him Jason, wanted to train to be a priest. He was fourteen. Of course there was the odd snog and a few rude sniggers if someone said ‘sod’ but we were more or less well-behaved. We were good children. Apart from the fact we didn’t have a clue what we were shouting and waiving our arms in the air about. It was what everyone else did.
I don’t feel proud. The opposite really. I hadn’t much of a personality. I had little confidence. I wasn’t capable of believing I had an opinion. Not surprising really, having to sing, ‘as the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you…’ . Not quite what a fourteen year old should be yearning for methinks. It’s all too cult like for my liking. Yet it was encouraged.
Breaking down into tears, saying you wanted your sins forgiven, promising to be good, never to swear again…..Bollocks to that. Stick it up your arse and whistle.
If you don’t like it, pray for me.
No don’t infact. I couldn’t give a toss.
48
Fifty-eight
I wonder how they’re all doing up in first class. I’m only thinking about this because I have cramp in my neck. You would have thought somebody by now could have invented a comfortable plane seat. I know that more leg room would result in less business but who thought up the ingenious idea that people enjoy sleeping with their head dug into their chin. Maybe I’m over the average height they designed them for.
It’s either that or try to turn yourself a fraction to the side and wake up with your head on the shoulder of the hairiest man in the world sat next to you.
I open my eyes and squint as my neighbour has his reading light on. I look at my watch and try and focus.
I must have been asleep all of ten minutes.
I wonder if I’ve been missed yet.
I slouch and rest my head against the cold window.
Fifty-nine
The first time I had sex was a real disappointment. I’d waited. I had a childish idea that I wanted to wait for the right person. Funny really, to wait all that time and then meet a right pillock who spoilt the entire thing.
He was a hairdresser. Alarm bells should have rung really. It only happened once. He dumped me straight afterwards. I don’t think he could actually look me in the eyes. He was terrible in bed. I’m not saying that because I’m bitter. He truly was fucking dreadful. To get fucked for the first time and then wonder what all the pissing fuss was about is a real shame. He has a hairdressers near where I live now. He’s a fat twat 49
with a poky premises you wouldn’t want to step foot in. I think it’s quite fitting. Unlike his trousers.
Why do some people try and live through their children? It’s awful to watch. People who, if you took conversation about their kids out of the equation, would have absolutely nothing to say.
I wonder why I work so fucking hard sometimes.
Every time you switch the news on people are dumping all over each other. There’s not much point reasoning it out, the human race is a waste of time.
We may have learnt to build civilizations but we have little idea of equality. People still starve to death whilst others sit in McDonalds stuffing Big Macs down their faces. Young girls are forced into prostitution by their families whilst young girls elsewhere throw tantrums because they haven’t been bought the latest fashion item. Materialism is so destructive. We no longer know what we want. We are told what we want.
I know I am occasionally guilty of wanting money.
Not a lot of money, just enough for it not to be a struggle and just to lose the feeling of knowing I owe everyone I know. Yet money can’t solve everyone’s fears. For some it can be as destructive as the lack of it, if not more so.
Why are there so many people on television offering to lend you money? So they can rip you off that’s why. Mankind isn’t that generous. Oh I’m being too harsh. Why, you only have to sign your house away or pay back twice as much as you borrow. I think I’d rather stay poor.
50
Bad hair. Do some people have no idea at all?
Obviously not. The current trend is to look like you’ve been rolling around in muck all day. Wash your hair, blow dry it, then cover it in gel, run your fingers through it whilst tipped upside down until it’s all tangled and hey presto, it looks like you’ve not washed it for three weeks and then fallen in a prickly bush.