Sat looking out of the window. I’m in an office. I should be typing but I can’t stop looking. Across the concrete divide, I see reflections of myself through the opposing glass. They all look like me. Different hairstyles, different clothes, same person We’re like ants. Below me, outdoors, they smoke, waltzing in and out, it would make great time lapse photography, in and out, in and out, every day until they die.
Cheerful, isn’t it. A man reading his paper, sat on the smokers bench, alone. What is he thinking. Is he pondering over the morning’s work, wondering if he’ll get a sale this afternoon, or is he just trying to lose himself in the lines, looking at black and white, living in grey. A companion now. She has her neatly packed, low calorie, low fat, non-descript sandwich that will make men want her, need her, love her.
I don’t mind it here. At least here I can still see the sky, the clouds. They are dark today but still enticing.
They wait. They want me to look.
It’s a hive of activity below. I feel like I’m spying.
I’m not, they could see me if they would only look up.
Why do people never look up.
60
My nails look nice today. Can someone kill me?
I see my reflection in the glass, or is it another me on the other side, a version of myself that haunts me, that never goes away. The girl in the glass is free, sat there in the open air, no one even notices she’s there.
Except me. I know. She also knows. She is laughing at me.
It’s grey. The sky no longer looks full of clouds, it’s as if the sky itself has darkened, the whole atmosphere changed, forever altered.
Targets, numbers. What does it all mean? Does any of it matter? There they sit on the wall, taunting, teasing, goading. I want to walk over and wipe the board clean. Write on it ‘Life is beautiful, don’t waste it’.
There’s more life in the tree outside my window.
I don’t know why but I’ve got a strong urge to write SALE in great big letters across the office window in tip –ex.
Seventy-one
I am woken from my thoughts by a sinking feeling in my stomach. We are experiencing turbulence, a voice will say any second. Please stay in your seats and notice that the please fasten your seatbelt sign is lit.
My seatbelt is fastened. I don’t know why, I guess I feel safer. I’m not particularly scared of flying.
It’s fairly bumpy. A pathetic woman behind me keeps ramming her knees into the back of my chair and 61
commenting to her partner that she can’t stand turbulence. I can’t stand being punched in the coccyx’s every two seconds but that doesn’t seem to bother her too much. When the cabin sign above me flicks off I think I’ll put my seat back, something I never usually do as it’s most uncomfortable for the person behind.
I feel a bit queasy but before too long it eases off and we’re gliding smoothly again. I hear a sound and glance above before hitting a button on the side of my armrest and lean back with all the power I can muster.
The woman behind me lets out an audible gasp, false and at the same time, well-practiced. I hope she had a gin and tonic on the fold down table.
Seventy-two
Babies. Haven’t made my mind up about those yet.
Sometimes I cry because I don’t think my body will help me out with this one but other times it’s quite a relief. I’m sure I’ll choose the option that hurts most. I know I’ll truly want a child in a few years and it’s a selfish thing. Perhaps the fact I can’t have one will be justified.
Trains. They’re shit.
The last time I was on a train, I was delayed for fucking ages, had to sit next to the woman with the biggest bag in the world, pinning me against the window so I couldn’t move for three hours. Have a seat reserved just so I can travel backwards and feel sick for the rest of the day. To add insult to injury I read in the paper that train fares are going up. Fucking idiots.
62
I was in a nightclub a few weeks ago. I fetched a fair price and once bidding had stopped, a nice farmer herded me out with a stick.
Every now and then I am offered Cocaine. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m boring company. Personally, I can think of a million better ways to enjoy myself than sniffing powder up my nose hoping I don’t get a nose bleed and die but there you go. It’s a real shame when you can’t justify your life isn’t it. I’m not a prude. I drink too much and can fuck in most imaginative ways. That’s enjoyable enough for me.
Except when you can’t remember anything and are struggling to walk.
My boss is on holiday this week, which is fortunate. I might get quite a bit of writing done. I don’t feel bad, the phone hasn’t rung for forty-eight minutes and I’ve nothing else to do. I might as well do something and apart from banging my head repeatedly on the desk until the numbness goes away, I can’t think of anything.
Don’t you just love communal fitting rooms.
People who think they’re it. They should realise they are not ‘it’ but are infact, a waste of space.
I have a friend who is completely dominated. She decided a while back that she was gay and then a short time ago, decided she wasn’t. Only her girlfriend disagreed and now has her completely under the thumb. She isn’t happy but is too kind to say anything more. I can’t quite figure that one out. Mind you, it would be the same if it were a man. Yet if it were a man other people would say something to her, as it is, 63
they don’t even mention it as if it’s not their business.
Mainly they are too scared to say anything in case they are considered discriminatory. Odd isn’t it. Of course I said something, you’d be disappointed if I didn’t. I told her to stop being an old doormat and enjoy her life on her own fucking terms.
Department store coffee shops. Charge the earth for what you full well know is tinned tomato soup.
Fucking cheats.
I sometimes want to change my name to Hilda. Just so people will be surprised when they meet me. I met a guy in his early twenties the other day, named Percy. I was drunk and told him it was very unfortunate. I feel bad about that. Yet honest.
Ties are silly aren’t they.
If I locked myself in the stationary cupboard, I wonder how long it would be before anyone missed me? I’d probably only be found when someone ran out of pritt-stick.
I really can’t understand how some people can be such scrubbers.
Seventy-three
Dream analysis again. I was sat on a plane ready to taxi down the runway but when I looked out of the window, we were taxiing down a country lane. We kept twisting and turning around the tight bends, occasionally bumping down the odd ditch. Next thing I knew we veered off the road and onto a railway track. We bumped across the rails and the plane split 64
into carriages which fell quite smoothly into a tiny, and I mean tiny, stream about six feet below. Next thing I knew I was stood on the banks, helping people find their luggage which was drifting off with the trickle of water. I stepped back into the plane and got my luggage from out of the netting infront of the seat where you usually find the in-flight magazine. Then I found myself wandering across the tarmac at the airport towards the terminal with the pilot swaggering along beside me talking nonsense. He said not to worry and that the plane would be tweaked a bit and we’d be taking off in about 40 minutes. Immediately I was stood in a house. I wandered across the hall and into a room where I found a man decorating a bedroom. He told me to look at the yellow flowery douvet cover. He didn’t like it. I said it was okay. I told him I was going to be late to meet my family if I didn’t get on the plane again in 40 minutes. I said I didn’t want to get on a plane that had been in a stream with a pilot who was pissed. Then I woke up. I’m fucking insane.
Seventy-four
People let you down don’t they. I told someone a secret once which was so important to me it needed to be kept. Three weeks later, they got pissed and nothing was sacred. It’s a feeling worse than many others because it is beyond your control. You feel betrayed, disillusioned. Hurt. The sad thing is, they didn’t mean to do it and apologized beyond compare.
What do you do? You nod, you say it’s okay but deep down, something about your whole self changes.
65
My body’s here but my mind’s somewhere else. I wish I could just fade to invisibility. Then I could float round, listen to conversations and know what people really think of me. It’s the not knowing that eats away at me like termites. I don’t feel like this all the time, infact, not very often. Just now and again.
But it’s enough. Just the thought that people might not have an opinion about me at all, that they don’t really give a shit. It’s insecurity that drives this ache within me. It’s so fucking shallow, I hate myself.
I feel happy again. It’s an odd swing I play on.
People should smile more. Otherwise it’s so fucking depressing. Moaning old farts really fuck me off.
They shouldn’t. But they do.
The telephone keeps ringing. It’s never for me. If by some miraculous chance it is for me, it’s always something crappy beyond belief. I need a fucking break.
I know someone in their twenties who’s had a nervous breakdown. I’ve also seen someone in their twenties throw themselves off the top of a car park. Why don’t more people question the society we live in and the pressure that people feel they are under every second of every day? Stood over that frail body on the ground infront of me, I didn’t cry. I was told I was in shock but that’s the weird thing. Really it was no surprise. I didn’t know anything about him, not even his name but he reminded me of everyone I know. I wish I knew him. In some ways I feel I understand him more than most. It was a long time ago but when I lie in the dark, I often think of him.
66
Seventy-five
I wonder if I should buy the headphones being thrust in of my face. They cost nearly as much as a cinema ticket. I haven’t heard of the film they’re showing, it’s either a b-list or I’ve been a bit wrapped up in things over the past few months.
‘No thanks’, I decline. I don’t think I’d be able to pay much attention to it anyhow.
Crossword man already has his headphones on and is eagerly flicking all the buttons on his arm-rest. He looks like a man easily pleased.
Seventy-six
Money. Money. Money. The echo is ringing in my head. We haven’t got enough to get through. I don’t know what we’ll do. I just keep thinking it will get better. It has to.
My hormones are raging again. I’m so miserable I could cry and cry for hours. I wish I was lying outside in the rain.
Cold, meaningful rain,
Enhancing the green,
Touching,
It caresses,
Reminiscent of tears.
67
Where are you? I am asked this question a lot. Often I don’t know. Sometimes I just so long to be not here.
Seventy-seven
Hangovers. They really strip you bear don’t they. You are at your most unpleasant. You’ve never looked or felt so god damn awful. And you are blessed with the worst imaginable breath which people coil back from in horror. It’s most attractive, especially considering the night before you thought you were the most beautiful woman to walk the earth.
I am inconsiderate. I know I am. I take people for granted which is truly despicable.
Only now am I finding friends whom not only do I really value but whom I’m pretty sure actually like me which makes a real change. Friends who don’t whisper about you behind you back, spread your secrets, generally dump on you. No, I lied. They don’t exist. Even your closest friend lets themselves go now and again.
£60 short of the rent again. I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s not like it’s any different from usual. Then why do I still indulge in a double-take when I’m staring at my balance on the cash-machine. Bollocks. It just really pisses me right off.
I’ve cancelled my holiday. It was only a cheapie but one I’d been looking forward to for a long time. It was a choice between going or letting the dogs starve.
Well, no, another lie. I can’t even afford to feed the 68
dogs this month. That’s why I go without lunch. Sad isn’t it, that I’m reduced to this. My colleague opposite is talking of buying a new mobile phone because her year old one looks a little out of date and I’m wondering where the change can come from to buy cotton to hem up my trousers which are falling down rather trampishly over my boots. I have twenty pounds on my second credit card to last me the next thirteen days. I don’t actually have a penny of real money, the last bundle of coppers I could find in the house went towards the £1-50 I owed somebody. I’ll start writing cheques next week in the hope that no-one will bank them for a day or two and then the whole fucking thing starts all over again. Happy days.
I need a holiday. I could also do with a packet of crisps but unless the supermarket will take 34p on a credit card I’m buggered.
No-one wants my work. Publishers won’t even read it.
Agents are no longer taking on new authors. Online publishers demand a fee which you know if you pay you will never see again. I might as well just use the pages to clear up dog muck. We live in a world where people expect you to know your place and any attempt to move from it will be highly discouraged. Talent is never seen as such unless it is marketable. Risks are something no-one needs to take anymore. We have enough writers, albeit they just copy each others ideas and churn out the same nauseating banality.
I’m so tired. I want to sleep. Sleep and not dream. I won’t. I never will.
I was insulted recently. His idea of proximity was slightly misjudged. Funny isn’t it, you always say insult me to my face not behind my back but it’s far more hurtful. I wasn’t supposed to hear but there’s 69
something that makes you listen when you hear your own name in the air. There’s no feeling quite like being insulted, especially if the person insulting you is saying it to people you consider friends, and worse, they find it amusing.
Seventy-eight
This is a strange journey I am on. Mainly because I don’t truly know where it is taking me. I think about it as though it is controlling me, leading me yet it may be I who am consciously making each turn. I haven’t quite decided which it is yet. When I arrive I may be disappointed and may go somewhere else. I never have been any good at making decisions. Even the wrong ones.
Sometimes I’d like someone to tell me. Only I know it is just so I can have someone to blame other than myself.
Journey’s always scared me before. I worry. It is not a pleasant trait. I like security. Or so I thought. Now I don’t know. The unknown is quite appealing in an odd kind of way. I’m still worried. But not particularly scared.
I just want to distance myself from everything.
I don’t like mirrors. They make me see the worst in myself.
70
Seventy-nine
The film is in full swing. I’m glad I didn’t pay for the headphones. It’s like watching animated wood. The script probably isn’t much better so I’m relieved.