I’ve thought of a new Saturday night television ratings winner:
‘Who want to be a Twat?’
Here’s today’s trend. Aspire to be so thin you look like you’re suffering from AIDS. It’s a new style which could be classed as ‘Heroin chic’. I’m not saying it’s great to be fat either. There are far too many fat people. Thin, fat, thin, fat – this is a great game you can play walking own the high street.
Everyone is going to have severe health problems resulting from either eating too little or too much 168
food. What is this bizarre world of extremes we’re seeing at the moment? Are people trying to make a statement? If so, can’t they make a better one? Or maybe everyone is just a fucking moron.
Powerful typhoon kills hundreds in Korea. Thousands are left homeless. Ships have sunk. Rail lines torn down. Faces of grief pouring into my living room. But hey, what’s happening with J’Lo’s wedding? Might it be called off? Headline news. What’s going on? WHO
IS IN CONTROL?
What is entertainment? Is it a cover to keep people happy?
West End musicals. The majority of them mean absolutely nothing. I use to love them. The bright colours, happy sounds, smiling faces. It’s something similar to how we appease babies when they cry.
Colourful moving mobiles jingling in the air, people pulling over-exaggerated faces. Is there much difference?
Without entertainment would people become more aware of the reality of life itself? Splashes of escapism may help to keep a balance in peoples minds, keep people thinking everything is okay. Musicals are just one example. Television shows are another. Sure entertainment exists that makes interesting points, which is thought provoking and challenging but the majority do not. People do not want to see the world they live in reflected back at them. It would tip the balance. It may make them see there’s a fucking lot wrong with the world and they may then begin to wonder who has not wanted them to see it.
Happy go lucky musicals. Saturday night quiz shows making a small minority overnight millionaires. There 169
is no problem. It is controlled. But hang on. What about the Internet. A medium of choice itself. No, that is considered extremely dangerous. Your mind is in danger of being warped. Well. Compared to the above freakism, bring it on. I’ll tale my chances. And if people decided to stop being molly-coddled, I hope they explore their world a little more through their own eyes.
One day you look around and you think almost everyone you know, almost everyone you meet and almost everyone you see is a complete fake. No-one acknowledges who they really are. It’s all an elaborate cover. Maybe not all deliberate but it’s clear to see.
People are liars.
Am I alienating everyone? Yes, I know I am. Do I really give a flying fuck? I don’t know. At the moment, no I don’t give a fuck. I want to say these things because at the moment I absolutely believe them. I’m getting to the stage where I don’t like going out of the house any more because I have no control over anything. I have advertisement hoardings in my line of vision that I have not asked to see, I see men walking down the street on a sunny day with their tops off, sporting huge black tattoo’s and a face that says ‘If you insult me, I’ll kill you then fuck your mother’, I try to have conversations but people don’t involve me because I don’t know the latest plot-line in Eastenders, I go to work and let pure boredom wash over me, if I need to go to the doctors I have to take a half day’s holiday from work to go, if I go out there is a chance I may spend money and I can’t afford to do that, the list grows daily. I’m so stressed but I can’t relieve the stress because it surrounds me all the time.
I went out yesterday to a shopping centre and felt sick.
It was accompanied by a feeling of claustrophobia. Of 170
strangulation. I wondered if it was something I’d eaten but I knew it wasn’t. I felt so out of place. It is stress about my existence and the world in which I live.
What I need to do is change the way my world looks before I destroy what’s left of it.
There are many stories about outsiders. I’ve always been an outsider. At school. University. Now. Some people take a strong dislike to me. Some hate me. It happens whether I open my mouth or not. It happens no matter how much I try to fit in. Now I admit I don’t try as hard. Sometimes I don’t try at all. What’s the point?
I understand the word ‘hate’. I hate someone. Really hate them. I had a piece of paper popped through my door once that had this person’s name on it somewhere. I felt uneasy with it being in the house.
That’s crazy isn’t it? I know I’m wrong to let it get to me so much but I can’t help it. I let everything get to me. I’m pretty thin-skinned. On the outside I’m bold and strong but on the inside I’m a complete fucking mess.
I think I’m set to self-destruct today.
One hundred and fifty-five
Where I am going is a strange place. I couldn’t have chosen a stranger one. It was easy once I came to terms with what it was I was trying to escape from. I made the decision quite quickly. A life changing 171
decision, made at the drop of a hat. It’s bizarre, once you actually open your eyes, just how much you see and how you become aware of how blind you have been. I’d like to say I’ll become a positive person but I don’t know if that will happen. I would like to think so. It will take time. As I sit here I know that I am being missed. Not by many but by a few. They couldn’t change my mind any more than I could, once I’d made it up.
There are so many people who think I got lost. People who think I’ve had some sort of breakdown, entered into a realm of madness. They may be right. Chances are they are very very wrong.
It is incredible how enlightened I feel. How much better I felt once I’d shaken off some of the trappings I once relied on. The first real clue for me was selling the television. It was a huge relief. I could sit in my lounge and consider what book to read or what I could sit down and write. I found a heap of time and freedom in which to plan my future. I had acquired time itself. Time I forgot existed. Time which I had for years been so keen to fill with nonsense. Afraid of silence. Afraid of spending time with my own thoughts. I’d been screaming inside for years. I’d never let myself be heard.
All my writing. All my anger at the world. Is it a projection (however well justified) of the anger I felt at myself for getting wrapped up in this warped world for so many years? Of believing there was nothing I could do about it?
I recently pushed a whole load of people away from me, keeping close only those who I knew really cared.
The others, the fake’s, I purposefully let fade away. I 172
could breathe again. I no longer had to laugh when I didn’t want to. I no longer had to pretend that I was part of the lie. I could be myself and not be afraid of being judged.
The job thing is difficult. Do you tell them what you are planning or do you carry on as normal until it’s time and then just walk out, maybe throwing in a few words to the boss regarding what you really think of him? I haven’t decided yet although each day it becomes more and more difficult to carry on with the façade. I wish I could be elusive. Just not turn up one day. No forwarding address. To them, it would seem as if I’d just disappeared off the face of the earth. I think that would be fun. Give people something else to talk about. Oh if only. If only I could do it tomorrow. What joy that would be.
The sky is growing darker outside. Just imagine if you were sat inside, watching an approaching storm.
Imagine if the sky kept losing light, the darkness creeping ever closer with the torrent of rain it brought.
Imagine if it were to grow darker and darker until the sky went black and that was the last you ever saw of the light. I love watching storms when you are sheltered. Especially if you are in a car. The wind lashing the windows, the rain drumming so hard on the roof you think it’s about to break through. Yet you are safe. You aren’t in any danger. Well, unless you are unlucky enough to be struck by lightening of course. If you were just the other side of the window however, the world would feel rather different There are some people who only find me good company when I’m pissed out of my brains. They don’t see that when I’m in their company, that’s the 173
only way I can get through the evening without telling them I think they’re all twats.
One hundred and fifty-six
I remembered my suicide man again today. It no longer upsets me. It comforts me in a really odd way.
Perhaps that’s not the right thing to say but he had a real effect on my life in the fact that he’s stayed with me. I remember as clear as day how he fell, how he bounced off the concrete like a rag doll and how he came to rest, his breath hanging on for those last few moments. His eyes, his expression. Not one of fear or pain. Considering he had just leapt off the top of a four storey car park I was stunned at how clean the whole thing was. No mangled body parts, no leg twisted underneath him, no pool of blood. He just lay there as if someone has placed him there in a position that suggested he was about to go to sleep. Well, he was, in some sense of the word. He had dark hair, short but with an attractive curl to it. Strange what you notice isn’t it. I’m glad I managed to swerve out of the way or I would have driven right over him. I remember getting out of the car and standing near him whilst someone else ran forward and administered basic first aid. It was of little use. I knew that. He knew that. You don’t cry for help by jumping off a tall building onto a hard road surface. You want to die. I wish someone would have taken him in their arms and told him it would be alright, that soon all his worries, all his terror at life would be gone forever.
No-one did. It’s not the done thing is it? Instead we all stood there in shock, trying to escape the reality of what we had seen.
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The above did happen. I didn’t understand for a long time how I felt about it. I didn’t discuss it. I struggled when I watched a film which had someone jumping off a building. I only began to understand once I realized that it was encouraged for me to rationalise this event, to categorise it so that I can put it in its relevant place in my mind. To bury it. I don’t want to bury it. I want to remember it often. Simply because it conflicts with the view of the world a lot of people would have us believe. It’s an inconsistency. A jolt. I didn’t think I’d ever write about him. I didn’t want to share him. I’ve kept a few things back like the call I made later that day. It’s a personal thing I guess.
If we’d met before he’d decided to die, I like to think I would have liked him.
Some people – One of those poems that doesn’t rhyme;
Some people can’t get through a day without a cigarette.
Some people constantly lie.
Some people are addicted to television or video games.
Some people overeat because they feel unwanted.
Some people can’t function without designer clothes.
Some people throw litter out of their car windows.
Some people don’t say I love you enough.
Some people don’t ask how you are and really mean it.
Some people don’t listen.
Some people are very alone.
Some people simply can’t bear to live any more.
Life is only precious to those who can see it that way.
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One hundred and fifty-seven
That familiar ping. I’ve already got my seatbelt fastened. Other people pay no attention. They don’t like being told what to do. Ignore the light now, just like they ignore it when we land (You know what I mean - The crew even ask you to remain seated with your seatbelts fastened over the speaker but no, the clever dicks have to get up and open the lockers to get their hand-luggage whilst still taxiing down the pigging runway). We’ve already started our descent.
Part of me wishes I could stay up here forever. What if I refused to get off? No, I’ve never been more certain. The stewardess passing to check we’re all belted up looks tired. She’s re-applied her make up but it doesn’t mask the bags under her eyes. I wonder where she goes when she get off this flight. Will she collect her attendant’s luggage and hop in a taxi with her colleagues to the nearest hotel to overnight before flying back home tomorrow with a new set of faces to appease. Will she disappear to a late night bar with the Captain? Or is this where her shift ends and this is where she lives. She can collect her car and drive back to climb into bed and fuck with someone she loves. I know, I over-romanticize. If she does go home it’s more than likely she’ll criticize her other half for not tidying up and then climb into bed after a huge row. I prefer the first scenario.
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One hundred and fifty-eight
I nearly threw a stool at someone who insisted on being racist not long ago. We were watching a football match in a pub. I got so fed up with hearing the words ‘black bastard’ and ‘coon’ that I asked the person in question to shut up, in not such a polite way.
His reply was that he knew he was a racist bastard. He seemed rather proud. No-one else in the place backed me up. Why, it’s just how people are. ‘Best not to wind them up’. Well, excuse, fucking, me. I wish in retrospect I’d spend the rest of the match shouting
‘white bastard’ any time a player was fouled. Yes, I know its no wonder I get on the wrong side of people but why would you want to know shallow minded cunts like that? I just wanted him to know I didn’t find him as amusing as he thought he was. More than that, I wanted him to know I thought he was a complete penis. Racism is all around me. If I feel it and I’m white, how the fuck do others feel.
‘All these immigrants taking over our country’. A much heard of phrase I’m sure you’ll agree. Can they hear themselves? Have they even delved below the surface of racial tensions and prejudices? Have they seen how some races are persecuted across the world?
What some people have to suffer? I don’t see them slapping Hitler on the back. Oh, sorry, that’s okay isn’t it, because Jews aren’t black. Black people bring everything on themselves, they’re an inferior race.
How is it possible when we know what we know to carry an attitude like this around with you? Especially when the majority of those who come out with such shit are either ill-educated beer-swilling ‘hard men’
whose opinions are shaped by those around them and can’t spell what they’re trying to say let alone understand it or middle to upper-class wankers who 177
rave on about how our country is being infiltrated by outsiders but cruise round Jamaica on a big fucking boat with a lot of similar toffee nose bigots, pointing at the locals and saying ‘hey look at Rasta’. I think the Cruise boats who carry such turds would be better off at the bottom of the sea. Careful now Eve, you’ll be mistaken for a terrorist. No, I’m just saying in theory.
My mum and dad cruise. I wish they wouldn’t but they do. Who am I to say what’s right and wrong?
(*Afterthought – maybe I should erase everything I’ve written so far……..). Shouldn’t people be able to do what they want? Yes of course. Fuck everybody. So long as I’m having a good time. Say what you think, do what you like. Fuck it. I deserve it. Me Me Me Me Me Me Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Well, you know what I say?
Fuck you.
Sorry. Rather went off on a tangent there.
Someone I know asked if they could read what I’d written so far. Inside I howled with laughter. Then I said no. No point pissing just about everyone off until I’ve bundled up my life and buggered off.
You know, that really does make me smile. Oh my god, that was me she was writing about, maybe I shouldn’t have been such an evil bitch? The mess I’ll have created if I ever get published. Mess is good.
Mess might just make the odd person stop and think.
Doubt it but hell, it’s been fun.
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