Bold

 In 2016 I wrote loads and loads of rubbish because I'm a rubbish writer and no one reads it so ultimate freedom is mine.

2021, maddest year of my life, Hospital surgery, corona virus pandemic, masks and more of the usual mundane.

I got in to knitting, and the agreed faint ambition to please people, or at least not annoy them faded.

Now I really don't care, its so nice.

 

Two Lines of coke

Shay St John is the finest creation of the internet.

Marilyn Manson  is just another fat bloke with mother issues.

ps, wrote this in 2016, its now 2021 and guess whos turned out to be a fat bloke with mother issues or as its more commonly known, a serial misogynist who's aledgedly  abusvie to wimmin.

called it.





 

Day 3, The Balcony scene.

They woke me at 3am, with possibly the most inarticulate and badly put case for
continuing a relationship I have ever heard.

if she stayed with him, and promised not to break up with him he would not he declared,
hit her, but, if she insisted they were breaking up then he would beat her,
so she responded by hitting him.
I knew that she had thrown the punch by the clear delineation of the verbal abuse,
her opinion of his offer was undoubtedly pretty low.

For a split second I lay in bed wondering if sleep and i might be in a similar situation,
were we breaking up? or staying together.

Then glass was smashed, and over the time i have lived here I have become like a
Pavlovian dog to that sound, and automatically assume i shall have to call at the
very least an ambulance for some wounded party.

Leaning out of my bedroom window, still semi conscious I could see that this
ad hoc session of relationship counseling could be downgraded as a dramatic,
rather than an emergency, intervention.

She had thrown the empty wine bottle on the floor, as a gesture of emphasis,
the fact it was an empty bottle summed it up entirely, a wonderful metaphor
for their "relationship" I thought, though experience prevented me from making this
my opening comment to them.

instead I introduced myself, and despite some surgestion that my presence was not required,
I maintained that even though they may not be imediatly able to see the value of my
unasked for contribution to the discussing, they should trust me when I said i was
intending to have an imput.

I promised them both that i had much of value to impart to them and that my inclusion was
something that on a deeper level they both desired,
 but were unable to actively acknowledge was needed,
the predictable storm of protest they emanated at this information confirmed my statement.
they protested far too much.

Relationships, by the time they reach my street, if late at night are invariably in tatters.

I have considered searching the land registry at the local library, to see if the block i live
in was built on some contaminated ground,with strange unseen fumes vaporizing
 from the soil and at the drop in temperature of the night,
collecting close to the ground floor,
 causing the formerly amicable couples,
who had been content to settle for each other,
and a life of unquestioning mediocrity,
 unwittingly inhale these "fumes" as they wander
homewards and right under my bedroom window reach saturation point.

Alternatively it could also be that my bedroom window is at the half way point between
the alcohol starting to wear off and the reality of having to return to the very hovel,
with the very same person they were trying to escape from if only for a few hours,
 kicks in.

"You are all I've got" he bellowed in to her face, as much as i longed to point out
that this was probabbly the crux of the issue I kept my council and
waited with baited breath to see how she would digest this,
from nowhere she pulled the modern day equivalent of the "smoking gun"
a mobile phone was pressed against his nose,
the screen was glowering with potential.

At this point i interrupted, on the basis that i am getting old and no longer have the
 ability to remain engaged with a building plot,
 if the conclusion looks to be a cliched one.

"is this" I inquired," a case of Facebook or Text messages?"
and we debated for a time quite why i of all people might be concerned with this,
and why also i might "Still" even be present.

I was tired before all this began and tiring even more of constantly having to remind both parties
that i unlike them I actually paid rent to stand in this very spot.
weariness forced me to ignore  the subject, and i abruptly if a little harshly put
forward the proposal that "He" as he had become known to me, had,
been in contact,via the smoking I phone, with,
 Another woman.

This was greeted with enthusiasm, if not consitancy, in that I recived both an
emphatic denial and an emphatic agreement.
I decided there was only one way to bring about a resolution of agreement amongst us
 and so end this early morning debate.

"He Has" I said solemnly to her, and he began to plead his case, I spoke over him,
"Its me" I declaired with out a hint of contrition, "I am the other woman"
their attention was united, and now all focused on me.

I fielded the barrage that followed with an unwavering gaze, and concentrated only
on her , "There is more" I intoned, solem of face i announced
 " I am pregnant with his child"

and then I gazed aloft towards the stars, as if caught in stop motion
 holding a pose i imagined resembled a homage of the Victorian school of
 romantic painting, whilst a chorus of derision broke out from the street below.

They were at last united, as they informed me of the blatant improbability
of my assertions.
I kept silent as they progressed rapidly towards the only rational conclusion of the entire
night, as the expletives ran dry the verdict was delivered,
I was they spoke as one, "Mental"
I nodded and confirmed i was indeed , they turned to look at one another with mutual bewilderment
and then walked side by side, in to the first light of another day.

United by absurdity.

 I carried a cup of tea in to my bedroom, and settled back against a crumpled pillow
 allowing myself a brief flirtation with the concept that now, they had a little more
glue to paste over the ragged edges of  life together,
 when the alcohol failed,
 when the narrow script for dramatic declaration ran out of tropes,
they could now try, the refuge of a shared genuine prejudice,
all that  joint revulsion towards the mentally ill, they could
lavish each others personality with a sanity,that required no other authentication,
than the obvious blinkered irony.

I imagine ten years from now when they have nothing in mind to say to each other,
one will rehash the memory of the night they stood in the street punching each other
and smashing wine bottles,
and one will casually say,
 I wonder what happened to that mental old woman who wouldn't shut up,?
 the way she kept ranting at us,
she was sick in the head wasn't she,
 wonder if they put her away?
dunno why they let them out in the first place, they don't fit in,
not really not around normal people, they carnt help it but you dunno what to do wiv em.
 
ah well,
it might help to temporarily subvert the agony of knowing that
in the morass of problems their lives are riddled with,
it all originates from the same point, of only having each other,
I cannot begin to imagine the disappointment in that.
.......................
ps, I managed my walk again today after only 2 hours sleep! it hurt, it hurts...
but I did it, and in crazy terms I call that a win for today.
........................