clinging to the wreckage

One thing that I have learned in this life is that the people who you are absolutely uninterested in will always make contact and they will talk and talk and talk whereas the ones you desperately want to hear from very rarely, if ever, make contact.  I’ve also come to realise that there is nothing that quite gets me down like broken communication with someone whom I’d so dearly love to hear from. However, it is such a constant and recurring theme that I should be quite used to it by now. Anyway, it’s just another happy Monday morning. People are laughing and cheerful… and I cannot for the life of me fathom why. 

The sun’s visits are growing shorter by the day and it feels as if my days themselves are doing the same. There is this darkness within that I can’t seem to extinguish without you. But you are so distant and so cold now that all hope is lost. And still I cling. I cringe when I imagine what you must think and feel. How you must see me as something so far removed, an ancient relic of the past; replaced again and again by things more meaningful and more exciting. To me, interactions with humans are few and occur very infrequently. Therefore, to meet one like you is something incredibly unique but to share the intimacy that we did is something beyond imagination and meant more to me than you could ever possibly know. I’ve been trying for so long to let go. I trudge on in search for a reason to trudge on. And as another winter arrives there doesn’t seem to be one.

It’s the self-loathing that holds me back. You see, I can’t hold any faith or hope in a relationship when I simply see myself as impossible to put up with for a prolonged period of time. I do not have the money, the body, the mind, the personality to shut out the darkness and smile for you. The mark of sorrow has been with me since birth and, at the age of thirty nine, the relationship with myself is as rocky as it has ever been. Small doses. Just small doses. Please. Sorry. 

If you thought that the troops were sent to Afghanistan to fight for oil… or peace… you were wrong. They were sent there to secure a steady supply of heroin and cocaine into the USA. Prior to the invasion, approximately 4% of drugs coming into America were from Afghanistan. That number, since the arrival of American troops, has increased to 60%. Everything we hear is a lie. Everything they say they are doing is a lie. When I see a car driving around with a ‘yellow ribbon’ sticker saying ‘support our troops’ I think ‘just bring them home’. The only way to support them is to bring them home to their families. They are used as puppets to toy with the emotions of the public. They are used as pawns to obtain whatever it is that the mighty nations they represent need at the time.

Demeter ran towards me, angrily, switching between all four legs and an upright position on her hind legs. She stopped before me and stared deeply with her cold, cruel eyes.                 ‘You denied me a daughter.’ She spoke in a calm voice that sounded like the winter winds scurrying over plates of ice.                 ‘But... your daughter brought winter to the earth.’ I attempted to defend myself. Demeter rose to her back legs and rapidly spoke: ‘Persephone was partly human and therefore weak. We do not allow such weakness in the feline world. Do you see emotion displayed upon my face?’                 ‘No’                 ‘No, for there is none. We do not allow the petty human weakness of emotion. And, besides, what of winter? Winter is our season. Winter is why we live in these greyish blue coats. We are borne of vicious cruelty and death. We hunt, we torture, this is our legacy.’  Swiping a claw at my face she whispered ‘I wanted a daughter and you denied me.’

After a catastrophic car day I ended up using the train to get home. I made the most of the fact that I did not have to drive and had a beer with a friend after work before walking to the station and waiting twenty five minutes for the delayed train. The train station was awash with students from the local college... for some reason, all of them female. They seemed to be astonished by my presence, alone, wearing headphones, on the platform across from the one at which they were all waiting for their train... also delayed. Both trains arrived at the same time and I climbed aboard, happy to escape the increasing cold of the platform. As we approached Gatwick airport, the passenger next to me got up and walked away leaving his backpack on the seat. Of course, this caused me to start analysing the situation both from the sense of our general fear of terrorism to the behavioural aspects of being inconsiderate enough in the modern climate to do such a thing as leave your backpack unatte