clinging to the wreckage

In our imperfections lies our beauty. It is our imperfections that make us unique and alluring… this is the case with every human being I find attractive and it is the case with the forms of music and literature that I love. Animals too. There is a cat who often waits around in my garden around the time that I get home from work. This cat only has three legs and yet walks with perfect balance and grace. He is cross-eyed and his eyes appear to have cataracts of some kind, yet they are beautiful and understanding. When I step out of my car he runs to me and allows me to run my hand down his back once, just once, then he makes a noise and walks away. He is an amazing example of endurance and survival. He has had a tough life and yet he just peacefully lingers upon the grass next to the flowers and awaits a little bit of love or attention or joy… he is just like us… but better than some.

In pain and sorrow I fell asleep, then I dreamt of you and there you saved me. We were happy and inseparable… although the death crept into my dream too, how could it not? Never the less, all things seemed better with you sitting on my lap holding my hand.

There are things I’d like to say to you as I lie here and think about today… today the day that my grandfather died whilst my mother is in ICU after having part of one of her lungs removed… and she doesn’t yet know. She doesn’t know because she is too fragile to be given the news. It’s a tragedy. Life is a tragedy. There is no one to talk to. There is no one to hold. There is no one. Every single person has made their commitment and with that commitment they shall stick. And yet I see your photo and there are so many things that I’d like to say to you as I lie here and ponder the meaninglessness of it all. I see your photo and I contemplate your beauty as I realise there is only longing and pain and goodbye. There are brief flickers in between but I have left it too late and everyone has made their commitments.   Everyone is dying and sick or lonely and everyone has made their commitments.

When I first arrived in Africa I was eight years old. I hated it. I hated the extreme conditions, the dry sand, the hot air, the scorching wind, and the bright blinding light. Even the food tasted of dust. Bread was hard. Water was different. My skin burnt and blistered and, even though I was able to play in the swimming pool, life was a general misery. I couldn’t go shopping with my parents without feel waves of nausea due to the extreme heat. I recall many a mid-day spent sitting in the shade on the side of the street sipping a coke to try to regain some sense of normality. But then I started to see the colours, the wildlife, the vegetation, the people. I started to discover a place of unique and diverse cultures, animals, plants and regions. As time passed by I fell in love with all of these facets of African life and felt proud to be a part of it all. In my comfort, many things started to fall into place and I started to develop a love of music, literature,

Kipling’s Kim comes to life of a Sunday afternoon with beer as, outside, an ugly overweight man wearing a shirt that is too small even though it is large walks past with his beautiful wife and I wonder what their story is. Is he rich or is she just a good person who is with a man she loves in spite of the way that he looks? Ultimately it matters not. They have each other and all I have is people who run away and back into the arms of the ones they claimed to be sick of. I’ve sent a few messages this weekend but I have not had any replies. With others I have not even bothered. And yet the cats stroll the house like it is a palace and I am some form of king who shares in their reign. If only they knew that I reign over nothing… that I can’t even get a reply to a message from the ones I love… the ones who wish I would fall of the face of the planet.

When the book closes you are gone… and I am once more alone… but the words continue to speak to me and as I walk through the street back to my house to escape the masses of people all crammed into their cars and stuck in traffic jams as they try to make it to the parks to linger in the sun I think of how it was that you lived, refusing to compromise, suffering starvation, cold, and homelessness in the pursuit of your dream and through your persistence you achieved it. It truly is an inspiration but at the same time it makes me feel like something of a failure or that I am living a lie and selling my soul to the only bidder who will have it. I sell my soul in fear of hunger and hopeless homelessness. I constantly dabble in the things that I love to do such as sit here and write these very words but they certainly have no mass (or minor) appeal and would never allow escape from the relentless pace of the corporate pursuit of profit.              I am becoming incr

She fell pregnant and everything stopped.  There were only two things that she could do… they were eat and talk. She wouldn't work; she never really had worked very well but in pregnancy all work ceased entirely. She would come into the office and talk… talk incessantly about her pregnancy and her scans and her plans and what she hoped for and how her husband said this and did that. I pity the husband deeply. How sad and trapped that man must feel. He has always been forced into doing things that he hasn't wanted to do, such as send his wife flowers on Valentine's Day simply so that she could be seen by the other women receiving them. The only time I ever saw the husband smile was one night I was out on the town and saw him out without her. Draw your own conclusions. Her ambition, her sole ambition, was to escape work by one means or another… and here is the means… the baby… all celebrate the baby for it means that she'll never work again.