Grateful

I don’t usually make posts like this but I feel people need reminding.

 It’s nearly Christmas: you’re stressing over what to buy for your families, over the lack of snow, about exams and work and deadlines, about which days you can take off and which days you really can’t, about how freaking cold it is and how dark it gets in the afternoons, about Christmas day plans and how much all of this is going to cost.

I just want to remind you how fragile life is, and how anything can happen at any moment – to any of us. Life is miserable at times and definitely, always unpredictable; pain is something every person has experienced and something everyone will experience again, at some point. People die, people fall out of love, people lose their jobs, people get injured or sick – bad things happen, literally all the time, everywhere on this earth.  There’s a war going on in Syria, and on the 25^th of December there will be broken families huddled in shelters, with no food but just the fear of another bomb, or another raid from the rebels. They’ve seen pain, loads of it, but do you know what they’ll do? Mothers will kiss the faces of their surviving children and thank the sky for sparing them their lives. They’ve seen pain, but they know how lucky they are to have any hope at all.

But, I don’t say this to dampen your festive spirit, or to add any more stress to your life - in fact, quite the opposite. Don’t you think it is a beautiful miracle to have the people you love around you this Christmas? Shouldn’t you feel blessed to have your family and your closest friends with you, grateful to able to smile and laugh together? You’ll most likely be surrounded by people you’ve known forever, and who you love unconditionally (even though they’re family and you fight like cats and dogs).  They’ll be gathered around the dinner table and slumped sleepily in armchairs eating chocolate, most likely in relatively good health.  Some alive after an admirable amount of years, after wars – some who’ve fought off diseases, both physical and psychological – and you’ll all be together this Christmas. There can surely be nothing more wonderful.

 Life can take people away in seconds, and bad things are going to happen to you in your life. But that’s not a reason to be unhappy. Good things happen too, and life always gives more than it takes, if you look at it from the right angle. Please just have a look around and be thankful for everything you have!

Merry Christmas.

Love for life

A mother watched her baby sleeping. 

His two tiny feet were kicking the air, his hands holding his blanket, his little mouth the shape of a perfect ‘o’. He had a birth mark under his left eye and a small amount of wispy ginger hair; he had rosy cheeks and adorable sticky-out ears. He was barely the span of her two hands in length, so astonishingly light – and to think all adults were once this small.

She found herself doing this more often than she thought was normal – just staring at him, drinking in his chubby face. She would catch herself and go back to whatever she was doing, but she’d always find herself back beside his cot watching his little chest rise and fall.

It wasn’t as though she worried for his safety – not really - she knew it wasn’t worth it to play those games in your head. She thought perhaps she feared his genuinity, because he was too perfect to actually exist. She felt she had to keep her eyes on him at all times, because then she had evidence of producing something so beautiful – it had to be believed. He was there. He was hers.  Her gorgeous, helpless baby.

25 years later she waited anxiously at the airport, scratching her fingernails up and down her arms in anticipation; she’d waited two long agonising years for this moment.  She cried into her husband’s shoulder at every letter and prayed to a God she didn’t believe in more times than she could count. ‘Please, let him come home safe. Let my baby come home safe.’ She felt bad about the war, and she was proud of everything her son was doing, but the selfish side of her just wanted him back. Her motherly instinct wanted him away from everything and anything that could hurt him.

As the men in their uniforms started to pour through arrivals, running into crying girlfriend’s arms and throwing squealing children into the air – she waited. Her husband lay a hand on her arm as the line of soldiers started to trickle – he could feel tension radiating from her like heat. He said he was on this flight – where was he? Where was her baby?

Then, around the corner, pushed by another burley soldier, came a wheelchair – in it was her son. He only had one leg. A mix of emotions flooded through her – he was alive, he was okay…he wasn’t okay. He was in a wheelchair for life. The war had broken him…how dare they send him somewhere so dangerous, how dare he be such an idiot for going! She saw him as she saw him in his cot: his hands holding the sides of the wheelchair, the birthmark under his eye, his ginger hair, his mouth the shape of a perfect ‘o’ when he saw her tearful face. But there was only one foot swinging in front of him.

He was a man now. His hair was in the short back and sides of a soldier; his eyes reflected war crimes he’d never forget, scenes to wake him at night in years to come, screaming about things he could not change.  There was stubble across his lip, and a cut on his cheek. Others would never think of him once being so small.  When he grabbed her hand and explained how he hadn’t wanted to tell them about his injury…hadn’t wanted to worry them…how others had lost their lives and how lucky he was…she’d held on for dear life, staring at him, never wanting to let go again, never wanting to look away.

The Day I Met Gatsby

It was one of those lukewarm nights at the start of summer. The beach was dark, the only light coming down from the dock, leaving the sand and the water in an eery green glow. You could just about make out the horizon, a thin line against the sky, marking the start of what seemed to be eternity. I was sitting on the bank staring out into the nothingness.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. He walked slowly, deliberately, as you would expect. His hands were placed lightly in his pockets, but his arms were stiff at his sides. He was wearing a pink shirt and a pale blue suit, so light it almost seemed to make him shine out of the darkness. He saw me – and smiled. That smile. You know that smile. It glinted, his pearly teeth reflecting in the half light, so perfectly straight they would make you question their genuinity.  But of all things, the smile belonged to Gatsby: it had built him. I didn’t smile back but just stared, watching his every move: analysing him.

He was right in front of me. He seemed unfazed by the fact I had ignored him; he simply hitched up his crisp trousers and sat down lightly beside me. He was so close I could smell his sweet cologne, no doubt the most expensive kind money could buy. I continued to stare as he thoughtfully gazed out across the water, where my eyes had been but a moment ago. He had freckles speckled across his cheeks and nose, I noticed, and his eyes were framed with soft lashes. Those eyes! It wasn’t so much the colour of them that would strike you, but their intensity. They were desperately searching for something, but I doubt even Gatsby could tell you what that was.

I’m not sure how long we sat in silence. I was afraid to speak to him, afraid of what he would have to say. But it was a comfortable silence, for me at least. He sensed my reluctance, and after all, he’d come to me, not the other way around. I noticed his small white hands peeking out from the immaculate suit, shaking slightly as they sat in his lap. He wasn’t at ease, even now. But would you have expected him to be?

Suddenly, he turned. Those eyes stared into mine, and he smiled again. My heart melted a little and I felt reassured, as I expect most people would. He extended one of those pale hands.

“Jay Gatsby. It’s a pleasure to meet you, old chap.”

“I know who you are”, I nodded. But all the same I took his hand and shook it, because to be impolite was by far the biggest crime you could commit against him. He seemed to appreciate my effort.

“So, you’re lost?” he hedged, looking back up towards the horizon.

“Lost?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I quite understand what you mean.”

I wondered if perhaps I was dreaming. Was this one of those visions, like ‘Beauty school drop out?’ Was he going to try and point back in the right direction and tell me to stop ‘dwelling on dreams and forget to live’? I feared this I think more than anything. Dreams were all I had.

Dystopian outlook

In the future, money will cease to exist. We can now pay with our laptops, on our phones and with contactless cards; there will be no need for physical currency, because technology will take over. Efficiency always was our weakness. But the transferring of money is still founded on the concept of it; when we lay our plastic bank cards against the card machine as payment, we still imagine those coins exchanging hands, and think of it as a trade of physical money.

Soon it seems we will be living on concepts and relying on them. Reality will be no more, but we will still have the concept of reality: imagination and artificial creation. The world will morph into one big game of pretend, with an electronic barrier between us and life. We'll devote ourselves to robots instead of real, beating hearts, machines over freshly mown grass. iPads replace books, apps replace games, technology replaces life. Only in our minds as an ideal will the world survive; only in these warped caricatures will the living, breathing world continue on. Society will be so fake it will no longer recognise itself in the mirror, but will step back and say "damn Daniel, back at it again with the pollution, the Botox, and the online dating."

Will anything be real? Perhaps the sense of loss will be real. Perhaps the increase in people with severe mental health problems and the loneliness will be real. Perhaps all else will be fake apart from that empty, aching feeling inside which screams that this is wrong, that this goes against our nature. I can't go five minutes without having my phone in my hand, checking it even when I'm not expecting any news, aimlessly scrolling through it subconsciously. I hate this so much I want to take a sledgehammer to it and smash it up, until the glass and the metal are little more than dust in my hands. But I can't. Why not? Because the entire fucking world is the same, contaminated and obsessed, like we've been sucked into a dark hole and we can't see to get ourselves out. Like the lotus eaters we barely even know we are having our lives wasted away, our energy drained out of us; we are oblivious to our own destruction. Humans are so strong, so adaptable and incredible; nothing can destroy us because we dominate the earth. 

But of course, we will destroy ourselves. When every human is dead and God walks among our technology ridden corpses he will mutter "my god, whose idea was it to give them free will." 

The Day Joel Broke Down

Joel had been acting a little strange for weeks. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him smile or make a genuine joke; he was nearly silent when I saw him in person, and he never answered my messages. He never had been the most outgoing or the most talkative, but I was still worried about him. He seemed to have been absorbed into a world of his own, and the distance between us scared me. 

One night he came over out of the blue, which was unnerving; he would never just turn up like that. It wasn’t him. He’d usually take days to plan anything. I beckoned him in and asked him what was wrong, but he treated me to more of his now almost trade mark silence.

We went into the living room; both my parents were out. I perched on the sofa, and Joel sat himself uneasily in the armchair across from me. His face was white and gaunt; he looked thinner than he ever had. His clothes too were creased and untidy, like they’d been thrown on in a hurry. He was losing himself, that much was clear. I clenched and unclenched my hands nervously, anticipating what was to come. Was he going to explain? Was I going to be able to help? We sat in more silence for a little while, and I resisted the urge to fill it with meaningless babble just because culture said I should. But no – this silence was important. This silence spoke to me; it was a message in itself.

 I waited, and then the tempo of the situation suddenly changed. Joel got up wildly and paced the room, running his hands together and then through his hair, his shoes clipping the wooden floor. I sat and watched as insanity seemed to pour out of him like an overflowing cooking pot. He looked out of it, dazed; I laughed at him because I didn't know what else to do. His agitation made me anxious. He was breathing deeply, scratching marks into his arms, continuing to stride from wall to wall. He didn't even seem to acknowledge that I was there; it was just him and this invisible, improbable quest.

All of a sudden he lashed out with his fist, pummelling it into the wall. It was so sudden I didn’t have time to shout out, and at first I thought he was attacking me. My yelp of shock a second later was almost comically delayed; it was like it suddenly hit me what had just happened.  I know he'd never hit me – I do know that – but it’s in the moment, when things happen so fast and there’s such anger in the air, that you can never be quite sure what’s going on. He wouldn't have it in him though; he is such an angel. I know him. I do. He pulled his bloodied fingers from the plaster wreckage and there was a pause as he stared down at it. He seemed bewildered, and I was fucking bewildered too I can tell you. It then dawned on me that my parents were going to kill me; there was a Joel’s fist sized hole in the wall beside the mantel piece, but that was a bridge I would have to cross later.

He went passive. He sat himself down on the floor, cross legged like a child sitting in assembly at school. I half expected him to put a finger to his lips to prove his obedient silence: a regressive move to revalidate his goodness. But the blood was running down his arm onto his jeans, dripping onto the floor even - this wasn't angelic. It was crazy and terrifying. I wondered if perhaps I should ask him to leave. But no - I knew him, and this was odd. His freckled face was blank; he seemed to not know what to make of it himself. I saw with a pang how much he was shaking, as though he'd dived into the snow without a coat. There was more silence and more silence - did I ask? Did I wait? Did I go? There was no handbook for this, no one to tell you what to do or what to say. One wrong step could be drastic when someone was clearly teetering so close to the edge. Still - to say or do nothing would be more of a crime, I decided. This boy needed me. He really did - right now more than ever. 

I moved slowly, and he glanced up at me, terrified, like a rabbit in the headlights. I slammed on the brakes, taking a moment to gauge his reaction, but he seemed okay with me coming closer. He was still breathing as though he'd just done a 100m sprint. I sat down slowly, sitting in front of him cross legged, so our knees were almost touching. He was staring at the ground, so I took his hands in mine, being careful of the injured one. We sat for a moment like this, and his breathing slowed slightly. I felt as though some of the angst he was feeling was passing down his arms, through his hands and into mine, where they could then escape into the atmosphere. I was draining him of his fears somewhat, and for that I knew I was a decent person. 

Eventually he looked up and stared intently into my eyes, and I've never had a moment like it. They were a vibrant blue, and I saw everything I needed to see, heard everything I needed to hear. He was hurting; he was lost and confused. I saw in the pupils the pain he was feeling and how much pressure he was under. In the swirling iris I saw fear - of himself, of the future, and of the world. They explained to me the erratic behaviour, the silences, and the anger. The colour hit me like a tidal wave of emotion, trapped in his soul, encased in him - thoughts bottled and blood boiling, all crammed together in one fragile human existence. In the white I saw a reflective purity which spoke of the goodness he aspired to, which he so often failed to obtain and hated himself for it. In his eyes I experienced and empathised with everything: I finally understood. 

He recognised my understanding. He licked his bleeding hand like a cat or a dog, and then he began to cry - great, heaving sobs which seemed to almost shake the room. He lay his head on my shoulder and he soaked my t-shirt with his tears, and I simply lay a hand on his head and stroked his hair. We'd come so far; he'd come so far. I was glad more than anything that I hadn't asked him to leave; that would have been the worst thing. He needed to let this out, and the tears were the biggest blessing he could have asked for. 

I realised we hadn’t spoken a word for nearly 45 minutes. We hadn’t needed to. I may not have been told in explicit details the extent of his problems and what was bothering him, but for now that didn’t matter. We could get to that later. What mattered was that he knew he had me, and I would do anything for him; we would get through it together. And I, after being so scared and confused by his behaviour, found peace in his admittance of pain. He had come to me and I could at least try to help. 

My favourite things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

I scooped up a stone and threw it violently into the ocean - there was no skipping, just a clunky splash, and then silence.

Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens.

I sat myself down on the pebbled beach. The grey sky pressed down on me and the wisps of wind ripped through my jacket like invisible knives. It looked as though it could rain - as though it needed to. It seemed as though the sky was holding on, it's knuckles pressed tightly together, yearning to just let go. The water lapped nervously, anticipating the storm, and I sat stubbornly on the shore. I was refusing to leave.

-When the dog bites, when the bee stings -

Maybe I should go back, I thought, as the approaching clouds grew darker and the wind blew harder. No. Instead I hunched myself forward, wrapping my arms around my knees, telling myself I wasn't afraid. The first bullets fell from the sky, hitting the lake like - like - drip drip drop little April Showers. Murderous showers. Du du de du du de da de du - de de da du de da du de de dum. It was December and the rain was cold as ice.

Brown paper packages 

A raindrop rolled down my cheek like a tear. Or maybe it was a tear - I wouldn't know any more. The rain started to hiss, splattering around me, sounding like a melancholy New York city. I felt glued to the stones - there was no way I could leave now. I had to wait it out.

tied up with strings

"Martin! MARTIN!" It seemed as though the wind itself was calling me. Wait - "Martinnn! MARTIN IS THAT YOU?" - it wasn't the wind. I was shaking. I refused to turn around. I was in the storm - I was the storm. Thunder growled overhead and lightning flashed as though on que, illuminating the lake and the desperation it appeared to be hiding. "Martin?" Something like an arm touched my shoulder, and I sat rigid as a rock. Perhaps I had become a pebble. I was the same as all the others on the beach. They'd never know which was one was me. They could throw me into the ocean - clunky splash, silence - and they still wouldn't know.

I was being dragged to my feet. I looked down at my hands, noticing now that they were covered in blood. Mingling with winter's rain and dripping maliciously onto my boots... every part of me was covered in blood.

These are a few of my favourite things. 

Emptying my brain

I tremble as I observe the world, so splendidly horrific in everything it presents to us.

“Why write? Why read? So pointless. So…unnecessary.”

I reach out a hand on an icy night, and note the billons of cells combined together to create its nervous whiteness. I watch the knuckles flex, and I feel a pointlessness so strong it physically strikes me. My hand snaps back. Why have hands? Why have anything at all? Why think these thoughts?

With imagination there is everything and anything. With reality we are limited: we are held back by particles, laws, morals, and existence, but with a story the possibilities are infinite. There is an exquisite, uncontrolled power in a writer; they can veer one way then sprint another, before taking to the sky like a firework and exploding the universe, ripping out the fabric of time and space - if they so wish. They can coax a wimblowicket out of its dusty hollow, whatever that may be. They can make love blossom in the most unlikely places, or they can paint misery into the eyes of characters we then come to think of as real.  As a writer you have the whole world and more at your fingertips; you have time, space, reality, surreality, emotion, life and death to knead with. You can dance and play with everything we know and everything we don’t…you understand this world is splendidly horrific. You love this beautiful pointlessness.

Others may pretend to know. Professionals present themselves as smooth, knowledgeable and damn smart – smarter than these writer lunatics. But they are just as damn stupid and damn scared as the rest of us. They will never admit they know that hollowed out feeling, as though they are capable of nothing and can do nothing to make anything right – because everything feels wrong. Writers can write what is right; they can sculpt what is wrong. They can make peace with futility.

You tell me it is pointless – well tell me, when you glance into the obscene blackness that is the sky tonight, do you understand? We are on a rock hurtling through a void, but yet you stand here, as still as anything, watching black water lap over black rocks in this black night. Where were you in the daylight hours? There was colour then, I promise. The rocks were grey, the sky blue, and the water as colourless as crystal. I wish you’d seen more than this shadowy black. Have we just never seen our world in what I will call “day”? Are we believing black when colours do exist? Perceptions, determinations, brains, infinity. I am blown away with possibility, yet chained and calloused with the clasps of your damned reality.

Madness. What a strange, strange word. How can one not be mad, when you regard seriously our position? We turn our backs on the inevitable and smile; we sweat and labour until our eyes close for the last time, never to reopen – and even then, on the borderline, we will have no idea. And yet, despite all this, you still believe my words are pointless. Their words are pointless. Their reflections of this stupid, bewildering, terrifying group of existences are to be discredited as nothing? There is never nothing…nothing comes of nothing. I am stepping forward into nothing and yet I know I shall fall into the hands of something, and perhaps something shall save me, or perhaps it shall not.

Never shall it mean nothing. Because never shall anything mean anything. We are running in the dark – we always were, we perhaps always will be…if dark can mean anything to us at all, can mean anything to us who know nothing.