The Boy and the Cat

The boy made his way along the path, half-trundling, half-skipping and from time to time daring the leap to the other side of the ditch dividing the bank from the roadside verge. He hummed a tune without rhythm or structure.

Another nimble leap took him back to the bank and an internal crowd whooped their approval of his second majestic feat of agility. With his stick he rattled a staccato rhythm against the fence posts to his right, tracking his passage with a ‘clunk-crr-clunk’ as it passed from post to wire and back to post again.

The stick (acquired at the beginning of his journey, having been bravely retrieved from a prickly hedge) had been an invaluable companion, serving him faithfully as a staff, relieving his weight at every other step as he had seen a similar one serve his Grandfather; as a stout and trusty sword, ready to repel highwaymen (should they be foolish enough to cross his path), and as a sub-machine gun, striking down ranks of Nazis as they cowered in hiding behind a flint wall. No doubt it would be called into action again shortly when next the muse (and possibly deadly threat) came upon him.

The boy paused and turned, the sound of an approaching car capturing his interest, but he quickly turned away again, it not being a Ferrari or Formula One racer. It passed by at an un-noteworthy forty miles per hour and he returned to his inward and far more dangerous reveries.

Nevertheless, he looked up to watch the vehicle as it approached the distant hill, turn and pass out of view behind an avenue of trees. Drawing his attention back along the path he saw, some way ahead, the black and white markings of an animal, seemingly lying in wait in the ditch.

The boy hastened his steps, clutching his stick in the centre so he could move more swiftly and proceeded until more of the animal was in view. It showed itself to be merely a house-cat. The animal lay on its side, apparently unaware of his approach, soaking up the early afternoon rays of summer sunshine.

The boy now assumed a posture of stealth, hunching his back lower so as not to startle the beast too soon, knowing cats to be distrusting and flighty creatures. A deft flick of his wrist and the stick became a spear, which he raised tentatively above his shoulder. The cat did not stir and he congratulated himself on his light-footed and predatory approach.

He was nearly upon it and paused, straightening to view the cat better. It had not moved at all and something struck him as odd. The cat seemed too still. and the moment, all apprehension and excitement just before, was now souring, his mood turning into something else, a foreboding which caused his joy to dissolve rapidly.

He took the final few steps and looked down into the ditch. The cat was prone on its side, eyes open and unblinking. Crouching, he could see that the chest did not appear to be moving, it was not breathing heavily as he had seen his dog Barty do when lazing in the sun.

The boy knew that the cat was dead. It lacked animation in its eyes. The boy’s breathing slowed and he felt his joy being replaced, but with what he did not know. He was not sad or horrified but some other emotion, something detached, something new.

Leaning forward, he gently poked the dead cat with his stick. He did not know what to expect but it seemed the first step in his investigation of the poor creature. Pitching himself forward further still, he prodded at the cat’s front legs, part of him still expecting some reaction, some response.

Gathering up his nerves and adjusting the position of his feet, he moved the stick towards and under the belly of the cat and attempted to lift it. It raised slightly but slipped from the end of the stick, flopping back onto the grass. The boy re-adjusted his position and tried again. This time the cat lifted up on its side and he flipped it over.

The side of the cat that had been lying on the grass had completely disappeared and was nearly hollow. In what was left of its insides, hundreds of small, disgusting grubs writhed against each other. The boy instinctively shrunk back. The initial shock over, he stole himself to pitch his head forward again, this time very careful to keeping his balance (and his body) away from the poor animal.

Its face, though generally intact, had suffered more decay on this side, revealing some jaw and cheekbone, the skeletal protrusion making the cat’s grin seem more sinister. The legs had fared better and were near to normal-looking, just less covered, but it was the insides that were the greatest surprise. There was nothing left. The maggots had presumably feasted on the cat and where they jostled and undulated, the cat’s organs and the creatures were discernible from each other. The cat resembled a grotesque jelly mould.

The boy stood up, more comfortable surveying the wrecked creature at a distance where his keen eyes were less able to make sense of the mess and the decay. A thought occurred and, holding it at arm’s reach, he surveyed the end of the stick for any evidence of what it had been in contact with. Though there was a slight, moist discolouration toward the point, there was no matter, no cat entrails attached to it. He threw it away anyway, in distaste, not wanting it near him any longer.

Looking down at the cat once more, he walked past it and along the road. The image, thankfully losing clarity even as he walked, remained a while. He was not disgusted but something had changed, something he could not quite place. He knew he would not tell anyone of this; it was too private, too personal, between him and the cat alone. His mind soon moved on from the poor, desiccated creature. He ventured back to daydream and the present but there was something about the occasion which remained, something immaterial but palpable. It had forced itself through fantasy and touched him, cold but fascinating, somewhere deep, beyond his words to describe.

My Ten Most Formative Books

I was recently asked what ten books that I can think of that have had a significant impact on me, and I thought I would use the exercise to write a little about them.

Many of my favourite books were from when I was young. As such, and for the sake of not offering any favouritism, I’ll list them in the order I read them; a developmental chronology, if you will.

Oh, and favouritism is moot anyway. 1984. Most important book of my life. But I digress…

Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl

The beauty of Roald Dahl’s storytelling lies in the ease with which he wraps the fantastical with the horrific. Kids love to be scared by a nasty fairytale and Dahl pitched every story perfectly, projecting its young heroes into terrifying and wondrous peril and against villains so grotesque that no adult would ever have believed the stories. I could as easily have picked James and the Giant Peach though, or any other number of his books. I adored Revolting Rhymes, but if I move toward rhyming then where does Dr Zeuss figure… But the list is merely ten books long, so alas, alack, the rhyming tomes are gone.

Lord of the Flies – William Golding

I read this when I was quite young, and didn’t completely understand the complicated societal issues that were being played out on the island until later, but the intensity of the atmosphere, as the layers of societal protection so quickly slipped away, was palpable. The believably cruel actions of the child survivors as they slowly lose the ties connecting them to their old lives and descend into savagery gripped me at the time. The seeming ease at which the initial ‘protection of parents and school and policemen and the law’ slipped away, and how naturally the children adopted brutality over the old order was an early, and chilling lesson on the fragility of civilisation.

Lord of The Rings – J.R.R.Tolkien

What do I need to say? It’s Lord of the Rings. It’s an entire world, set over (at least) tens of thousands of years, with an entire history from creation through four ages of civilisations. The richness of the world comes from the wealth of history and culture that Tolkien, a student of linguistics and mythology, created. It is a stupendous endeavour and I loved it as a kid, reading it every year on holiday. I got the entire trilogy down to nine days by the fifth year…

Animal Farm – George Orwell

Orwell is the only author to feature twice on my list but justifiably so. In Animal Farm, he wraps up the glorious, righteous rise and ignominious, corrupted fall of the Communist revolution in a sumptuous allegory. Our investment in the animals carrying the bloody weight of the revolution, our sadness at their betrayal and the inevitable slide of the pigs towards corruption, makes the entire experience one of final, crushing futility. It is at times triumphal and brutal and shocking, right up to its final, absolute moment of capitulation; ‘some animals are more equal than others.’ Boom.

Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett

Again, I could have picked any of the first set of books, be it a Rincewind tale, the witches, the guards or wizards’ books, so I’ve again picked the first one I read. Every book is fantastical and wrapped in satire. They are multi-layered to seamlessly merge a frantic, funny narrative with societal allegory. Pratchett’s world is as extensive as Tolkien’s, and he explores genres with his different sets of characters, veering from detective novel to romance to mysticism without ever losing the fantastical, twisted reflection his Discworld series holds up to us.

1984 – George Orwell

The daddy of all dystopian novels. A prophetic, crushing, claustrophobic… Look, if you need me to tell you why this one is so important then you should probably just leave right now. Go on. Out.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

Ah, what a great loss Douglas Adams was, and so young. His brilliance and silliness are divinely played out through the Hitchhiker series, and his other existing works, such as the Dirk Gently books and the Salmon of Truth. I love rereading Hitchhiker’s Guide, and watching the seventies TV show, and I even watch that fairly appalling film once in a while. I love it so much that I might have to name one of my children Slarty Bartfast… Poor little blighter.

London Fields – Martin Amis

This was my first Martin Amis book and, although Money is a close contender, is still my favourite. In typically Amis postmodernist style, the author is also our narrator and details the interactions between our femme fatale, Nicola Six, and two men she meets in a pub, Keith Talent, an East-end knuckle dragger and darts enthusiast, and Guy Clinch, a repressed upper-middle class businessman. Nicola Six enlists the author to document her pushing them both to their limits over her final days. She knows that they are her final days because Nicola Six has a talent; she can see the future and already knows who it is who will kill her.

Glamorama – Brett Easton-Ellis

Damn, this is still the most upsetting book I have ever read, even more so than 1984, due to the inexorable slide into depravity and wretchedness its lead character takes. I had read American Psyche before but that didn’t even touch the overwhelming sense of muted despair and apathetic futility of Glamorama. It is dark, depressing and brutal. I love it.

Beyond Good and Evil – Friedrich Nietzsche

And finally, a philosopher. I considered that I should probably have Marx in this list somewhere but, however useful Marx was as a tool for awakening societal understanding in terms of epochs and means of production, his manifesto was not the most thrilling read. However, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil is something else entirely. Before I’d read Nietzsche, I wouldn’t have believed that a philosopher could be cutting, and sharp, and yet still mischievous. There is a literary beauty to Nietzsche’s writing that inspires radical thought and challenges dogmatic societal structures. He also had ossibly the most badass moustache of all time.

And that’s the lot. Undoubtedly I will regret the omission of certain names the moment I press submit but so be it. I would already like to make an honourable mention of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, another sublime, disturbing masterpiece that I only read in recent years. This, and so many other wonderful books unfortunately didn’t make the list.

Tolchock to the Gulliver

The lights change and I scurry across the road, tucking in my scarf where the wind is getting through. It’s chilly for April, and I hunker against the cold as I walk. Looking up, I can see a group of four youths by the bus stop, two boys and two girls. I don’t like the term ‘youths’, it sounds like the words should be dripping from the scowling face of an aged, middle England Daily Mail reader. It has the same cringe-worthy cadence as ‘oik’ and ‘rapscallion’ and, at the relatively spritely age of thirty-four, it pains me to use it. But that they were, around sixteen years of age, loud, obnoxious and loitering. ‘Loitering’; there’s another one.

One of the youths, a disdainful looking boy leaning against the bus stop, laughs unnecessarily loudly and throws his empty coke can onto the floor. Right in the centre of the pavement. Directly in front of him. And on the other side of the bus stop is a bin.

Internally I am incandescent with rage at this needless and disrespectful act of minor vulgarity. Why not just turn and place it in the correct receptacle, especially one that is so readily accessible? Every outraged iota of my being wants to berate him, force him to retrieve the can and deal with it correctly, appropriately. I want to shout “Oi, pick that up, you horrible little ratbag shit-weasel!” and watch, as he drops his head in regret and shame, and complies with common decency, while passers-by stop to slow-clap my forthright defence of societal etiquette.

But I already know that I won’t. I know that what I will almost certainly do is make no eye contact as I approach, then just step over the can, perhaps curling my lip disdainfully to express my disapproval, and walk on.

Why won’t I step up and tell the boy off? I want to, I’m furious, so it’s not apathy. Is it fear? Not physically, but of confrontation itself? For whatever reason, I have deferred to an ingrained response, a learned, reactive internal assessment of ‘leave it, it’s not worth it’. And I would be right, as well. I could easily have just strode by, barking out “Oi, pick up that can” in my most authoritative alpha male voice, showing my higher sensibilities whilst not giving the satisfaction of losing my cool over some mild, if disdainful, littering. But I know that this would be futile, serving no purpose other than to satiate some progressively dwindling feeling that I should do something. But I also fear that it’s just too late to even try.

Where did this depressing reflex originate? At school, where I was often a kicking-boy, albeit one of many, for our comprehensive’s resident, and impressively organised, bullies. When I refer to them as organised, I mean that, although they were far from Horndean Community School’s best and brightest, they were somewhat progressive in their methods, being, to all extents and purposes, syndicated. Whereas in my parent’s days, the advice that “all bullies are cowards, if you stand up to them, they’ll respect you” was perfectly valid, by the time I was at school this advice was, unfortunately, as dated as my parents themselves. At some point, bullies had figured out that there were ways to ensure that people understood that if they take on any one of their members, they took on all of their members. Perhaps it was due to the proliferation of gangster movies during the 80’s and 90’s, but they had sussed out that, if they made the consequences dire enough, they didn’t need to be smart to rule. Resistance, as Start Trek’s Borg collective would say, is futile.

By the summer of nineteen-ninety-four I knew this and, at the princely age of fifteen, had already learned not to talk back to certain people within our school, whatever they said or did. Well, I should say that I knew the rules but as, unfortunately, a somewhat headstrong boy (at that age perhaps ‘mouthy little prick’ would be a more accurate descriptor) so did I struggle at times to not poke my head up above the herd. However, I knew the danger signs, and was generally quite cautious.

As such, I was most surprised, one afternoon on the way home from school, to find myself in a standoff with the most universally feared bully in our school, Mark Gulliver. He preferred to be called Gulliver. In hindsight, my lingering memory of the event is one of embarrassment, but at the time I must have been quite terrified as I stood facing him. I had walked straight from my Home Economics class, and was therefore clutching two bags of assorted cooking materials, utensils, and freshly baked caramel shortbreads. It was not my most macho moment. I called it a ‘standoff’ before, but that’s probably the wrong word. He wasn’t completely interested in beating me up, and it’s just that I hadn’t completely backed down. Perhaps standstill would be more accurate? Let me explain.

Leaving school late that day, I had turned left at the school approach road and trudged absent-mindedly along Catherington Lane. I passed the usual ambush point my friends and I would abuse, number eighty-three, where we would often push the unwary of our group over its handily collapsing hedge, then turned right onto the ironically-named Victory Avenue. I could see the group of bullies ahead of me at this point, half-way down the road, shoving and jostling with each other as they made their way along the row of suburban residential housing in their usual, aggressive cluster.

This wasn’t the first time I’d got into trouble with them. I’d recently had a mild altercation with another of them, Wes Dawson (merely the second-most feared purveyor of violence in our school) the previous week. Wes had a younger step-brother, oddly named Benedict, an eighth-year who I’d never seen before. Benedict, it turned out, came from a decidedly different genetic stock to Wes. Whereas Wes had received height, strength and a propensity for violence from his Neanderthal genes, Benedict appeared to have drawn his genetic building blocks from the hobbit-pot. Short, and almost spherically bulbous, he looked nothing like his step-brother.

So, on the day I angered Wes, my group had been passing number eighty-three and my ‘friend’ Robert Noye, with a Machiavellian grin strapped across his face, had pointed at Benedict as he walked past. Eyes flashing mischief, he dared me to push him over. So, dumbly, I did. Benedict had initially toppled halfway over the disappearing hedge, as if he was attempting to touch his toes, leaving his ample rump exposed as a target. I dutifully placed my clumpy Clarks’ on it and aided him the rest of the way of his journey.

Now, I am fully aware that this, in itself, was a form of bullying. Amongst our group, within which there was a tacit consent about the activity, the greatest pleasure was when one of us had failed to notice our location, and was totally unaware at the point where another would propel them towards and over the hedge. It was their surprise and outrage that amused, not a nice pleasure to indulge in, I admit, but it was not a cruel one, as such. It was generally merely a shock to the victim, and not a dangerous or frightening activity.

However, in this case I had ambushed a kid I didn’t know and it was with cackling, malicious glee that Robert informed me of my portly victim’s relationship with the school’s public enemy number two, and therefore my impending doom. It came quickly, actually, as I had found Wes outside my home before I got there, accompanied by a now smug-looking, and definitely recovered Benedict. Wes was, at that point, serving some suspension or other and was bare-chested, wearing just cut-off jean-shorts and trainers. On anyone else, or at another point, this might have been amusing, but, with my execution bearing down on me, this was not the case. Wes was not a man of many words so our conversation was swift and to the point.

“Oi Liam, did you chuck my bruvver over some ‘edge?” he managed.

“Yes” I replied.

“Why?”

“It’s just what we were doing, and he walked past, so I pushed him over.”

“Right.”

Interrogation over, he punched me in the head. I recoiled slightly, but the punch didn’t actually hurt. I straightened up again. He hit me a second time and, on still not receiving any pain, I was a little concerned that I had not conveyed the correct amount of suffering for the transaction, so let out a slight, and unfortunately sarcastic sounding “Urgh?”

Wes leaned right into my face and, spit flying, intoned “Don’t. Do it. Again!”

I remember wondering why I had gotten off so lightly until the next day, at school, when I found out. From hitting me, Wes had broken his arm. I took some small satisfaction at this, of course I did; we were the habitual underdogs against the gangs and would take whatever small victories we could. But I felt no reason to gloat, even at the sounds of my friends’ admiring guffaws. Although my enemy had fared worse from the encounter, I had still suffered another humiliation. And I expected more.

I was not to wait long before circumstance arranged this. A girl from Wes’s class, Natalie Brown, had marched over to me at first break, furious, and demanded “Did Wes ‘it you yesterday?”

“Er, yes.” I replied, uncertain of where this was going.

“’E’s such a prick! Did it ‘urt?”

I’d replied, honestly without any sense of pride or sensible forethought that it hadn’t. Then she’d left. I didn’t see her again until lunchtime when, as she was striding past me, she stopped and yelled “’Ere, Liam,” and, in tones of friendly loyalty and support, informed me that “I told Wes ‘e was a prick for ‘itting you. And I told ‘im it didn’t even ‘urt!” Thank you Natalie…

However, after that point I had not actually seen Wes again, but it should still have come as no shock to me, as I finally turned into my road, to hear his voice bellow out at me.

“Oi!” he shouted, “Na’alie tells me that it didn’t even ‘urt when I ‘it you?” Wes, with Gulliver and his grinning cronies surrounding him, held up his broken, casted arm, “When I get this off in a few weeks, I’m gonna put you in fucking ‘ospi’al!”

I didn’t really know how to correctly respond to this so I just nodded and said “Ok.” This must not have come across as acceptably fearful, so Gulliver ran over the road to reinforce the point by shoving me into a fence.

“You ‘ear ‘im? ‘E’s gonna put you in ‘ospital.” I’ll say one thing for Gulliver, at least, unlike Wes, he could pronounce the end of the word, unfortunately complete with actual spittle.

“Yes.” I replied, looking at him directly. There was no point flinching or running. He stared at me for a few seconds and then punched me in the chest. I fell back into the fence, dropping my bags but again, was slightly worried that I wasn’t in, or at least wasn’t expressing, any pain. I held his gaze for a moment and then knelt down to pick up my bags, at which point he lunged his foot out to try to kick me in the balls. Considering the total lack of resistance I was putting up, this seemed pretty unsporting.

“Don’t bother.” I muttered, for some unknown reason. I have no idea why I replied. I’d made it that far with everything but my pride intact, why push it now? Maybe there was some kernel of bravery left in me somewhere? Maybe I really was just that stupid?

“What’d you fuckin’ say?” he’d shouted, reddening.

Fuck it, there was no sense in trying to pretend that I hadn’t said it by that point. I plunged haplessly on. “I just said ‘don’t bother’, about trying to kick me in the balls.”

He’d turned completely red but didn’t seem to quite know what to do with the situation, so settled for punching me into the fence again. I waited a few more seconds to see if I could expect any more, turned, and began to walk away.

“When ‘e gets ‘is cast off,” he yelled over my shoulder, “I’m gonna break your fuckin’ ‘and!” Well, at least that gave me something to look forward to, I bitterly thought to myself.

However, retribution never came, from Wes or from Gulliver. I don’t know why. Perhaps they forgot, or moved on to other, fresher prey. Maybe it was just chance, and I was fortunate not to stray into their paths during that period, or at least not when they were in a malevolent mood. Nevertheless, those experiences cast a shadow over me, and my development. The longer-term affects of the many emasculating experiences like these I suffered at school took years to iron out or come to terms with, and many are still in the process of being understood.

They shouldn’t, but have, debilitated me. The youths at the bus stop are right to look at me disdainfully, throw rubbish in my path, and watch me cowardly avoid their challenge. They can only be sixteen! They’re not much older than the kids who were making my life a misery at fifteen. I have nearly twenty years of successes and achievements, confidence and security in my opinions and actions, reason and understanding and education with which to draw on, to rebut, to argue, and… and I will still avoid the confrontation.

I play the situation out, as I did when I was a boy, and assess the value of responding. And there is none. The jeers of “Fuck off granddad!” and caterwauls that will inevitably be thrown at me as I walk away are just not worth the encounter. This is rational and understandable thinking, but no less of a capitulation than those of my youth. I should stand up, I need to but I hold no stock in bravery, not if it means being violent. And somewhere in the making of this mature, rational decision, there is a primal, bestial shame.

I go as far as to partially blame myself and my generation for this. When I was starting out at my senior school at the age of twelve I was often mouthy and obnoxious to older kids in the school. And, if we discount the moral issues surrounding it for a moment, these behaviours were often ‘corrected’ by those older kids, generally using fists. This lesson may, perhaps, have been instilled through unsavoury methods, but I understood something (although don’t ask me to clarify exactly what) about respect. By the time I became the older kid at school though, my parents’ lifelong value lessons on “it’s braver to walk away from a fight” and not causing harm to those smaller or weaker than you, meant that I was impotent to bestow a violent re-education on those kids joining my school. Perhaps I failed society with my peevish morality, and those uncorrected brats that I gave a free pass to begat these horrible brats I now approach.

I have other victories. Other than the limp celebration of maintaining the moral high ground, it has informed the way I introspect, and write. Without these formative defeats and sufferings I would not have the fuel to analyse and rail against the concepts behind those experiences. I would not have the means, through words, to attempt to eviscerate those bullies via my memories, to belittle them with words, take revenge through literature. If I am unable to stand up, physically, to change these systems then surely through debate and…

…I stop as I realise I’m approaching the bus stop. Settling my face from whatever it was expressing during my internal rant, I try to exude apathy, staring resolutely forward and ignoring the youths. As I step over the can, I curl my lip a little with disdain to show my disapproval, and walk on.

The shame bites but I dismiss it, bury it in another argument, reason it away into a dark corner of my mind with all the rest. But the shame bites.

Sounding Stupid with Long Words

‘Why d’you talk like that?’

It’s an odd thing to be asked, but it wasn’t the first time, so I replied, shouting a little over the pub’s music.

‘That’s just the way I speak.’

His eyes screw up like I’m being deliberately difficult.

‘Nah, why’d you have to use all those long words? It makes you sound stupid.’

For the record, I actually sounded fairly coherent. I was commenting on a Pavlovian reaction I have when I encounter the smell of piss. I find, especially when in enclosed spaces, that the smell will transport me, faster than a Proustian Madeleine, to the Paris Metro, which reeks of urine. I called it the Paris Micturo while I was there.

However, that wasn’t the point he was making. He actually did, in fact, sound pretty stupid. For one thing, he was pissed out of his gourd, however his question was actually a valid one:

‘Why do you choose to use the sort of language you do, when it makes you sound like a dick to the rest of us?’ I am paraphrasing for him of course, he wasn’t managing to explain his own point very clearly at the time.

Despite suffering from verbal diarrhea, I honestly don’t like the sound of my own voice and, as such I am sure that I must quite often sound like a dick to others. Even more so if you aren’t a fan of somewhat over-elaborate wordplay as I am. The way I talk is slightly pretentious, although I doubt that my voice and accent can help much either.

However, my being able to read-between-the-lines of his semi-coherent babble is kind of my point. I like the interaction and power of words, to entertain, persuade and surprise.

I talk in the manner I do in order to better communicate with others. As such, in that regard, I absolutely do accept his point; that how I spoke alienated my audience. However, for all his tactlessness and bitching about my delivery, my critic did understand what I was talking about. He just didn’t like my choice of words or the way I said them.

In which case, stuff him. I try to speak the way I write, so that I maintain one consistent voice. By finding this unifying voice it should then be possible to temper or adapt it to more effectively communicate with different audiences.

I know that people like to say ‘you should just be yourself’ but that’s rubbish. Your ‘self’ is an ever-developing concept, or at least, it should be. We build upon it with each new experience, every contributing realisation. If you are the recipient of scorn and derision for the way you are acting, but you realise that you deserved that treatment – perhaps you were being a prick – then you should absolutely change that behaviour. You should consider the criticism and your perspective, then change yourself, in order to better get your point across. Unless you enjoy being a prick of course, in which case, keep at it.

This may all sound pretty stupid, I do realise. And yes, possibly, a bit pretentious.

But fuck you, that’s me, no matter how right you may be.

Work in Progress

I’m quite surprised at how broken I am. I probably don’t appear to be (who does?) but I am a mess. I guess I’m high-functioning enough to pack most of it away where it doesn’t show but recently the crazy has been bleeding into my day a bit too much. It’s odd, because it’s happening at the same time as I’m beginning to feel better about myself. I’m like Shiva; the creator and the destroyer. I know it is probably part of my final restorative purge, but it really does have arsehole timing.

There are benefits to all this self-analytical masochism. The emotional bedrock throws up stuff I probably needed to revisit. Sometimes, literally… At the beginning of one week in my office, I vomited and at the end of the week was broken down in tears. The vomiting was not lifestyle-related but rather a debilitating and retch-inducing bronchial virus. Fortunately I was alone in my office both days and, luckily, am old and foolish enough to know how to puke discretely and without mess. I rarely drink enough to be sick, so it’s generally an almost nostalgic experience, if merely horribly so. But I digress.

The breaking down was more surprising, but also healthier. It had been my best friend Jim Crow’s birthday the day before and I’d posted a song on Facebook for him, Delicate by Damien Rice. Tragically, Jim died nearly a decade ago but the song was one that he had played on the guitar quite regularly. It holds some significance to me, his family and people who knew him. The song has more resonance now as well, especially for the apt, rising notes of sorrow and loss.

My reaction caught me by surprise though.  After posting the song, my stomach knotted and a few tears came to my eyes. I’m not at all ashamed, although I am relieved that I was alone in the office. However the sorrow kept returning, pulsing and washing over me in larger and larger waves. I closed my office door and sat on the floor behind my desk, sobbing. I hadn’t even played the song, merely posted it, but I couldn’t stop shaking. For the first time in a number of years the complete, absolute, godless realisation of loss, of Jim’s non-existence, and how I would never see my friend again hit me, and hit me, over and over.

I would have welcomed this emotional break more had I been at home rather than in work. I remained on the floor for about half an hour until the feelings subsided enough to tidy myself up and go next  door to speak to my boss.  I told him what was happening and that I had to leave, and he was very cool and understanding about it. I think that beginning to break down again whilst trying to explain it to him probably helped my case as well.

I walked home and spent the day posting and playing all of my favourite songs that we used to listen to, so much better for being home and safely ensconced in my room. I needed the release, and it felt good to think about him so emotionally again, even reliving the pain and trauma of losing him.

It took being broken to reach that point. And that was just one week…

I’m not suggesting that my emotional state has been a perpetual rollercoaster, I am generally quite good at working through my pain. The best way, I find, is to accept the slow, inevitability of it and wallow in its horrible, revealing torture. I was just surprised to find that the maelstrom of weirdness that permeates my daily internal world was seeping out. I was losing my grip and my ability to turn off the clamour of neurotic crazy that I had been successfully subduing in social situations previously.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually getting better, I’ve just been experiencing a mild identity crisis and misery glut, and the frequency of those dips is falling as I begin to realign. But this stuff works you over, and the self-pity pisses me off the moment it’s passed. I had periods of abject misery where I lay in bed, wondering if I would cry were I to share a moment of intimacy with a woman again.

The moment it passes I know how pathetic I’m being. I am honestly beginning to like myself again and I can tell from the faces of my friends the points where I am actually functioning ‘normally’, especially compared to the numerous social occasions where I have fallen flat.

I’m not worried, I am getting better, and most of the time I’m not even sad anymore. It’s hard, emotional work, building myself back up. A work in progress…