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Probably the only person reading this is Sean anyway... a successful run here at blogger!
Monday, 11 January 2010
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Means To An End
The Worthless Life of Christopher E. Jackson
(by Carl Wheatley)
1.
Let’s start as we mean to go on, shall we? Building a new relationship is never an easy thing, especially when it is with somebody you have never met, or even heard of. And that is what you and I have right now, if you are reading this: a relationship. The relationship between a reader and an author. You probably don’t know me, and I couldn’t possibly imagine who would be interested in my sorry little story, so I most likely don’t know you. Considering this, you may wonder why a nobody such as myself has decided to put my life story down in print; why I should lift the blinds on my meaningless existence, reveal more to the world than the world could possibly care to know. It’s a fair question. I’ll come back to it later.
Truth is, there is a very strong possibility that the only person who will ever read any of this is, well, me. I guess I’m really writing this for me. Call it part-autobiography, part-journal if you will. Sometimes seeing something in black and white on a piece of paper in front of you helps you actually understand it. If you have ever experienced this sensation, you will know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t, you’ll think it makes no sense at all, so you will just have to trust me on this one.
Here are a few boring facts to give us a little bit of a foundation for this new relationship we are building. My name is Christopher Edward Jackson. I think you will agree that you would be hard pressed to conjure up a more bland and uninteresting name than that. If I had the benefit of artistic license I might call myself something a lot more mysterious, or action-packed, or exotic. Vincent Steele, maybe. Kirk Angel. Bruce Danger. But, for the purposes of this autobiography, I am simply bound by the facts and my interpretation of them. Creativity is not my prerogative, or at least not if I am going to be honest with you, my new friend. Honesty is always a good trait in the building of a new relationship and as I said, let’s start as we mean to go on. So I’m Chris Jackson. Plain old run-of-the-mill boring “Chris Jackson”.
I was born in Cardiff, South Wales at around 8pm on October 27th to Richard Phillip Jackson and Karen Mary Jackson, 29 years ago today. Yes, that’s right. Today is my 29th birthday. I really don’t care much for birthdays. Why celebrate them? It’s not like I can remember the day I was born. Birthdays are much more geared towards those who were actually there, such as parents and family, as a reminder of the day this momentous occasion transpired before them. It doesn’t matter as much when all of those people are two thousand miles away, and you’re on your own. Nobody here would even realize that today is my birthday, and probably not care either way. Let’s not go down the “poor me” route though; let’s keep this positive.
I made a decision today, and subsequently the reason I decided to sit down and start writing my life story is a direct result of the decision that I made. As I write this, I am sat at an increasingly wobbly self-constructed computer desk, stationed at a fifth floor apartment window that overlooks a disconcertingly unlit Manhattan alleyway. (The kids have been throwing bricks at the street lamp again, I suppose). It is nearly 11pm. That would make it the early hours of tomorrow morning back home, and yet no phone call. Some years I get a phone call, and some years I don’t. Depends if they remember, or what mood they’re in, or how much the last phone bill cost, or what’s on the television, or any number of deciding factors, I suppose.
The only light in the room comes from the computer monitor. I could tell you, as I do everyone else, that I am trying to be more environmentally conscious and trying to keep my energy usage to a minimum, but as we’re being honest with each other here, I’m just worried about the electricity bill. I could go into a diatribe about just how tight my finances are as we speak, but the discarded, grease-stained pizza box on the arm of my sofa is giving me a slight pang of guilt, as is the lit cigarette dangling from my lip. I did feel justified in treating myself to a pizza, considering it is my birthday and all, but the cigarettes are an ongoing indulgence. So is alcohol, but at least I don’t spend as much on it as I used to. I always liked the party atmosphere of a night on the town with my friends back home. I couldn’t do that here, even if I wanted to. Don’t have the friends, for starters. I suppose I have a few people here that I would consider myself friends with, but I wouldn’t go as far as “close”. You have to earn “close”. With close friends, you always have something to talk about; even when the topics of conversation run dry, you can reminisce about the past. About shared memories, mutual friends, school teachers, the town you grew up in, places you go, places you used to go. Those are real friends. There is never an awkward moment, or a painstaking period of silence.
Here, you have friends, but it is all surface. There’s no history. Superficial friends. People in the same boat as you, lonely people clinging to each other, forcing friendship on one another but when that conversation well runs dry, you sit there in silence wondering who will crack first. That’s hardly friendship, that’s tragedy. That’s what this city will do to you, if you let it. It will take the person you were, beat that person to a pulp and swallow him whole, then spit out the cynical, ragged remnants and leave you to survive on your own, bruised and beaten down. I saw it in many a person but never thought it could happen to me. You know, as if I’m a special case or something!
I am, of course, an idiot. Us idiots are drawn to one another for support, but because we’re idiots, we don’t know how to offer or accept the aforementioned support. I guess we idiots are uniformly low on self esteem. Self esteem is a funny old thing. Those who don’t have it can never muster up the will to try and find it, and those who do have it never want anyone else to have it. Years ago, not long after I moved here, I worked with a young lady who must have been in her late teens or early twenties, who was the most fragile, frightened little creature you could ever lay eyes on, constantly trying to please everybody around her all of the time. She would never say “no”, at least in this work environment anyway. I heard rumours that her father was the typical “drunken man with a temper” sort. Chances are she had a very tough home life, probably following in the footsteps of her mother, and this had left her feeling so worthless she felt her role in life was as everybody else’s stepping stone. I felt bad for her, and mentioned to the manager that the new girl didn’t seem to have much in the way of self-esteem, which, without a hint of irony, garnered the response “yeah, maybe somebody should beat some into her”, leaving me more than a little disillusioned with the society I find myself living in. That girl is probably doing more or less the same thing with her life right now, probably never took a chance, she’s still the stepping stone. It’s a shame, but at least she never really had any sense of self worth to begin with; you can’t mourn for something you’ve never lost. It’s those who had the confidence to begin with, and had it all kicked out of them by the schoolyard bully called life, that are the most tragic cases of all. They are the ones propping up the bars and jumping off bridges because deep down they know that they could have had it so much better.
By the way, excuse me if my writing is not to the high literary standard you might expect… if commas appear where they shouldn’t, two sentences merge into one and one sentence ends up split into two, et cetera. I am trying to write this as though I am speaking directly to you, as if you were here in the room with me and I was transmitting this information orally. What am I even apologizing for? You’re the reader, you do the work. Imagine my voice in your head. To help you out, imagine a Welsh accent with the sort of slight New York twang you might pick up having lived here for nearly a decade. I want my story told through my own voice, not through the voice of some university lecturer who has decided that he and he alone has made the final decision on the official placement of commas in a sentence, and therefore my innermost thoughts, my most personal and individualized fragments, should comply with his rules. Who the fuck does he think he is? It just doesn’t matter. I am the author, I am the reader, I am the protagonist, I am the subject matter, I am the victor and the victim and the hero and the villain of this piece, and I will damn well write my story the way I see fit. And that’s the bottom line.
It is closer to midnight now and my birthday is nearly over. I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew, trying to recall my entire life and put it in print. I feel I may have drunk away at least five years worth of memories during my wilder period, so that could turn out to be a rather interesting section when I come to it. I am still trying to curb the more decadent excesses I became accustomed to in my youth. For example, I am proud to say I no longer drink and drive. Admittedly, mainly because of the spillage. Speed bumps everywhere - it’s such a waste of beer. (I am, of course, joking.) I guess certain sections of this book, much like my life in general, will be little more than a time-ravaged, vodka-soaked blur. At least it felt like fun at the time. I think.
I guess the problem with writing all of your experiences and emotions from years gone by is that it can give the reader a false impression of who you are. We are all shaped by our history, but the process is ongoing. Each day brings something new. In a normal situation, 29 years old would be a ridiculous age to write an autobiography. I’m justified in that mine isn’t a normal situation, and I don’t have a lot of choice in this matter. I have exactly one year to write my story before it’s too late, and the moment has passed forever.
"Forever" is a strong word isn’t it? Infinity. Don’t start to think about it for too long, it gets a little scary there after a while. As experience is an ongoing process I feel I should speak to you, my new friend, in both the past and present tense throughout this piece of work. As I tell you about my past, I shall also keep you informed of my present. I highly doubt either will be of particular importance or captivation to you, but maybe it will help give you some insight into who I am, how I think, what I’m going through and why I am going to do what I intend to do. If nothing else, I have at least established the structure I will be following, and you and I are on the same page, right? So let’s get on with it.
My present situation is thus: I live on my own in a grotty, barely furnished Manhattan apartment that I can hardly afford the rent on each month. As I mentioned, I am rather thin on the ground in the friends department (unless you count my trusty amigos Jack Daniels and Jim Beam) and the cupboard is totally bare in the girlfriend department. I have been surviving from temporary placement work, usually filling in for absent staff in miserable, customer service based environments, scraping enough hours together to pay my rent, bills and cigarettes, and maybe have enough left over to get drunk on my own several nights a week in order to help me forget about the circumstances I find myself in. I was an intelligent child. A promising teenager. By now, I should be married, with children and a great job, and love and respect and a good social network. Instead, I have none of the above. I guess you could say that, when it comes down to it, I have nobody to blame but myself. Well you can say what you want but, personally, I blame it all on Emily.
She was the one who wanted to come here in the first place, she was the one who convinced me to leave my life behind, she was the one who run off with another man leaving me in a strange city all on my own, without a roof over my head or even enough money for a plane ticket home. She was the catalyst for the circumstances that led to me making the decision I mentioned earlier. But I will come to her later. I have plenty to say about her. As for this decision I keep mentioning, it’s quite simple. In one year, or a little under one year now that midnight has come and gone, I will be thirty years old. I have nothing. This evening, as I sat in the waiting area of the pizzeria considering another birthday spent alone and miserable, I decided that if I still have nothing going for me on the day I reach thirty, then I am going to take my own life. Kill myself. Put myself out of my misery, forever, for infinity. And I have every intention of sticking to it. Hence the sudden urge to write this. The worthless life of Christoper E. Jackson may come to a halt in 364 days, but at least I’ll be able to leave behind the story of my life and a beautiful corpse. Well, I say “beautiful”, maybe simply “young” would be more appropriate, if even a little generous.
I’m a fairly simple chap. I really don’t want much out of life. Just a job that I like, and a woman that I love. I mean, preferably she would love me too, of course. Sod it, even if she didn’t but just pretended that she did and I never found out… that would do. So that is my criteria. You know, for the whole “ending of my life” stuff that I just mentioned. It’s quite a big deal to me - passing on, snuffing it, kicking the proverbial bucket – so I’d appreciate it if you paid attention to that kind of stuff. Ah, who am I even talking to? Whoever you are, let me ask you a question: how do you judge if your life is a success? Happiness? Bank balance? A general feeling? A sixth sense? I was taught the principles of “SMART” targets. Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic. Timed. Well, I have my target so let’s smarten that bad boy up. A job I like and a woman I love. Can’t be much more specific than that. Fairly measurable, I’d say, amounting to all of a mere two accomplishments (though admittedly elusive and life changing ones). Achievable… well, that’s tricky. One would think if it was so bloody achievable I’d have done it by now. Then again, I do seem to be in the minority of 29 yr olds who have literally zilch in either department. Well, I say “minority” armed with nothing in the way of facts or figures. Perception is fact. The whole world seems to be happy when you feel like shit. Realistic? I do wonder where the concept of realism fits into the priorities of a man who has a one year plan to bump himself off. Timed. Yes. 364 days and counting….
2.
I see the sun is setting on my beautiful life. I ate it alive. I woke up this morning with the strangest sensation running through my veins, seeping out of every pore. No, it wasn’t sweat. It was pure, unbridled relief. Almost as if a rather large, world-shaped weight had been removed from my shoulders and now I can bask in the freedom of knowing that it will all be coming to an end. And at my own hands, no less, so unless I’m tragically killed in some freak accident in the next twelve months, I am the most sure of where I am headed that I have ever been. It’s therapeutic. In fact, now that I have this alien sense of complete comfort, chances are that I actually will be killed in some freak accident. Shit, now I have to spend the next 52 weeks looking over my shoulder for erratic bus drivers, drunken crane operators and knife-wielding muggers. Can’t I even feel that sense of relief for more than a few minutes without having it snatched away from me?
I knew it was grey and cloudy outside this morning before I even opened my eyes. I can sense it by now. I know that’s hardly unusual, for an October morning in Manhattan to be “grey and cloudy” but nonetheless I just knew. I know, I know. By now, you should be engrossed in my earliest memories and childhood escapades, autobiography fans. Trouble is, today is one of those days. They come more frequently now than before. The proverbial gremlins are in the system, so to speak. I mean, I had the feeling of relief that I talked about when I first woke up, but that quickly dissipated when I looked out of my window. You’re lucky I’m typing this at all, to be fair. The agency did not ring this morning with any work, so I had to feel I have done something worthwhile today, so I shall type away until I get the urge to go back to bed and sleep away the remnants of my birthday hangover. You’ll probably get about a quarter of an hour out of me. Chins up, Chris! Writing about my childhood means having to think back to it. I don’t think I had a bad childhood. In fact, I’m almost sure my parents treated me very well and gave me a loving and stable environment. Thing is, for no apparent reason, I just never think about it, never try to remember it, never yearn for it, never reflect on it. I’m really going to have to put some time and effort into this, to be honest. This isn’t flowing as well as I’d hoped. The problem I have is that effort, any effort, seems so out of my grasp at this moment in time.
3pm. I am feeling a little more energetic now, so here I am again. I guess it is a real cliché, but where better to start an autobiography than resorting to the “first childhood memory” trap? Problem is, it just isn’t coming to mind. You hear people talk so vividly about their earliest memories. Some people I have spoken to have even claimed to remember being born, which usually prompts me to ask them if they have ever heard the expression “don’t bullshit a bullshitter”.
TO BE CONTINUED...
(by Carl Wheatley)
1.
Let’s start as we mean to go on, shall we? Building a new relationship is never an easy thing, especially when it is with somebody you have never met, or even heard of. And that is what you and I have right now, if you are reading this: a relationship. The relationship between a reader and an author. You probably don’t know me, and I couldn’t possibly imagine who would be interested in my sorry little story, so I most likely don’t know you. Considering this, you may wonder why a nobody such as myself has decided to put my life story down in print; why I should lift the blinds on my meaningless existence, reveal more to the world than the world could possibly care to know. It’s a fair question. I’ll come back to it later.
Truth is, there is a very strong possibility that the only person who will ever read any of this is, well, me. I guess I’m really writing this for me. Call it part-autobiography, part-journal if you will. Sometimes seeing something in black and white on a piece of paper in front of you helps you actually understand it. If you have ever experienced this sensation, you will know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t, you’ll think it makes no sense at all, so you will just have to trust me on this one.
Here are a few boring facts to give us a little bit of a foundation for this new relationship we are building. My name is Christopher Edward Jackson. I think you will agree that you would be hard pressed to conjure up a more bland and uninteresting name than that. If I had the benefit of artistic license I might call myself something a lot more mysterious, or action-packed, or exotic. Vincent Steele, maybe. Kirk Angel. Bruce Danger. But, for the purposes of this autobiography, I am simply bound by the facts and my interpretation of them. Creativity is not my prerogative, or at least not if I am going to be honest with you, my new friend. Honesty is always a good trait in the building of a new relationship and as I said, let’s start as we mean to go on. So I’m Chris Jackson. Plain old run-of-the-mill boring “Chris Jackson”.
I was born in Cardiff, South Wales at around 8pm on October 27th to Richard Phillip Jackson and Karen Mary Jackson, 29 years ago today. Yes, that’s right. Today is my 29th birthday. I really don’t care much for birthdays. Why celebrate them? It’s not like I can remember the day I was born. Birthdays are much more geared towards those who were actually there, such as parents and family, as a reminder of the day this momentous occasion transpired before them. It doesn’t matter as much when all of those people are two thousand miles away, and you’re on your own. Nobody here would even realize that today is my birthday, and probably not care either way. Let’s not go down the “poor me” route though; let’s keep this positive.
I made a decision today, and subsequently the reason I decided to sit down and start writing my life story is a direct result of the decision that I made. As I write this, I am sat at an increasingly wobbly self-constructed computer desk, stationed at a fifth floor apartment window that overlooks a disconcertingly unlit Manhattan alleyway. (The kids have been throwing bricks at the street lamp again, I suppose). It is nearly 11pm. That would make it the early hours of tomorrow morning back home, and yet no phone call. Some years I get a phone call, and some years I don’t. Depends if they remember, or what mood they’re in, or how much the last phone bill cost, or what’s on the television, or any number of deciding factors, I suppose.
The only light in the room comes from the computer monitor. I could tell you, as I do everyone else, that I am trying to be more environmentally conscious and trying to keep my energy usage to a minimum, but as we’re being honest with each other here, I’m just worried about the electricity bill. I could go into a diatribe about just how tight my finances are as we speak, but the discarded, grease-stained pizza box on the arm of my sofa is giving me a slight pang of guilt, as is the lit cigarette dangling from my lip. I did feel justified in treating myself to a pizza, considering it is my birthday and all, but the cigarettes are an ongoing indulgence. So is alcohol, but at least I don’t spend as much on it as I used to. I always liked the party atmosphere of a night on the town with my friends back home. I couldn’t do that here, even if I wanted to. Don’t have the friends, for starters. I suppose I have a few people here that I would consider myself friends with, but I wouldn’t go as far as “close”. You have to earn “close”. With close friends, you always have something to talk about; even when the topics of conversation run dry, you can reminisce about the past. About shared memories, mutual friends, school teachers, the town you grew up in, places you go, places you used to go. Those are real friends. There is never an awkward moment, or a painstaking period of silence.
Here, you have friends, but it is all surface. There’s no history. Superficial friends. People in the same boat as you, lonely people clinging to each other, forcing friendship on one another but when that conversation well runs dry, you sit there in silence wondering who will crack first. That’s hardly friendship, that’s tragedy. That’s what this city will do to you, if you let it. It will take the person you were, beat that person to a pulp and swallow him whole, then spit out the cynical, ragged remnants and leave you to survive on your own, bruised and beaten down. I saw it in many a person but never thought it could happen to me. You know, as if I’m a special case or something!
I am, of course, an idiot. Us idiots are drawn to one another for support, but because we’re idiots, we don’t know how to offer or accept the aforementioned support. I guess we idiots are uniformly low on self esteem. Self esteem is a funny old thing. Those who don’t have it can never muster up the will to try and find it, and those who do have it never want anyone else to have it. Years ago, not long after I moved here, I worked with a young lady who must have been in her late teens or early twenties, who was the most fragile, frightened little creature you could ever lay eyes on, constantly trying to please everybody around her all of the time. She would never say “no”, at least in this work environment anyway. I heard rumours that her father was the typical “drunken man with a temper” sort. Chances are she had a very tough home life, probably following in the footsteps of her mother, and this had left her feeling so worthless she felt her role in life was as everybody else’s stepping stone. I felt bad for her, and mentioned to the manager that the new girl didn’t seem to have much in the way of self-esteem, which, without a hint of irony, garnered the response “yeah, maybe somebody should beat some into her”, leaving me more than a little disillusioned with the society I find myself living in. That girl is probably doing more or less the same thing with her life right now, probably never took a chance, she’s still the stepping stone. It’s a shame, but at least she never really had any sense of self worth to begin with; you can’t mourn for something you’ve never lost. It’s those who had the confidence to begin with, and had it all kicked out of them by the schoolyard bully called life, that are the most tragic cases of all. They are the ones propping up the bars and jumping off bridges because deep down they know that they could have had it so much better.
By the way, excuse me if my writing is not to the high literary standard you might expect… if commas appear where they shouldn’t, two sentences merge into one and one sentence ends up split into two, et cetera. I am trying to write this as though I am speaking directly to you, as if you were here in the room with me and I was transmitting this information orally. What am I even apologizing for? You’re the reader, you do the work. Imagine my voice in your head. To help you out, imagine a Welsh accent with the sort of slight New York twang you might pick up having lived here for nearly a decade. I want my story told through my own voice, not through the voice of some university lecturer who has decided that he and he alone has made the final decision on the official placement of commas in a sentence, and therefore my innermost thoughts, my most personal and individualized fragments, should comply with his rules. Who the fuck does he think he is? It just doesn’t matter. I am the author, I am the reader, I am the protagonist, I am the subject matter, I am the victor and the victim and the hero and the villain of this piece, and I will damn well write my story the way I see fit. And that’s the bottom line.
It is closer to midnight now and my birthday is nearly over. I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew, trying to recall my entire life and put it in print. I feel I may have drunk away at least five years worth of memories during my wilder period, so that could turn out to be a rather interesting section when I come to it. I am still trying to curb the more decadent excesses I became accustomed to in my youth. For example, I am proud to say I no longer drink and drive. Admittedly, mainly because of the spillage. Speed bumps everywhere - it’s such a waste of beer. (I am, of course, joking.) I guess certain sections of this book, much like my life in general, will be little more than a time-ravaged, vodka-soaked blur. At least it felt like fun at the time. I think.
I guess the problem with writing all of your experiences and emotions from years gone by is that it can give the reader a false impression of who you are. We are all shaped by our history, but the process is ongoing. Each day brings something new. In a normal situation, 29 years old would be a ridiculous age to write an autobiography. I’m justified in that mine isn’t a normal situation, and I don’t have a lot of choice in this matter. I have exactly one year to write my story before it’s too late, and the moment has passed forever.
"Forever" is a strong word isn’t it? Infinity. Don’t start to think about it for too long, it gets a little scary there after a while. As experience is an ongoing process I feel I should speak to you, my new friend, in both the past and present tense throughout this piece of work. As I tell you about my past, I shall also keep you informed of my present. I highly doubt either will be of particular importance or captivation to you, but maybe it will help give you some insight into who I am, how I think, what I’m going through and why I am going to do what I intend to do. If nothing else, I have at least established the structure I will be following, and you and I are on the same page, right? So let’s get on with it.
My present situation is thus: I live on my own in a grotty, barely furnished Manhattan apartment that I can hardly afford the rent on each month. As I mentioned, I am rather thin on the ground in the friends department (unless you count my trusty amigos Jack Daniels and Jim Beam) and the cupboard is totally bare in the girlfriend department. I have been surviving from temporary placement work, usually filling in for absent staff in miserable, customer service based environments, scraping enough hours together to pay my rent, bills and cigarettes, and maybe have enough left over to get drunk on my own several nights a week in order to help me forget about the circumstances I find myself in. I was an intelligent child. A promising teenager. By now, I should be married, with children and a great job, and love and respect and a good social network. Instead, I have none of the above. I guess you could say that, when it comes down to it, I have nobody to blame but myself. Well you can say what you want but, personally, I blame it all on Emily.
She was the one who wanted to come here in the first place, she was the one who convinced me to leave my life behind, she was the one who run off with another man leaving me in a strange city all on my own, without a roof over my head or even enough money for a plane ticket home. She was the catalyst for the circumstances that led to me making the decision I mentioned earlier. But I will come to her later. I have plenty to say about her. As for this decision I keep mentioning, it’s quite simple. In one year, or a little under one year now that midnight has come and gone, I will be thirty years old. I have nothing. This evening, as I sat in the waiting area of the pizzeria considering another birthday spent alone and miserable, I decided that if I still have nothing going for me on the day I reach thirty, then I am going to take my own life. Kill myself. Put myself out of my misery, forever, for infinity. And I have every intention of sticking to it. Hence the sudden urge to write this. The worthless life of Christoper E. Jackson may come to a halt in 364 days, but at least I’ll be able to leave behind the story of my life and a beautiful corpse. Well, I say “beautiful”, maybe simply “young” would be more appropriate, if even a little generous.
I’m a fairly simple chap. I really don’t want much out of life. Just a job that I like, and a woman that I love. I mean, preferably she would love me too, of course. Sod it, even if she didn’t but just pretended that she did and I never found out… that would do. So that is my criteria. You know, for the whole “ending of my life” stuff that I just mentioned. It’s quite a big deal to me - passing on, snuffing it, kicking the proverbial bucket – so I’d appreciate it if you paid attention to that kind of stuff. Ah, who am I even talking to? Whoever you are, let me ask you a question: how do you judge if your life is a success? Happiness? Bank balance? A general feeling? A sixth sense? I was taught the principles of “SMART” targets. Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic. Timed. Well, I have my target so let’s smarten that bad boy up. A job I like and a woman I love. Can’t be much more specific than that. Fairly measurable, I’d say, amounting to all of a mere two accomplishments (though admittedly elusive and life changing ones). Achievable… well, that’s tricky. One would think if it was so bloody achievable I’d have done it by now. Then again, I do seem to be in the minority of 29 yr olds who have literally zilch in either department. Well, I say “minority” armed with nothing in the way of facts or figures. Perception is fact. The whole world seems to be happy when you feel like shit. Realistic? I do wonder where the concept of realism fits into the priorities of a man who has a one year plan to bump himself off. Timed. Yes. 364 days and counting….
2.
I see the sun is setting on my beautiful life. I ate it alive. I woke up this morning with the strangest sensation running through my veins, seeping out of every pore. No, it wasn’t sweat. It was pure, unbridled relief. Almost as if a rather large, world-shaped weight had been removed from my shoulders and now I can bask in the freedom of knowing that it will all be coming to an end. And at my own hands, no less, so unless I’m tragically killed in some freak accident in the next twelve months, I am the most sure of where I am headed that I have ever been. It’s therapeutic. In fact, now that I have this alien sense of complete comfort, chances are that I actually will be killed in some freak accident. Shit, now I have to spend the next 52 weeks looking over my shoulder for erratic bus drivers, drunken crane operators and knife-wielding muggers. Can’t I even feel that sense of relief for more than a few minutes without having it snatched away from me?
I knew it was grey and cloudy outside this morning before I even opened my eyes. I can sense it by now. I know that’s hardly unusual, for an October morning in Manhattan to be “grey and cloudy” but nonetheless I just knew. I know, I know. By now, you should be engrossed in my earliest memories and childhood escapades, autobiography fans. Trouble is, today is one of those days. They come more frequently now than before. The proverbial gremlins are in the system, so to speak. I mean, I had the feeling of relief that I talked about when I first woke up, but that quickly dissipated when I looked out of my window. You’re lucky I’m typing this at all, to be fair. The agency did not ring this morning with any work, so I had to feel I have done something worthwhile today, so I shall type away until I get the urge to go back to bed and sleep away the remnants of my birthday hangover. You’ll probably get about a quarter of an hour out of me. Chins up, Chris! Writing about my childhood means having to think back to it. I don’t think I had a bad childhood. In fact, I’m almost sure my parents treated me very well and gave me a loving and stable environment. Thing is, for no apparent reason, I just never think about it, never try to remember it, never yearn for it, never reflect on it. I’m really going to have to put some time and effort into this, to be honest. This isn’t flowing as well as I’d hoped. The problem I have is that effort, any effort, seems so out of my grasp at this moment in time.
3pm. I am feeling a little more energetic now, so here I am again. I guess it is a real cliché, but where better to start an autobiography than resorting to the “first childhood memory” trap? Problem is, it just isn’t coming to mind. You hear people talk so vividly about their earliest memories. Some people I have spoken to have even claimed to remember being born, which usually prompts me to ask them if they have ever heard the expression “don’t bullshit a bullshitter”.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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