My wonderful day

What a horrible, horrible day.

It started, as days tend to do, at the stroke of midnight. Here we were stumbling out of a bar after I bought THIRTY-GODDAMN-POUNDS worth of alcohol that I didn’t want to buy but people convinced me because it looked tasty and then they didn’t drink it because IT WAS NOT TASTY. Anyway, walked through most of Glasgow to the flat of a friend who was setting me up for the night, and my bag breaks. Whatever, it’s no problem. When we got there, the girl who lives not too far down the road (not too far at all, not really, just another ten minutes, ten small insignificant minutes) demanded that she stay too so of course she got the fold out bed and I got the couch that was four feet long (note: my height is over six feet).

But I’m drunkish. I’ve drank a fair amount of the shit alcohol in order to convince myself it was worth buying and in the process my head is hazy and my speech is slurred but fuck it I’m not drunk I’m drunkish. This makes me sleepy and mildly comfortable with my legs hanging over the armrest, and I’m ready to go to sleep and I say goodnight to the woman taking the luxurious fold out bed and she replies with “can I ask you something?”

Which spurns an hour of useless conversation about nothing I know about and nothing I care about. I eventually drop off at around two-ish.

I have a dream that the walls are crumbling around the couch and everyone’s faces are lit by blue pixels. Children are standing watching me from the hallway in funeral dress, their hands clasped at their fronts. People are behind them dancing and having fun, little blue smiles flying back and forth. I feel like joining them but I’m too tired to stand from the couch.

I wake up too early at eight and wander back across Glasgow with a nice hangover. I head up to uni (yes, I forgot to mention, I’m back at uni) and make my way to my first nine am lecture. I sit outside for ten minutes, wondering why the place is deserted until I see the mother fucking sign that tells me that the fucking class is fucking canceled. Fuck it. An email was sent out last night, but since I didn’t have access to a computer from three pm to that moment I seem to have missed it. Turns out the entire course has been canceled, so now I have Wednesdays free. But! A testament to how rubbish my university is is how I now have to pick another class and the only other class available is on at the exact same goddamn time as a class that’s been moved from a very nice Tuesday and Thursday to Monday and Friday. So now I don’t get Fridays off. Honest to god I’m so fucking sick with how they keep switching round the timetable.

So I head to the only comfy coffee shop in the uni. And it’s closed until further notice. SO. I head up to the completely uncomfy coffee shop and have a fucking horrible coffee. I leave and have a brief run in with Mike which has been the highlight of the day. I go and buy some new clothes which fit me quite nice and look good and would be considered a good thing if it weren’t for the fact that they cost me seventy quid goddamnit. But my new bag’s nice. It’s not broken or anything.

Anyway, I’m feeling depressed and sick and horrible and angry and so fed up that I go to my local bookstore and browse about. They’ve got deals you see, and I end up wandering for half an hour trying to find a third book for the whole buy two and get one free thing. So I pick out three books with the magic sticker (Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov) and Finnegans Wake by James Joyce just for fun. I take it all the way up to the counter and the woman scans them all and gives me this kiddy apple eyed look and says with the sweetest of smiles that sorry these books were labeled wrong and that only one was three for two. But she did happily announce that there was a 20% student discount on and if I had a student card then I’d be able to benefit from this discount, the chirpy bitch. So I showed her my card, bought my books, missed my bus, found another bus and started my way home. It was only then that I checked my receipt. It turns out the chirpy happy smiling cunt of cashier only gave me a discount on one of my books. The cheapest of my books. So instead of the 20% discount of £7 that I should have gotten for spending £35 on books, I get a discount of £1.60.

Ohh I’m so mad I could hit something.

And the day’s not finished. What else can it hold? We can only find out.

Goddamnit.

My morning.

Three posts in one day! I spoil you all, but this one has a much sadder tale to tell.

After the previous post I retreated to bed where I patiently spent the next five hours trying to get to sleep. Or I tried to be patient for it’s hard to remain wholly and completely patient of the sleep process when you’re MOANING IN AGONY (i capitalise these not for humour, but to emphasise that I am not exaggerating or underplaying the feeling). Stabbing, throbbing, aching pains made their way down my neck, shoulder, arms and spine. I was utterly incapable of sleeping. Every time I turned and settled a sharp numbness seemed to rest before growing and growing into the goddamn pain. After rolling around I discovered that lying flat on my back reduced the pain to a more bearable level, but this bearable level only brought the shadowy sweats of half dreams.

And here’s where the humour comes in! I half-dreamed that, in my sleepy headed pain, I called a taxi and ended up at the local hospital. Then there was no other than Hugh Laurie playing House treating me! Apparently I was a fascinating case and Chase rolled his eyes at me and Cameron looked at me like I was about to die. Foreman was the only helpful one. He came up with the brilliant idea of checking if the neck pain was somehow related to impotence. Freud would probably analyse the shit out of me for that but hey ho. They came up with ideas of clots, trapped nerves, and a bizarre theory of muscle death from an infection started by slicing my jaw when shaving. In the end they couldn’t solve it, and House looked at me in such a way that I felt like I had disappointed him. And Chase rolled his eyes again, the gorgeous cunt.

So my sleeplessness lasted until 8am when I remembered that there’s a supermarket down the road, and this supermarket happens to sell DRUGS. I’m not usually one to take tablets to subside my pain (going for the more manly option of wincing occasionally, looking like crap, feeling like crap and then mumble a feeble but strong “I’m fine” when people ask why I look/feel this way) but this was an exception. So I trundled my way down there with my PJs hidden under my jeans and I laboriously examined each painkiller for the desired effects. I took two boxes of the leading brand and a pack of chewing gum to make my purchase less suspicious (TANGENT why put gum next to painkillers? Surely someone will get confused at some point and swallow gum in the hopes of alleviating pain? Or perhaps chewing ibuprofen? Maybe that’ll give rise to a new form of painkiller…). Since the shop only opened ten minutes previous to my arriving the place was fairly empty, and only on checkout open. So there I went, there I waited, and there I gave the so-overweight-that-she-could-barely-fit-into-her-box cashier a friendly, welcoming, “Morning.”

To this, she responded by giving me a vague smile before looking at the two boxes of painkillers I was trying to purchase, at which her face dropped and she didn’t look at me again. Yes, because that’s how you deal with people possibly wanting to off themselves. You don’t look at them. I said three more sentences. “There you go” when handing over my money and “Cheers” when she handed the money back and her eyes were on the boxes constantly. If I didn’t already have so many then I would’ve bought a pack of razors too, just to see if she did anything other than let her eyes bulge our of their blue shadowed sockets.

And now I am home, squirming as I wait for the painkillers to take effect, and annoyed that all this has happened and it’s barely 9am. House doesn’t start until 12.45!

She looked younger, but I felt she wouldn’t lie to me

There were dozens of people in my room. But it wasn’t really my room. It would’ve been my room if it was one floor up and in a different building, but it was kinda my room nonetheless. The place was a mess. People sat in the bookshelf and over the desk like clutter, but the bed was the only thing clear with the exception of the two hookers. They sat there playing with each other, one with dirty blonde hair and stretch marks round her thighs and the other with red auburn hair and bright blue eyes that smiled at me. She looked like someone I know. No, I knew. I know this person in present day, but the girl lying on my bed was from years ago. She looked sweet and innocent even as the other hooker liked her burgundy nipples.

“Eighty bucks my good friend!” a voice called from somewhere in the crowd, “enjoy!”

I climbed into the bed and they removed my clothes piece by piece, discarding them out of sight. They clambered all over me, a mass of flesh that licked and nibbled and grabbed.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“I’m twenty-three,” the blonde replies, giving me a toothy grin framed with cheap red lips.

“No. You. How old are you.”

Little Red looks at me, her cheeks blush. “Sixteen,” she says, and wraps her lips round the blondes toes, “I’m a little young.”

“You’re legal, so it’s fine by me.”

“Only the best for you my friend!” The voice calls again.

It’s then that I become aware of the people in the room, watching and gawking and salivating and masturbating into darkness. I gather my clothes and the clothes of the hookers and lead them to the door. The door was covered by an ornate grill, and that swung aside ominously to a destitute stairwell. A bat flew at me and gnawed at the air as I held it back. The blonde watched on, unamused. Little Red look worried but had to express a giggle. I eventually fought the bat off and it spiraled up a ladder and into the blinding sun.

“So do you need the money?”

“No,” Little Red replies, “you friend paid us earlier.”

“Oh.”

They start walking off down the steps and I wait a moment before calling out. “Wait!”

“What?” the blonde answers.

“No you. Never you. Little Red, would it be possible for me to have your phone number? You remind me of someone.”

“Why can’t you talk to this person herself?”

“I can’t. It’s complicated. I can talk to her, but not in the way I want to, of you get me.”

She looked flattered but sad. Her hair fell around her face as she looked down at her breasts. “I thought you might do this. I left my number on a piece of paper. It’s in your room.”

And she span on her heel and walked away, heels clicking down the echoed steps. I walked back to my room and a huge black man handed me a sheaf of paper. “She told me to give this to you.” And with that, he disappeared. I opened the thin paper and looked over the words. She had used red ink, and most of the words were indecipherable, but I could catch a few.

“Sorry” it began “I need to… i hope that one… I can have someone….. fucking cunt fucking fucking cunt…. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry… nice… sweet… hooker like me.

-Little Red”

I knew it was a dream, or I suspected at least. I spent the rest of the night or day or something thinking about everything. When I woke up I practically forgot about it all until I looked in my drawer and found a pair of red boxers. It all rushed back to me and now I feel so strange.

You left me apologies to all your regrets

I had a dream about you last night. Is that weird? I think that’s weird.

We all yelled at you not to jump, that it wasn’t worth it. But you did it anyway, you leaped from the sandy ridge and slid down the edge into the river, throwing the ball back up to us using your unfathomable momentum. You died apparently. You cut your leg on some greasy shard of metal and got septicemia, or you swallowed some of the toxic water and got cancer, I don’t know. But I know that there was a will written in crayons and my name smudged in red with sad little lovehearts dancing round it. You walked up beside me and took my hand in yours. We walked along the ridge where you fell and I had to force myself not to look at your dead, saturated body. I couldn’t stop talking in Spanish and you couldn’t understand me, so you held a finger to your lips and I fell silent. In front of us was the ball you went to receive, covered in slimy blood. When I turned you were gone but I could still feel your hand in mine, and I kicked the ball as hard as I could, covering myself in splatters of the shining black blood.

I don’t know what to think when I wake up. I wonder if I should feel happy or sad that you’re dead before I remember it was only a dream. I had a dream about you. Is that weird? I think that’s weird.

Just as a little point of interest; I’ll be guest writing in Letters of Bother for the next two weeks. So, if you want to see more of me and my writing (and, honestly, who doesn’t?) take a sidelong glance at the site. And stick around after all is said and done. She’s a good writer.

‘The baby I’m carrying is human,’ she whispered, ‘but it is in danger of having a heart attack.’

We’re on the Great Wall of China and a sunny breeze is sifting her hair into my face as I hug her. She whispered the news almost sadly, but I knew in her heart that she was happy. She never wanted a baby anyway.

I move away and step into the mansion, the vibrant reds and golds welcoming me with a smile. My mum comes over covered in an assortment of fabrics with only her hands and face visible. ‘Time for the banquet,’ she calls, ‘lets go.’ But I’m not done yet. I walk over to the light switch and rest a finger on it while looking up at the overly priced chandeliers. With a grin I flick the switch on and off, but the lights stay dark. My mum looks at me confused and I laugh heartily before taking flight and spinning round the room. I shoot off as fast as I can and burst through the brick wall and spiral into the sky. With a wave of my hand I populate the ground with people, happy people who dance and sing as I curve round mountains gazing at the steam engine that shoots down it.

With a look at the blue sky and clouds I fire upwards. The wind on my face is exhilarating, and the clouds part for me as I travel faster and faster into the stratosphere. There’s a moment of peace, a moment of silence where everything stops for a moment and I see the great plains of the universe stretched out before me in every direction. I then make the utterly foolish mistake of opening my eyes, finding not Orion or the Big Dipper laying in front of me, but a ceiling. I smile and twist and fall back asleep.

Lucid dreaming is fucking awesome.

The flat is darkend by twilight and sinful intent as I worm my way through the hallways and people to reach the living room. The soft glow of candlelight beckons me to the floor where you lie with your suspenders pulled tight and corset over flowing with tantalising flesh as I take my prize. The joy of the work is long and sweaty, and just before I climax I pull out, because something’s changed. Your face is no longer smiling but sneering with lust and no hint of love. I realise with horror that it wasn’t you all along, but a relic of a life dissipated by winds. The curtains catch fire and I retrieve her thong from a lampshade and throw it at her. The heat arcs round and tongues of fire carry it to the feet of another relic of the past, one who looks at me with wrinkled, degrading eyes and tuts with her hissing teeth.

The room’s burning now. I push the fire to one side like a curtain and exit the living room to the wide expanse of the hall. Your brother is there and he wants to hit me more than he ever wanted to hit your father, and I can see the hate and rage building up in his eyes as he stands and glares at me, asking for my advice on schoolwork. I push him to the side and he falls through the fire, laughing. I run and run but I can hardly move. Fleets of girls beset themselves upon me, grabbing and screaming as I struggle with my mollasses movement. They’re all too young and too naked for me to look, but they keep screaming so loud that I cannot push them out.

When I wake I’m sitting in the middle of a university lecture. My brother is sitting beside me drinking from a hipflask and shouting glaring truths to the dead lecturer. He smiles a wicked smile at me and I grab him by the front of the shirt, lifting him off the ground with both my fists balled into the shirt that’s running with animals. I ask him to stop shouting, to tell me what this means, to tell me what to do.

And he laughs. He throws his head back and utters a devlish laugh that disconnects his face from his jaw and sends his head cascading to the ground. The gurgling from his exposed throat causes his tnogue to writhe like a snake and I drop him to the ground, and there you are, smiling with your hands in your pockets and a cigarette being held aloof by an ornate red holder. The forest around us is burning and the embers drift between us like snow and coats the ground only to be disturbed by my footprints as I walk towards you. I reach out to touch you but a blazing flame erupts between us and I wake up in my bed dripping with hot, sticky sweat and choking back on the terror and sadness.

Gondry wrote in Gael Garcia Bernal’s voice, saying that in dreams, emotions are overwhelming. And that they most certainly are.

So there’s a ghost in my psychology class, who slinks and stalks and glides in the way the ghosts tend to do. What is also does is sit and take lecture notes, which I’ve never really seen a ghost do before. Not that I’m frequently visited by ghosts or anything. Her curls cascade down her back as her pen scratches ominously on the paper. I try and leave the lecture hall early occasionally to catch another view of her face, but her eyes flow from my gaze and she goes as quickly as she comes. I tried sitting beside her once, expecting her to notice me and look at me, but she just stared stright ahead and took notes on the cerebellum. I packed my notebook into my bag and when I looked up she was gone again.

I know it’s not the ghost I think I’m seeing. Her eyes smouldered with the fires of hell and this ghost leaks black ink and smiles with the beginning of spring. Even so, a quick glance at her roots my feet to the ground and makes my jacket creak with the heaviness of old wood.

(How’s that for a metaphor, bitches)

And dreams are plaguing me again. I fall into a deep drunken slumber and my mind is running with images that won’t stop screaming no matter how hard I yell. Not all of them are bad though. Sometimes there’re flowing fields of green that ripple under my feet, and I wake up before the sky darkens and ruins it all with solid rain.