Well I'll Be Damned

"Well I'll be damned, that went well."
"And you're surprised?"
"Aren't you? I always fuck everything up. I'm surprised I didn't choke."

She smiled that big bright smile, and took my hand. It was nice to see someone could be truly happy for someone else. There was no jealousy here, and in the future I just hoped I could do the same for her, but I doubted it.

"I'm not surprised," she said.
"Well I'll be damned."

She laughed then and stood up all twirly dressed and overexcited about her motions and emotions. "I'll get us a drink. It's on me."

It was always on her. I watched her as she weaved through the chairs to the bar. She stepped up onto the little rail that ran around the edge and leant over on one elbow, waving down the barman with the other hand. She looked like a little tinkerbell in all the dresses she wore and her short blonde hair. I, on the other hand, looked more like captain hook.

She came back, double whiskeys, and set them down on the table.

"So, now that that's gone well, what's the plan?"
"The plan?" I hadn't really thought of a plan. I hadn't really thought I'd make it through the first step. "I guess I do more, and hope they go well too?"

"Well then," she said raising her glass, "cheers to that!"

She clinked her glass on mine and we drank.

To Death

'I'm working myself to death, quite literally," I think as I puke up another part of my dinner or lunch or maybe the gallon of alcohol I've tested the strength of my body with these last few days and nights or maybe months. I'm now fifteen days into my work week, which apparently is possible, with five days left to go before I'm relieved from my duties and released into the sweet relief of a Sunday morning with yet another hangover.

I swipe the fever from my brow and sit back against the heat of the bathroom radiator. Then I think about opening the window because it's too damn hot and I can't figure out why.

I can't keep going like this, working myself to death in order to get the money I want to go and live a little. It's all too bloody ironic really and it hurts my head and I'm pretty sure I'm also going deaf. All the noise of this city and it's people is alluring but ultimately takes it's toll on a weak and meek little pet like me. 

I've got to rest now, or fear I'll also think myself to death. 

The Boy and Miss City

"Don't get all eggy bread at me"

"Eggy what? Never mind, I'm not. I'm just saying-"

"Well say less."

We sat in ferocious silence while the tension gathered in clouds around us. I couldn't see through the haze. It was different smoking inside, and I didn't like it. My lungs were layered in tar and couldn't take much more. I can hardly make it up a gentle hill these days, so they weren't ready for this challenge. 

I wheezed out as quietly as possible.

"You wanna get out of here?" I asked.

"Not really. Not till you apologise."

I stared at him blankly, waiting for my frustration to subside before I said anything I would regret.

"Don't you know I'm not your..." I lost my words in my thoughts and my mouth stopped moving.

"You're not my what?"

"I'm not your 'little miss city' anymore."

Dawn

Dawn at 21 Harcourt Road, the streetlights are still on outside and their yellow glow is made even more eerie by the low fog that seeped in at some point during the dark hours. I’ve been awake all night with my curtains open, watching the night turn into day. We’re not fully there yet, but almost.

It’s a truly beautiful moment, and one I haven’t seen intentionally in a long time. At 4am when sleep still evaded me I gave in and decided to just stay awake- a decision I regretted till about half an hour ago when the birds started to sing and the world outside slowly started to open it’s weary eyes, rub away the sleep and stretch it’s beautiful arms.

Everything is described as beautiful right now, I realise. Maybe it’s because I’m tired, maybe it’s because everything really is that lovely, or maybe it’s because I’m not articulate enough to call it anything more befitting.

All I know is that it makes me forget my aching, sleep deprived body, and smile.

I don’t remember meeting him. I never remember the important ones.

The first thing I do remember about him is dancing. He was always a dancer. I remember the song too- mumbo number five- and how his short blonde ponytail jumped and fell as he bopped around. We were only ten, but to me, falling for him seemed very grown up. It made me feel like, for the first time in my life, I could see the threads of adulthood arriving.

My friends were always saying his hair was silly, that it was girl’s hair. I always agreed out loud, but never with any vigour, for within myself an argument was going on, finding reasons for why my heart fluttered when I saw him. Eventually I reasoned that it was true, he was my very first crush, and as I realised that, I knew that remembering how we met would never be as important as remembering the rest, remembering what was to come.

It seems wonderful to me, how the simplest of things can mean the world to a child. When I think about my childhood, I don’t remember the things I probably should, I don’t revoke images of my first day of school, nor my friend’s birthday parties or the first time I ordered something other than a Happy Meal, not even learning to ride a bike.

What I remember above all else is that boy, and his silly, silly hair.  

My Mother, who I lived with in London, was a friend of his parents. I guess that’s how I knew him, how we all knew each other in that loose circle of ‘friend’s because our parents are’.  All the adults would meet for birthday, dinner and house warming parties, among many other social occasions, bringing the children along too. We’d be told to ‘play upstairs nicely together’, and off we’d trot to do exactly that. We’d play hide and seek, tag, or pretend that the floor was made of lava and jump around on pillows that we’d stolen from the sofa. It wasn’t often that I’d be alone, with just one other child.

 Falling for him wasn’t hard, more awkward; not like it is these days, now that I’m grown. The details are sketchy too, but I remember the gist of it, the flow from saying ‘our parents know each other’ to ‘we’re boyfriend and girlfriend’.

 We were eleven when we first found ourselves alone. His Mother and Father were throwing a party and we headed off upstairs to his room. I could hear the general hum of parent's chatter and laughter fade into silence as we climbed the many stairs. His room was pretty plain, but I could tell it was a boy’s room. He had masculine toys, no Barbie dolls, no dollhouse, and no cuddly animals. It wasn’t like my room.

 We must have talked for a long time in awkward conversation. We were children who felt we could be adults, but we didn’t have the means. No job to talk about, no life that was truly our own. But we did have feelings and right there, in his room, those feelings became apparent.

  I'd wanted to be alone with him for a while before that day, wanted more time to find out if the butterflies I had in my stomach were something real, or just a cruel figment of my imagination. The subject came up eventually, maybe he knew we’d have to go downstairs soon, maybe it was just time.

 It was him who told me he liked me first, of that I’m pretty sure. The butterflies in my stomach went crazy when the words edged their way from his mouth in a stammered sentence. I couldn’t tell him quick enough that I returned the feelings. Then suddenly, and like the young charmer that I didn’t realise he was, he picked something up from his desk- a delicate, elegant necklace, strung with beautiful blue beads.

 “Will you be my girlfriend?” His voice compelling.

 I nodded yes, and turned around so he could fasten it behind my neck. It was the first present a boy had ever given me. I was so happy at that moment, and felt so grown up that I never wanted it to end. I wanted him to take my hand in his, to make it feel like this really had just happened, to connect.

 “Let’s go, my darrling girrl!” My mother’s voice filtered into my consciousness. She’d probably been calling for ages.

 “I should go,” I said, and turned to leave, sad that the moment had gone, but still wearing a carefree smile on my face.

 He came back down stairs with me, leading me in silence. It was rare in my childhood that a boy would be alone with a girl, not because of any rules set by our parents, but because boys and girls at that age didn’t seem to have all that much in common. But me and him, we found a common ground, a common like; each other. I don't think we knew exactly what to say to each other, it was as new to him as it was to me. When we got downstairs, and had to weave in and out of roaming adults, I was embarrassed that everyone knew we’d been alone together in a room.

 What made me even more self-conscious was the bright, shining proof of our new relationship hanging daintily around my neck.