AT A COUPLE MINUTES past ten I awoke. I had stirred many times during the night – at one point even believing that it was a weekday – only this time being awake enough to look at the light coming through my blinds and trying to gauge what kind of day it was going to be, as I had done many times before. After twenty minutes or so I went downstairs to get the ache out of my back and have a fag.
My parents were at the table with my brother, the crumbs and empty coffee cups of breakfast in front of them, discussing something serious. I rolled a cigarette, put my coat on and went outside. When I came back in they were still talking and my brother was including me in whatever he was talking about; I didn’t want to be grouped with him, nor my other brother. I went back to bed. I put a comedy on and lay there to watch it, then I turned my attention to an Italian porno and masturbated. Afterwards I just lay there staring into space, aware that time was passing. Without meaning to, I fell asleep again…
A knock at the door seemed louder than it was, as if it were a trigger, causing me to bolt up in bed. My brother asked me a question; when I answered, he left. The clock told me it was gone half-twelve. I was disappointed to sleep in so late, frustrated as I had considered plans. I leapt out of bed and hurried downstairs where I poured a drink and had another cigarette. There were not many people about. Another of my brothers wanted to talk to me but I didn’t want to, so I turned my back to him.
Another sickening day. The clouds separated the sunlight behind it so that nothing in this flat, impressionless county possessed a shadow.
‘Corn flakes with a big spoon of sugar and a cup of coffee might cheer me up,’ I thought. They were pleasant. Then I trimmed my nails while having a shit; showered; brushed my teeth, and got dressed listening to some new CD. I even put on clean jeans, despite knowing I was not going to leave the house.
Around that time I felt my mood begin to deflate. No, it did not deflate, it plummeted, struck the turf with a thud, squeezed out some pathetic last words and died.
I was angry again. Thinking it had passed – that awful period – I was anticipating the weekend, but, no, it was back. It had gone to make tea but now it was back. Now I felt its full weight again. ‘I must stay away from others,’ I said to myself, closing my bedroom door. ‘I’ll wait it out.’
I picked up my guitar and sat in front of the amp. Melodies would not come. Everything I tried to play sounded terrible. Of course! My arms were weak! If you had asked me to hold a baby I would have dropped it! I was very weak, but without reason. I held up my arm to study its weaknesses; it trembled pitifully. ‘I’ve eaten and hardly drank anything last night – so why am I shaking?’ In the end my anger grew and grew. It bellowed in me like a house fire, with the front doors recently opened and the upstairs windows smashed. Furious at everything I started to smash my hand into the strings. I was saying quietly – ‘you fucking cunt you fucking cunt you fucking cunt’ – and striking it. I struck until I drew blood. All the strings were out of tune. I grabbed the strings in my feeble hand and ripped them; only one snapped; the other five held strong. I had cut my palm now, too.
Then I was very sad, because my mum had bought me those strings for Christmas. My eyes started to run. The blood on my knuckles blurred and stung.
I plugged in some pedals to make the guitar sound as angry and as dirty as I could, then I turned the amp right up. I strangled every sound I could out of that five-stringed piece-of-shit. I was sat next to the amp and I vibrated in the low notes. It was useless. I knew that it was useless. I was very sick in my stomach – or maybe an adjacent organ I was less familiar with.
In the garden I slouched and smoked. Visions of my suicide came thick and fast. I had every chance in the west, chances of a white man in the west, but I was nothing because I was so angry and so sad and so miserable and so greedy for the end.
I returned to my room and put on some music [Greed/Holy Money Swans, 1986] then collapsed on my bed. The music was loud enough to nauseate me; my position was uncomfortable. I was torturing myself: I wanted to sleep the day away but would not let myself; I had to do nothing but think. I bit the dried blood off of my knuckles. I contemplated going and unscrewing the blade from my sharpener and cutting my arms with it. Self-harm had never appealed to me, but I remembered the Romans doing it in baths. I wanted to do it in a nice hot bath, not my grey Saturday bedroom. Everything would probably be better in the bath.
An hour passed. My body hurt from the position I had been in for so long.
Suddenly, from nowhere, I remembered the smell of my knees.
As a child I had loved the smell of my knees. Back then my knees were exposed often. I would smell them when I was waiting for someone, when I was sulking, when I was punished, when I was in the dentist’s waiting room. The skin on them was different to the skin on the rest of my body. There were little blonde hairs nodding at the sun. I would curl myself up and smell my knees. I remembered the smell of my knees.
Sitting on the edge of my bed I stared at my rug and thought of the smell of my knees, how they had smelled decades ago.
My parents were at the table with my brother, the crumbs and empty coffee cups of breakfast in front of them, discussing something serious. I rolled a cigarette, put my coat on and went outside. When I came back in they were still talking and my brother was including me in whatever he was talking about; I didn’t want to be grouped with him, nor my other brother. I went back to bed. I put a comedy on and lay there to watch it, then I turned my attention to an Italian porno and masturbated. Afterwards I just lay there staring into space, aware that time was passing. Without meaning to, I fell asleep again…
A knock at the door seemed louder than it was, as if it were a trigger, causing me to bolt up in bed. My brother asked me a question; when I answered, he left. The clock told me it was gone half-twelve. I was disappointed to sleep in so late, frustrated as I had considered plans. I leapt out of bed and hurried downstairs where I poured a drink and had another cigarette. There were not many people about. Another of my brothers wanted to talk to me but I didn’t want to, so I turned my back to him.
Another sickening day. The clouds separated the sunlight behind it so that nothing in this flat, impressionless county possessed a shadow.
‘Corn flakes with a big spoon of sugar and a cup of coffee might cheer me up,’ I thought. They were pleasant. Then I trimmed my nails while having a shit; showered; brushed my teeth, and got dressed listening to some new CD. I even put on clean jeans, despite knowing I was not going to leave the house.
Around that time I felt my mood begin to deflate. No, it did not deflate, it plummeted, struck the turf with a thud, squeezed out some pathetic last words and died.
I was angry again. Thinking it had passed – that awful period – I was anticipating the weekend, but, no, it was back. It had gone to make tea but now it was back. Now I felt its full weight again. ‘I must stay away from others,’ I said to myself, closing my bedroom door. ‘I’ll wait it out.’
I picked up my guitar and sat in front of the amp. Melodies would not come. Everything I tried to play sounded terrible. Of course! My arms were weak! If you had asked me to hold a baby I would have dropped it! I was very weak, but without reason. I held up my arm to study its weaknesses; it trembled pitifully. ‘I’ve eaten and hardly drank anything last night – so why am I shaking?’ In the end my anger grew and grew. It bellowed in me like a house fire, with the front doors recently opened and the upstairs windows smashed. Furious at everything I started to smash my hand into the strings. I was saying quietly – ‘you fucking cunt you fucking cunt you fucking cunt’ – and striking it. I struck until I drew blood. All the strings were out of tune. I grabbed the strings in my feeble hand and ripped them; only one snapped; the other five held strong. I had cut my palm now, too.
Then I was very sad, because my mum had bought me those strings for Christmas. My eyes started to run. The blood on my knuckles blurred and stung.
I plugged in some pedals to make the guitar sound as angry and as dirty as I could, then I turned the amp right up. I strangled every sound I could out of that five-stringed piece-of-shit. I was sat next to the amp and I vibrated in the low notes. It was useless. I knew that it was useless. I was very sick in my stomach – or maybe an adjacent organ I was less familiar with.
In the garden I slouched and smoked. Visions of my suicide came thick and fast. I had every chance in the west, chances of a white man in the west, but I was nothing because I was so angry and so sad and so miserable and so greedy for the end.
I returned to my room and put on some music [Greed/Holy Money Swans, 1986] then collapsed on my bed. The music was loud enough to nauseate me; my position was uncomfortable. I was torturing myself: I wanted to sleep the day away but would not let myself; I had to do nothing but think. I bit the dried blood off of my knuckles. I contemplated going and unscrewing the blade from my sharpener and cutting my arms with it. Self-harm had never appealed to me, but I remembered the Romans doing it in baths. I wanted to do it in a nice hot bath, not my grey Saturday bedroom. Everything would probably be better in the bath.
An hour passed. My body hurt from the position I had been in for so long.
Suddenly, from nowhere, I remembered the smell of my knees.
As a child I had loved the smell of my knees. Back then my knees were exposed often. I would smell them when I was waiting for someone, when I was sulking, when I was punished, when I was in the dentist’s waiting room. The skin on them was different to the skin on the rest of my body. There were little blonde hairs nodding at the sun. I would curl myself up and smell my knees. I remembered the smell of my knees.
Sitting on the edge of my bed I stared at my rug and thought of the smell of my knees, how they had smelled decades ago.
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