“Why is everyone’s life so headfuckingly fast?”
We both watched people bustling their way through the park. I thought the question over and then looked across at the girl, half dangling off the bench, her feet scraping in the dirt. Deeply philosophical answers seemed dangerous here. Any answer I could think up felt tantamount to giving a kid an emotional A-bomb to drop in the playground.
I tell her the most gentle truth I can think up.
“Nobody wants to stop to think about what they’re doing because they’re scared they might realise how silly it all sounds.”
The city is the greatest place to be by yourself. Nobody takes any notice because in the rush of it all no one sees you. People flash by on the streets and no one will ever know if you are walking with a purpose or in a dreamy haze or if you're aimless or if you're lost.
We all want to be a snapshot from a pop video, an advertisement for modern life, a statement, a frozen moment in time, to be defined in a single image. It is the casually cliché, so complete, three-minute bursts, flashes and blurs of all the best bits.
The narrative within my family is that Mark brought me out of my shell and I brought him down to Earth. Sure, there was the occasional one wood to the eye or plastic airplane landing on my head, but those were the cuts and bruises of childhood.
By the time I go back inside all will be forgotten. No, really, all will be forgotten, completely
I lie because I don’t want Eric to know that you exist yet. Do you exist yet? If you’re unborn somewhere in my belly does it count?
Dear unborn child of mine, If I could write it all down on two sides of A4 then I would.