Regrets and window shopping

On top of dinner with Greg and Sarah resembling one of Dante’s levels of hell, an annoying knock-on from dinner was that I was still hungry. I walked until I came across a Mac and went in to eat some more. There is something about certain people that keeps you coming back for more despite the fact that they should be burnt out of your existence. Sooner or later you get to the point that you’ve burnt everything except McDonald’s from your life. Two things will endure, cockroaches and the Big Mac.

I ordered a number four and sat down to eat it. The only decision I had to make was drink and size of fries. That seemed like the only decision I could face at that moment. So, I sat in the plastic of Mac-land and happily moped and absent-mindedly munched. As I ate, I felt that all I wanted to do was return to my own company where nothing needed to be justified, where nothing need be ignored or misconstrued. I wasn’t even sure that my own company was such a good thing but it was certainly better than bad company and even more so than the wrong company. As much as I wanted to be alone I also wanted the world to see that I was alone. I wanted to be the worst kind of alone, alone in a crowd of people.

People in McDonald’s seemed to be enjoying their own company as everyone sat alone eating burgers and dipping fries in tomato sauce. I was being only slightly different by dipping into the sweet and sour that I always have. I’m sure that not all of those people were lonely. Some of them were going about their food in a very business-like fashion whilst wearing suits and nosing into their newspapers. A few munched and stared into space. These were the people that always caught my imagination because they could be thinking of anything in a spectrum that stretches from everything to nothing. The whole scene was exactly how McDonald’s would not advertise it. No laughing and no manic happy smiley devouring of burgers, no great big grins peering from behind a Big Mac grasped solidly in two hands. None of the above. All I can see is a load of us moping around and going about the business of eating convenience food like it was convenient to do so. I spent my time staring at my food and glancing at people whilst trying not to let my gaze linger for too long before slurping my coke to the dry bottom of the cup and leaving.

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. And the shops entice you as you go and try to break your trance and suck you back into the real world because you may actually think and be reminded that you haven’t bought enough DVDs or CDs lately, and suddenly that issue feels important. I cannot explain what happens in my brain when I walk past a shop selling novelties, nick-knacks and glowing junk and I know that I have to go in and that I’ll regret not doing this. This happens way more than I want. So, I end up going in a gift shop selling things I don’t need but somehow want.

Nothing in these shops is ever likely to be useful but everything was designed to be exceptionally pointlessly fun. It was a little shop of pointless hedonism. A 90s fascination with Lava Lamps has kept places like this afloat. A part of me always wants to buy something, to be, if only for a moment, satisfied in the way I'm supposed to be.

.

I stopped by shelves of globes. I saw a globe of the Moon and thought how different that was. Why do I never see globes of the Moon? Do they do any of the planets too? That was it. I suddenly had a craving to own Mars. God alone knows why, but if I could have any of the planets it would be Mars. The Moon looked good with all its detail, its unnamed craters but I would rather have Mars. Mars was the Red planet, conversely cold when we always consider red to be a warm colour. The moon had its wonderful craters but Mars has mountains and volcanoes that make Earth’s look like anthills. The Moon globe was grey and did not beam as brightly as the one I could see every night in the sky. Mars however was a dot in the sky or a picture in a book. Mars was mythical.

Next to the globes there was a whole bin full of star-shaped stress busters. I picked one up and gave it a squeeze. I squeezed, relaxed and watched the star reshape and squeezed again. It’s very addictive so I did it again and again and a few times more. I put it back and walked away but stopped a few paces later. If I bought the squeezy star I could play with it all I wanted. I turned around to pick it up and take it to the counter but as soon as I reached out for it I considered what I was doing and I stopped. Why am I buying this? I plunged my hand into the bin, reached in, burying the star I was holding at the bottom of all the stars.

I turned around and walked towards the globes, again thinking of Mars but stopping off at Earth first. I slowly spun the Earth and observed the world. I felt like buying something but couldn’t see why I should. I stood watching the Earth, trying to find where I was, where I’d been and where I might some day want to go.

“Looking for any country in particular?”

I looked up to greet the shop attendant.

“Actually, I was looking for a specific planet,”

I usually resent shop assistants gatecrashing my world because they want to sell me something.

“Which planet would that be?” asked the shop assistant.

 “Mars. I was looking for Mars. I saw that you have the Moon. I was wondering if you do other planets.”

The attendant had a name badge that read, “Carl. How can I help You?” and Carl had a mousy blonde receding hairline and hair that seemed wiry thin. He had a lazy left eye that was hidden behind thin wire framed designer glasses. His rounded face smiled a lot and he stood over six feet tall. He rested his chin in his hand as he looked down at me. In conversation his gangly arms would move in measured gesticulations. He was rather camp and softly but sharply spoken.

“No we only have the Earth and the Moon,” he informed me, seemingly disappointed.

 “Oh,” I nodded in acknowledgement.

 “Funny that they don’t have any other planets. I don’t know why.”

 “It’s just I’m very fond of Mars.” I said for the sake of something to say.

 “Really?”

 I nodded in response to confirm that I really was.

“Maybe I could make a note and ask if they have any plans on making any other planets.”

“Okay.” I agreed.

“If you could give me your name and number and I’ll let you know what they say.”            Carl said this whilst moving to a till to grab a pad and pen. As he did this I thought about it for a second and gave a false name. I called myself Bruce Simms. Carl wrote it down. It’s all pointless, only words that I’m thinking up on the spot. I gave the number of the last place that I used to live and that too was recorded.

“Okay, I can let you know if they have any plans for other planets,” he said looking up from the meaningless notes.

“You were looking at the stress toys there,” he looked at his notes, “Bruce. You don’t seem the stress type.”

Right about now I’m nothing but stress. Did I think that or say it?

“Oh yeah. Stress. Big thing these days. Lots to stress about.” I’m pretty sure I said that out loud.

“You’re telling me. Squeezy stress stars are our best seller.”

This conversation is not going to go anywhere is it? I feel safe I said that only in my head.

“Wow. Really? What the hell? Why would that be?”

He looks around the store, to see if anyone is listening and then says, straight up, like it was nothing, “I hear people use them as sex toys.” Not the answer I wanted.

We stand in silence for a long moment. And then Carl waves to another member of staff, excuses himself and leaves.

On the way home, I thought about the squeezy stars. I pondered whether or not I would regret not buying the star. If you squeezed it really hard it really felt so intensely good. I would regret not buying it. I would regret that they don’t make Mars globes but that they make the Moon. Then it occurred to me how stupid my life is that I would regret not buying a squeezy star. I walked on trying to put it out of my mind.

I strolled until I reached the door to my lobby and then I bounded up the stairs. As pointless as the day was it had felt inspirational. I turned the computer on before I did anything else and then turned the kettle on to make coffee. As the computer hummed into life against a backdrop of quiet I lay on the sofa that lay under the window.  My legs stretched over the end as I lay on my back looking at the ceiling. As the kettle made bubbling noises I began to squirm my way out of the sofa but only managed to get as far as hanging my head and shoulders upside down off the side. With my head an inch from the ground I felt oddly comfy. I ignored the kettle and the computer and stayed upside down where I was. From my vantage point I could see out of the window. It was evening and the sky was black but it had started to rain so that the heavy splodges of rain were all that could be seen in the dark.  I traced the spots as they hit and then slowly raced each other down the pane.

 I rolled off the sofa and then snapped up to my feet. I sat down with an inkling of inspiration and typed away for an hour only stopping to refuel with coffee. By the time I had finished the piece I read through it and realised that it had nothing to do with my novel. But it was a good little vignette and I thought for a moment that I liked it. I lay on the sofa again, this time a little more conventionally and thought about what I’d written. I got up, walked to the computer and deleted the whole thing. It hurt a little but a moment’s deliberation had made me think that it somehow didn’t feel right, that it shouldn’t exist. I paced in front of the computer for a moment but couldn’t undelete it. There was no point thinking about it. I made another coffee and ate a strawberry yoghurt. I put some bread in the toaster, toasted it and ate that. I checked the freezer for ice-cream but there was none. I sat back down on the sofa and then got up again. I was fully aware that I should have been writing but it didn’t seem possible at that point. There’s little point in fighting such proportions of inertia.

I was listening to the hum of the computer for a few minutes before deciding it seemed hugely unhealthy to do so. I needed sound, noises, to drown out that quiet. I shifted through my CDs and blindly picked one. The problem I have with choosing music is that I am in effect choosing mood, emotion, memories. I can’t even listen to REM’s Shiny Happy People now because it brings back bad memories. I had once been asked what my favourite sad song is and I had to answer in all honesty that Shiny Happy People can reduce me to tears in a heartbeat.

Instead of blindly putting a CD in the machine I contemplated what I was doing. Do many people give this much thought to something so simple? I actually have to think hard about the whole thing. I picked one album, held it in my hand for a second and put it back. The first one didn’t feel right. The next had too many memories attached to it. Despite not really knowing what mood I was in the next one didn’t seem right for the moment. I picked again. With a sense of humour I told myself, pick something happy. Pick something happy. Then I stopped, laughed a little and considered that I might not own anything happy. Maybe the best I could do is loud and angst ridden. I picked again.

That’s how you end up lying on the floor listening to Girlfriend in a coma on repeat. It’s always a pick-me-up. There is something strangely flippant about The Smiths. Lying on the floor listening to music seemed much more constructive than anything else I could be doing. It wasn’t what I wanted to be doing but it felt good, the music led the mood, and I hazily and carelessly dazed away an hour, maybe two. For the shame of it, the lyrics started to slip by me as I lay staring at the ceiling thinking up words and images of my own. Poetic nonsense sent me to sleep. I dozed for an hour or so before getting off the floor and into bed. I excitedly got undressed as the concept of sleep, a gentle yet quick slip to no longer being able to stay awake, seemed enticing. I was looking forward to that moment where you can feel yourself slip, where you know that this is no longer a doze but the edge of a full blown sleep. It’s the excitement of falling off that edge. As I lay there, I opened my hands and then closed them tight. I promised that I would force myself to write and fight through any inertia in the morning.

Where next?

→ If you've ever wondered why music can become attached to memories, Life Is Not a Pop Video

→ If you think ordinary moments sometimes hide life's biggest questions, In an Age of Texting, Why Write Anything at All?

→ If you've ever questioned what it really means to create something, Could an AI Do This?

If the writing resonates, stay with it.