Outsourcing

I’m sat in a little café in a part of this peninsula that I never often reach. I’ve just taken out £50 which I do not expect will last me the week. I’m thinking about where I have to go in an hour’s time. The café is a cute little place, an old home, with fairy lights and free wifi. The coffee is weak, but only £1.20. I’ve been here for the few hours it has been raining and I’m waiting to go along for a medical review. The government outsources the assessment not to the NHS, but to Atos Origin – some stab at a medical consultancy.

Its purpose is to assess if I am fit for work, what help I need to get into work, if there is anything they can do to get me to work, if they can trip me up and force me to work; there seems a pressing theme. Work.

Not that much of a surprise really. I’ve been out of work for the last four months. It is about time that I started thinking about just pressing on with things and ignoring my problem again. It’s a cycle after all, so let’s get riding. Problem is that at the moment it feels like I’m peddling up hill.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but there doesn’t seem to be a need for them. Perhaps I should just join the armed forces. I’ve always thought I might like to die for something slightly ridiculous. I once had a dream that I threw myself in front of a car to save a plastic bottle from being crushed. So getting shot at by people I’ve never met seems like the same flavor of stupidity. At least it removes the need to think for myself. If I’m lucky it will even remove the need to end my own life. I can outsource.

Hours

Telephones are a strange idea. You’re listening to a voice on the other end of a wire. It usually unnerves me, but with Much it is different. I’ve talked to her for hours now and we could go on talking. I’ve woken up after a night of talking, my throat is slightly raw and I still have that fluttering feeling. A little while ago I cursed that feeling, but this time I think it is shared.
In as much as Much is honest and sweet, I can’t help feeling scared. I’m more than easily hurt, it wouldn’t take much, but then Much is more than capable of anything now. She could reach out, climb out and become something real. She could turn around and shatter me. There is no help for the helpless, I have to settle the feeling otherwise it’ll eat away at me.
When it gets to that point that going on is so much pain that giving in seems easier. I can’t help but think, ‘why the hell did I come so far?’ And I keep going, gritted teeth, coat braced against a wind that tears through me. A road like this is a daunting thing, but when you think of what you are reaching out for and how far you’ve come, there really isn’t any other option.

Child

I had one for the blink of an eye. I dreamt him back into being, after Melissa had the abortion. His name would have been Ben. I hadn’t known a thing about there being a child until a friend told me 9 months after Lissa left. She told me that Lissa had run away so abruptly, because she couldn’t face the fact that I would have wanted to keep him.
So I dreamt him back into being. First the size of a few cells, up to the size of a pea, then I drew motion into him, a tadpole. He grew to a birth of nothingness.
I accelerate past his first Christmas, first few steps; learning to ride a bike, kick a ball in the park. Past his first crush, heartbreaks, accidents and exams. Cast away hobbies and nights on his own, just thinking and listening to music.
I imagined a wife for him, children and then past my own existence, to him telling his grandchildren about me.
So I dreamt him back into being, but he wasn’t back. All I keep thinking is that he ended as a smattering on a toilet bowl and then I start crying again.

Wallflower

I always imagine myself ending up with a complete wallflower. The kind with inch-thick specs and all the social grace of a cockroach. I don’t want it to be like that, but readers tend to develop the need for glasses at some stage and readers tend to be reserved. I always saw myself with a reader, so it goes with the territory.
I see her having cats and long straight dark brown hair with split ends. She’d be eager in the bedroom and often quite over-enthused. Our kids would be bullied because she’d make them banana sandwiches and call them Kingsly and Star. I wouldn’t be able to stop her and would probably be the first to die; with a full head of grey hair and inch-thick glasses.
I don’t want to be with a wallflower, but it seems realistic. Beautiful women like bad guys, and I’m never going to be a bad guy, I’m just nice. Nice guys finish last, get wallflowers and live in the suburbs, gardening at the weekends and reading the Times.

Broody

I’m quite a broody person and I want kinds as soon as possible. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so honest with women?
The majority of them dismiss me quietly, either as lying or simply as being ridiculous. Some have point-blank refused to talk about kids, which I find rather distressing but respect their opinions.
I’ve a hard time explaining why I want children; all I can say is that the need is there. Perhaps it joins hands with my loneliness and it is because I want someone who will be there, constant and unconditional. Maybe it is because I don’t want to die and see them as a legacy.
All I really want is a partner who I can love and respect and write poetry about and a small child of our own to look up to me with love in their eyes and a smile on their face.