There be monsters

Sirens

It’s the first day of spring. The sky is chlorine blue and your eyes smart from the glare. The sun is shining but struggling to summon heat. The sirens are screaming here in East London. Burly men are hollering indecipherably about the price of fruit.

I am at Job for A Month and feeling- you guessed it- distinctly melancholy. Everyone has gone to the funeral of a colleague who died a few days before I started. This morning was a busy-feeling day and I imagined somehow that I was like a bustling mother, trying to organise her children for a family event. As a spectator, I could locate wreaths, comment on clothes and nod sagely with a sympathetic tilt of the head, then wave them all goodbye, goodbye from the venetian darkened windows.

So now I am alone and battling a headache. I hate headaches. Sharp pain with their jellyfish luminescence, infecting my world. I do moan, I know, but I find it horrible to be here under these dour artificial lights, chained to the computer and quite tempted to get up and leave.

Of course, being alone in the office has its perks. I have no work to do, but am still being paid. I’ve just been for my tenth cigarette break. I can make insulting yet witty remarks at my computer screen.

I’m not really melancholy because there is another funeral happening in the world. Although it does make me sad, his bright photos taped to an old, voodoo looking noticeboard.

Sometimes you get that feeling

Of, “What am I doing here?” I feel quite like my life is on repeat. After nearly four years in London, I’m not sure how I am somehow post-breakdown-and-temping again. I hoped that my life would have moved on by now.

I’m One of Those, a frustrated writer. Naturally I came to London to be a genius novelist. But I’ve been sick for a very long time. Unmedicated, I can write furiously, but fractured, discordant gibberish is all I can produce.

Medicated, it seems all I can do is be rather Matter of Fact. My imagination has dulled considerably- my mind is focused constantly on trying to unravel this strange new addition to my identity.

I can describe only experiences I’ve had, which never struck me as very useful. In the past, I have concoted whole people who were so real to me I really believed they existed. Strangely now, those so real in my life are like figurines and I don’t know what to do with them. I am quite distracted, somewhat unable to communicate with people these days.

I do wonder if it is down to medications, or down to the fact that after my dad’s death and my subsequent hospitalisation, I found myself having to face up to a decade’s worth of grief, shame and destruction. It knocks you for six, even seven, and makes you dumb. I can’t help being in my head sometimes. Memories come and go, I can’t quite catch them. On the rim of my consciousness, images skate and twirl, and recede, and are gone.

Reading

Whereas I find myself unable to write (creatively), I can still read. However, my brain is like swiss cheese at present, so I read small things. A reading diet- four or five smaller reads a day as opposed to three substantial novels a day.

I’m a bit obsessed with those terrible magazines like Chat. They have fantastic headlines, like, “My Brother Raped Me With His Prosthetic Leg!” or, “My Husband Killed my Mother- But I Still Love Him”.

All their Real Life Stories will be prefaced by a lovely little passage such as:

“Oh Carol, I love you so much!” my husband sighed as he drifted off to sleep in my arms. I gazed down at his angelic face. He was so beautiful. Best of all, he got on really well with my family- my mother, Helen, 78, and my son, Patrick, 20. I was looking forward to our long life together.

But it was not to be.”

The article will go on to describe in horrific detail how the lovely Husband hacked dear old biddy Helen to death in her sleep.

At the end of the article, you will be guaranteed a photo like this:

Me now

Aren’t they fantastic?

Oh, I know, I’m so low brow but honestly, it makes me feel better to know that people have more fucked up lives than I have and have been through more and still live to sell their story to Chat.

Chat and their ilk typically run quite gory and horrible stories. This stuff I can read, but hell, I can’t watch it.

I read American Psycho and The Torture Garden without flinching (in fact, they are two of my favourite books) but I can’t watch horror films at all.

The time has come for bitter things

I used to be e-friends (yeah, it counts, shut up) with a writer called Poppy Z. Brite. I wasn’t actually that familiar with her work before we got to know each other. When I did familarise myself, I was a bit- well, she’s pretty graphic.

I live with a horror addict who adores gore and guts and violence. It physically makes me shake, I can’t bear it.

It’s quite strange because I have done pretty horrible things to my own body- I’ve had wounds that would make you sick! But I’ve always managed to remain quite detached.

Rob likes limb-tearing and bone crunching. Watching that stuff reminds me of how mortal and fragile we are, how easy to kill. I begin to feel very aware of my own skin. That’s not a nice feeling for me as it generally leads to crawly anxiety.

My dad once subjected us to Nightmare on Elm Street when I was about seven and I was too afraid to go to the toilet by myself so brought my sister. I remember doing the dishes in the kitchen and my dad chucking something at me, nearly toppling me off my chair.

My dad was very fond of the unexpected, “ARGH!” when were watching scary films. Rob is quite different. He is positively gleeful when people are being sliced and diced and sausaged. There’s no fun to be had with whoever he’s watching it with. He won’t try to scare you, he’s just in love with all the horror and violence.

Still

I am reading Crime Library this afternoon to occupy myself. I wonder how a person kills another. It’s something I’ve never even contemplated and it scares and fascinates me. I would much rather read the real accounts of such things than watch a film about them.

Due to my grazing reading habits, I’ve been coming across more crap magazines and awful murders than usual. Now, I think it is starting to affect my mental health somewhat. I have quite the vivid imagination when it comes to these things and I find myself looking out the window and seeing blood everywhere. I am really paranoid that I’m going to be murdered.

I think I will start reading J.P Donleavy again.

But

An uncomfortable thing I have noticed is that when I am manic and going manic-er, I am capable of great spite and cruelty; things I usually abhor. In a semi-normal or depressed state, violence, cruelty, arguing, it makes me want to curl up. When I am manic, I feel invincible, untouchable and endowed with great strength.

It’s something I worry about, should I ever be out and about and truly manic again. I know, in that state of mind, I could definitely hurt someone. I seriously cannot imagine myself doing so, but I know I could.

Being manic feels like you have lightening surging through you and you will do almost anything to transfer that energy, even fighting.

I am a tiny 4ft 9″ girl so you’re all safe.

P.S: Clothed. And bored.