THERE WERE SO MANY THINGS

There were so many things.
He'd made a list as a child of them: things he'd do when he was invisible.
He'd sneak into the White House.
He'd run around the library knocking over books, like in 'Ghostbusters'.
He'd sneak into the women's changing rooms.
He'd still a kiss from Sue Glazer in form 5L.
He'd peak down her blouse.
He'd steal as many sweets as he could carry.
He'd find out what was so secret behind the locked door of the study.
He'd kick Mr Robinson up the backside in front of the whole school.
He'd push Davey Hudson headfirst into a puddle while Sue Glazer watched.

But now it had actually come to it, he couldn't really be bothered. He'd rather stay in and watch TV.

HE WASN'T RACIST

He wasn't racist.
Ask anyone he knew. He wasn't about to patronise anyone by saying some of his best friends were black but... well, they were. But how could he explain that to a crowded carriage full of strangers? There was a perfectly innocent explanation, of course. But announcing to the entire train that he was doing an impression of Jar Jar Binks at the very second that the rest of them all fell silent clearly wasn't going to wash.
So he just sat there in silence, staring at his feet, felling the tiny daggers digging into the back of his head.
It wasn't fair. If they want to blame someone, they should blame George Lucas.

HE WAS TIRED OF BITING HIS LIP

He was tired of biting his lip.
But it was what he did best.

SHE DIDN'T BELIEVE IN THE SUPERNATURAL

She didn't believe in the supernatural.
But she'd been hearing strange, inexplicable noises in the middle of the night. Scraping and scratching. Whimpering and wheezing. This was something Inhuman. She was convinced of it. The floors creaked. Doors squealed. Bangs and thuds and scamperings.
She couldn't sleep. She could feel a presence.
But she didn't find it that terrifying. Instead she felt a morbid fascination, an excitement even.
He didn't have the heart to tell her the people downstairs had a dog.

SOMETHING HAD CHANGED

Something had changed.
His job was no longer something he did so he could afford to do the things he enjoyed. His job had been the thing he did. And he didn't enjoy it. Enjoyment had ceased to happen. His job had taken over. It was no longer the means; it was the end.

SHE WASN'T FRIGHTENED OF INTIMACY

She wasn't frightened of intimacy.
She was frightened of over-reliance on another person.
She was frightened of surrendering control.
She was frightened of having to share her private space with another.
She was frightened of boring him with her small talk.
She was frightened of the sound of her stomach while they were lying in bed with each other.
She was frightened of not having secrets to keep from him.
She was frightened of not feeling relaxed in her own home.
She was frightened of mundanity.
But she wasn't frightened of intimacy.

HE'D ONLY BEEN IN LOVE ONCE

He'd only been in love once.
He never caught her name. There was hardly time; he was in a car, trying to make up time down the backroads outside Bilbao; she was on the roadside, barefoot for some reason.
Every girl he'd met since he judged by her standards, and he knew he'd never feel fulfilled until he settled down with her and her alone.
And yet he knew he'd never see her again - this being 15 years ago now. Even if he did he'd never recognise her; she'd be bloated by experience and cynicism, drained of her vitality. Maybe he was only in love with his idea of her. Maybe he preferred it that way.

THEY'D GOT IT ALL WRONG

They'd got it all wrong.
He wasn't out for trouble. Yes, this was a uniform of sorts, this outfit he was in. These boxfresh white trainers, these indigo jeans, this grey hooded top.
Hoody.
Not even an item of clothing any more, but the person inside it. A hoodlum. Up to no good. Obvious. What have they got to hide, these kids, if not their guilt?
How about fear?
People forget uniforms aren't there for you to stand out, but to blend in. A face in the crowd. No longer a target. Safety in numbers and all that. Safety in having a bit of front. In hiding your emotion, your true feelings, your eyes.
Call him a hoody if you like. He doesn't care. What are you going to do? Cross the road. Suits him. It's not you he's scared of.

THERE WAS NO WAY HE COULD EXPLAIN HIMSELF

There was no way he could explain himself.
Well there was. There was the truth. But "I wasn't being racist, I was doing an impression of Jar Jar Binks to my mates" sounded like the worst excuse ever.

SHE DIDN'T SEE WHAT THE FUSS WAS

She didn't see what the fuss was.
It's easy to prove black is white. We only have our own experiences after all, and what if she's wired up exactly opposite to him, so her visual world is a negative of his? Any words they used to describe their shared experience would tally - except in rality she would be blinded by a blackness and would have to peer through the dimness of a blanket of white.
She'd been in a whiteout once in the Scottish Highlands, it was every bit as disorientating as being lost in total darkness.
He wasn't quite sure what had brought this on, but he was lost already.

HE WISHED HE HAD SOMETHING TO PRAY TO

He wished he had something to pray to.
But he guessed he only had himslf to blame that he hadn't. Belief must have been so much easier before the need for proof. That's the problem these days: too much consistency. Rids you of the magic. And what good are dreams and belief without magic?

SHE'D BEEN READING AND RE-READING THE SAME SENTENCE OVER AND OVER

She'd been reading and re-reading the same sentence over and over.
But each time it made less and less sense.
She concentrated on every word in turn, but the meaning just wouldn't come. She tried emptying her mind. She tried closing the book and staring out of the window of the bus. She listened to music on the 'shuffle' setting. She planned that evening's supper in meticulous detail. She counted the number of lovers she'd had. She wondered if Andy counted, since they hadn't strictly speaking slept together, but they'd definitely had, as Bill Clinton might say, "sexual relations". She tried to remember the name of every person she'd ever snogged. And then the name of every road she'd lived on.
She reopened the book at the page she'd marked with a bent down page.
She looked at the troublesome line.
Still no good.

HE SAW HIMSELF AS A TOLERANT PERSON

He saw himself as a tolerant person.
But he had no idea what the tolerant response to intolerance ought to be.

SHE WAS WAITING FOR THE RIGHT MAN

She was waiting for the right man.
She knew it always happened when you least expected, so she wasn't expecting. Just waiting.
She wasn't the sociable type. Not the extrovert at least. She didn't go for clubbing and bars and all the usual places you were meant to go courting. She was more your stay at home type, and she hoped for a man who was much the same. Although how she was ever going to meet a stay at home type was anybody's guess.
She wasn't even after romance so much. Just someone to hold. Someone she could rely on to always be there for her, to listen when she needed someone to talk to.
Perhaps she ought to get a cat.

THE DOG COULDN'T POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT IT WAS DOING

The dog couldn't possibly know what it was doing.
Could it?
Sometimes it just stared at him with such a knowing look in its eye. Like an old person in a dog's body, silently castigating him. If anything, it reminded him of his Uncle George, the way he used to sit in the corner, not saying anything, watching, waiting. Letting you talk yourself into circles until you backed down from whatever ridiculous idea you'd suggested. All without a word, just a steady, unquestioning look.
"All right," he said after exhausting all the reasons why he shouldn't call her. "I'll call her."
He could have sworn the dog gave him a little nod.

HE'D FORGOTTEN WHAT THAT FEELING FELT LIKE

He'd forgotten what that feeling felt like.

THE PROGRAMME SHOULD HAVE MADE HIM FEEL HAPPY

The programme should have made him feel happy.
It was a documentary about the youth culture of his own youth. But instead of nostalgia, all he felt was a dull, insipid nausea. It only served to remind him of all the dreams he'd abandoned on his way to getting to here: all those missed opportunities; those risks left untaken; those question marks and alternate paths left unexplored.
And then his thoughts began to wander. And wonder. All those illicit affairs he never chanced; all those experiences missed. All those potential loves never realised. All those looks ignored.
He'd always thought of himself as the spontaneous sort, but what had he become? The sort who watched documentaries about his youth.

SHE THOUGHT HE WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND

She thought he wouldn't understand.
But she felt like she'd lost control of the wheel somewhere down this road. As if she was being led down a pre-determined path that she had no say over. Like when she'd been in San Francisco, and the car had got stuck in the tramlines.
She had no idea how she could wrest it back again, but she was pretty sure he was part of the problem. Not in any malicious or blame-worthy way; not, in fact, in any way that he could possibly help. But she knew that the first step in taking back control of her life was to be rid of him.

She was right. He didn't understand.
"I don't understand," he said.
"It's exactly because you don't understand," she said, "that I can't be with you any longer."

THE INSULATION QUALITIES OF CARDBOARD ARE QUITE REMARKABLE

The insultion qualities of carboard are quite remarkable.
When you think about it.
And not having anything better to do, he was.
It's the twists, you see. You'd think lying on a few centimetres of compressed paper wouldn't make much difference, but it's the twists. Those twists mean you're not lying on centimetres, but metres - all packed up tight so they trap the air between them. So even next to cold concrete, it helped to warm you up.
Some people make the mistake of thinking you need layers and layers of blankets on top of you, but it's what's underneath that counts. He'd got it into a fine art: three flattened out boxes to start, followed by a blanket for comfort. Even if you only had one blanket, it was better to have as much as possible underneath you, and then wrap the rest around.
Newspapers too. They were his lifeblood. Each page offered so much. He'd never been so up to date with world affairs. Never had he stretched and exercised his brain so much as he had since he'd started on the crosswords and the So Doku. And come the evening, he'd roll pages up and stuff them into his boots for extra warmth, and then more under his armpits. Don't ask him why, but it made a difference.
But the cardboard, why that was like having a whole week's supply of newspapers rolled up as tight as possible.
A man with cardboard is a rich man, he thought to himself, as he slipped easily into another long and peaceful sleep.

FX: DULL THUD

FX: DULL THUD: BALL ON PADS
CHORUS (LEAD BY 2nd SLIP): Ooowwerrrrrzzzaaaaaat?
UMPIRE: That’s out.
CHORUS CHEER/WHOOP
2nd SLIP (SINGING): Cheerio, Cheerio, Cheerio… Haha! Nice one, Merlin. ‘Oo’ve we got comin’ up next then?
WICKET KEEPER: ‘Ere, look at the state of this bloke.
2nd SLIP: It’s Fatty Arbuckle!
CHORUS LAUGHTER
1st SLIP: You can laugh, Gareth.
2nd SLIP: Eh? Do what?
CHORUS CHUCKLE
Here we go, boys, look lively: Michelin Man’s come to eat our women and children.
BATSMAN 1: Middle and leg please, umpire.
2nd SLIP: I’d give up now mate, you’ll never find yer middle leg.
CHORUS CHUCKLE
(WARMING TO AUDIENCE) Millions have tried…
CHORUS LAUGHTER
…but to no avail.
UMPIRE: A bit to the right… no, towards you…
2nd SLIP: Someone send a search party.
UMPIRE: That’s him.
2nd SLIP: ‘Allelujah!
‘Ere mate.
‘Ere mate.
BATSMAN 1 (BORED): What is it, smart-arse?
2nd SLIP: Nothing.
CHORUS GIGGLES
WICKET KEEPER: Here he comes. Come on Merlin, let’s see what you’ve got.
1st SLIP: Let’s have another, Chris.
2nd SLIP: Speeeeeen Wizzaaaaaard! Watch out for this bloke, mate.
FX: LOUD SMACK: BAT ON BALL
SILLY MID-ON: Christ!
BATSMAN 1: YES!
WICKET KEEPER: Bowler’s end, George.
CHORUS GROANS
FX: CHEERS/APPLAUSE FROM BOUNDARY
UMPIRE: That’s over.



SCENE 2
BATSMAN 1: Hello chaps, back again?
1st SLIP: You won’t be smilin’ in a minute, mate… Big Bird’s on next.
2nd SLIP: Fastest arm in the West. Half Jamaican he is.
BATSMAN 1 (LAUGHING): Which half? The bottom? He’s whiter than me.
2nd SLIP: ‘Ey, that’s racialist, that is mate. They have white people in Jamaica too you know. You should hear ‘im talk. Sounds like a right Wazzock.
WICKET KEEPER: Come on Big Bird, knock his block off!
CHORUS ‘OOOOh’…
UMPIRE: That’s a wide.
BATSMAN 1: Terrifying.
2nd SLIP: ‘Ere mate.
BATSMAN 1: What?
2nd SLIP: Is yer wife as fat as you?
BATSMAN 1: You can talk, Mr Creosote.
SILLY MID-ON LAUGHS
2nd SLIP (INDIGNANT): Oi! Simon?
SILLY MID-ON: Sorry Gareth.
2nd SLIP: ‘Oo’s Mr Creosote anyhow?
WICKET KEEPER: Face up, boys
FX: DULL SMACK: BAT ON BALL
BATSMAN 2: Stay there.
1st SLIP: That’s more like it, Big Bird!

2nd SLIP: ‘Ere mate.
BATSMAN 1 (HUMOURING): What?
2nd SLIP: You know why she’s so fat don’t yer? ‘Cos every time we do it, she… oh no, hang on…
BATSMAN 1: No, mate, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m meant to ask why you’re so fat, and you say, ‘because every time I do it with your wife, she gives me a biscuit.’
CHORUS LAUGHS
2nd SLIP (STILL LAUGHING): That’s it. Nice one. Dead funny that.
(PAUSE) Go on then mate, ask me.
BATSMAN 1: Hang on, your Jamaican thunderbolt’s ready for blast-off again.
FX: DULL THUD: BALL ON BODY
CHORUS ‘Ooooh’.
BATSMAN 1 BREATHES OUT LOUDLY
1st SLIP: Nice one, Birders.
WICKET KEEPER: Finding his range now. You better watch the next one mate.

2nd SLIP: Come on then, mate, ask me.
BATSMAN 1 (SIGHS): All right then. (STILTED, AS IF READING): Here, mate, how come you’re so incredibly fat?
CHORUS CHUCKLES
2nd SLIP (EXCITEDLY): Not as fat as you, yer bugger!! Haha. Eh? Got yer there!
CHORUS SILENCE
BATSMAN 1: Yep. It’s a fair cop. You better watch out for the comedy police at that rate, mate.
WICKET KEEPER: Face up!
FX: LOUD CRACK: BAT ON BALL
CHORUS: ‘Caaatch!!’
CHORUS GROANS
WICKET KEEPER: Unlucky Chris.
2nd SLIP: Never mind Merlin, heads up!
1st SLIP: Same again, Big Bird.

2nd SLIP: So, is she then, mate?
BATSMAN 1: What?
2nd SLIP: Your wife?
BATSMAN 1: What?
2nd SLIP: Fat?
CHORUS CHUCKLES
BATSMAN 1: No she’s not as it happens. Wish she was.
2nd SLIP: Like ‘em fat do you mate?
CHORUS CHUCKLES
Like a bit of cushioning?
BATSMAN 1: Not especially, but she’s got cancer.
CHORUS SILENCE
Pancreas.
2nd SLIP (AFTER LENGTHY SILENCE): Ere mate, I’m sorry. We was just joshin’.
BATSMAN 1: That’s all right, you weren’t to know.

WICKET KEEPER: Er, guys, Bird’s waiting for us.
BATSMAN 1: Sorry, umpire.
FX: SPLINTERING: BALL ON WICKET
FX: (OFF): CHEERS
CHORUS SILENCE
BATSMAN 1: Bugger. (DEPARTS)

WICKET KEEPER: Gareth, sometimes you can be a right arse.

IT'S NOT REALLY STEALING

It's not really stealing.
It's taking advantage of your situation. Take IKEA. They make enough profits to know they can sell you a paper cup and let you fill up your own drink, in the full knowledge that some customers will help themselves to seconds. So if they budget in a few extra 'free drinks' into their overheads, where's the harm in him turning up with his own cup?
It's easy to get in via the exit - there's people wandering in and out with trolleys of flatpacked furniture all the time. So he helps himself to all he can drink (hint: he always brings paper Pepsi cups to blend in with the others). And, if he's feeling reckless, he might spend 50p on a hotdog. And more often than not, he'll wander out the exit door with someone else's trolley. Once you're in the car park, who's to tell one from the other?
That's the beauty of living in Brent Cross. You should see his bedsit, it's decked out lovely.

STEALING THINGS IS EASY

Stealing things is easy.
You just have to look for the window of opportunity.
And then jammy it open.
Sleight of hand doesn't come into it as much as you'd think. If they can't catch you, you can fumble and bungle as much as you like. Tubes are the best. Pile in during rush hour - Piccadilly line Eastbound: ie away from Heathrow. Shove your way into the corner, where the nicely labelled, security checked baggage is sat. Then just get off at the next stop with it.
Chances are the owners will be foreigners anyway and they won't have the savvy to pull the emergency chord. They'll be too busy studying the tube map and planning their route to notice nine times out of ten. And even if they see you, they won't get off the tube in time to stop you.
Better yet, follow your target into a station toilet. There's not a lot a man with his dick in his hand can do to stop you picking up the bag by his feet and walking out, up and away with it. What are they going to do? Chase after you, hosing the platform with piss?
That's what he said to me. Mind you, he didn't seem to be making a much of a living off it. I guess there's only so far you can go off the back of other people's dirty underwear and hotel towels.

I'VE NEVER KNOWN THE SPRING TURN SO QUICKLY / INTO AUTUMN

“I’ve never known the spring to turn so quickly/ Into autumn.”

So this is how my story pans out: Fear and Self-Loathing in Lower Clapton. Hackeneyed of Hackney Central.
I’m sat by the tombstones behind St Augustine’s. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’d never noticed them. Most people don’t. They know about the faded gothic glory of Stoke Newington, an Ozymandian empire split with weeds and spent condoms. But this is a far more prosaic affair. All that remains are the diseased, algaed stones, crudely impelled against the far wall, while the bus depot behind belches its impatient fumes over them.

I come here a lot. Sit at this spot, face to the wrought iron bars, trying to make out a few names. Strange, faded names: hints of an unknowable past; Albert Goodacre, John St Bavo, Christopher Urswick, Martin Tressett. Names of God-fearing men. If only they’d have known: there are far worse things to fear than God. Let them out of their desecrated plots and let them search for magic here. Let them taste real fear.
Let them find their way home.

I can’t go home. She’s there.
So I walk up Mare Street from the depot and the forgotten, trampled lives. Past the idle buses and empty faces, past the menace and the misery. And it starts to rain. Perfect. Grey turning black. Like my sodden socks. I cut behind the churchyard, never quite running, never quite walking.
Two young girls, gathered under an umbrella, pretty, black, skirts too short, mutter and giggle and hoot and kiss their gums as I pass them by. Not in a nice way. Not in an innocent way.
Two young girls. Too young to be so vicious.

I can’t go home.
I can’t stay here.

I’m sat over a tepid pint of bitter. An anonymous drink in an anonymous bar, trying to look anonymous. And failing even at that. I’m drinking too fast, trying to look at ease with my own company, in the company of strangers. Their eyes tangle with mine habitually, flitting, fixing. I stare at the suds in my glass. Glass with a handle. Landlord saw me coming.
Funny, he doesn’t see me now. Not now I’m back at his bar, silent eyes on me, conversations missed.

I run a clammy hand through my wet hair.
“Nice weather for it.” The landlord. His back to me still.
‘For the Duck.’
That was a joke. Meant to be. The Crown and Duck: that’s the name of the pub. Only I think they call it the Crown. Either way, he doesn’t get it, leaves it hanging in the stale room.
“Same again?” I can see him roll his eyes, even with his back turned. I see it in his coterie of regulars, in the ripple of smothered glee that swells through them.

Same again?
Same half hour of smug condescension and ugly, suspicious glances?
What choice have I got?

I can’t go home. She’s there.

You know what she said about me, don’t you? Said my crutch is the past. I don’t even know what that means. Do you know what that means? Something about dwelling in memories, I’d imagine – lingering.
Isn’t that normal?

I can’t go home. Not there.
Too many memories. Too much lingering. Too much.
So yes, I’ll have another. I’ll linger, and swill over the same again. Simon’s money is good for something at least. I slide a crisp note out from the others, nervously scrunching it into the ball of my fist before approaching the bar. Even so, the barman fingers it tenderly and holds it up to the light. Fucker. Since when was twenty quid suspicious? Since it was in my grubby grasp in this grubby shithole.
I know he doesn’t want me here, but I’ve nothing else to do but stew in my own stock. He slides the pint glass of bitter over to me, not saloon bar style, more out of contempt, as if repelled at the thought of our hands coming within the slightest proximity. I grunt a thanks and return to my stool. The conversation swells up again.

“Time please gentleman”.
The landlord again, for my benefit clearly. The others hardly flicker a response. A lock-in awaits for all but the weirdo in the corner.
I take my time.

I can’t go home.

I don’t have one.

THE OLDER HE GOT, THE MORE NERVOUS HE WAS ABOUT FLYING

The older he got, the more nervous he was about flying.
This didn't make much sense to him: it seemed to fly in the face of all other evidence. Which was exactly how he thought about planes these days. He had been a nervous child, granted. But as he grew in stature and age, so he also grew in confidence respectively. In all things, that is, except flying. He used to live in a faraway land when he was a boy; a land that, at that age, seemed all th emore exotic, and his young mind equated the travel with the adventure of that land.
So why, now, sat on the tarmac on a muggy London day, did his stomach clench and his palms perspire? Even the soothing Queen's English of the pilot failed to calm his nerves. And then he realised that was precisely it: the pilot. As a child he was happy to relinquish all control to this suave Englishman who seemed to know everything there was to know, as all adults surely did. But now he recognised far too much of himself in the piolt's voice; and suspected that he was in fact older than the pilot. And no longer did the pilot's voice seem to be one of authority, or control, or even calm. Chances were he was as hungover as the man, just trying to make it through another day's mundane work.
And all of a sudden, the man felt very ill indeed. But at least now, as a man, he had gin and tonic to deal with it.

SHE HAD A MAGIC FOOT

She had a magic foot.
Not in the way that people talk about George Best, or even Christy Brown. But it was hers and it was magic.
It was her uncle who started it. He used to ask her what her foot thought about the Gold Cup winner or who would score the first goal in the Old Firm derby. Soon the whole family were at it, wishing themselves good luck by kissing her foot, swearing to their honesty by it; even asking its blessing.
By and by, word spread around the neighbourhood, and then the town. Whenever she walked to the high street, children would stop, stare and point. "There she goes," they'd say. "there she goes with her magic foot." Their mothers would turn crimson and pull them away: scared of its powers. Scared of what they could neither know nor understand.
It was because of its power that she had to keep it in a special boot, reinforced with metal poles that ran up either side of her leg. And she had an extra thick sole in the boot to keep the radiation from seeping out.
We couldn't be letting her magic available to just anyone, after all.

SHE DECIDED TO STOP TALKING

She decided to stop talking.
It seemed the sensible thing to do. She didn't want him. She didn't need him. Nor did she need anyone's sympathy. She'd long shed herself of all her friends. Her own mother had given up on her while she was at university, accusing her of "retreating into her shell" as if it was something to be ashamed of rather than the cry for help it clearly was.
Well sod them. If they couldn't understand, they didn't deserve her. No-one did. She'd once read about a pair of identical twins who never spoke a word to anyone, who seemed to communicate to each other by telepathy and formed a barrier between themselves and the outside world. Why couldn't she be like that, she thought? Only without the twin. But that didn't matter, she'd always been a loner anyway. Another word her mother had spat out as if it was venomous.
She had her computer, she could do all her communication with the outside world that way. If she needed to go to the shops, she could get by with a smile and a nod. If it really came to it, she could write messages on a notepad and pretend she'd lost her voice. What would it matter? She had such an annoying nasally voice anyway, as he'd so thoughtfully pointed out before he left.
And then the phone rang.
"John?" she answered.

HE THOUGHT HE SAID PIPE AND DRUMS

He thought he said pipe and drums.
He was such an old decrepid fool, even if his daughter tried to convince him otherwise.
It was an easy mistake to make, she'd said, but he should have known. He just didn't listen.
Regardless of what people thought, his hearing was still more than adequate; it was his mind. It often started to wander, so he covered his tracks by pretending he'd misheard what they said.
Even a senile idiot like him should have known that a little kid wouldn't be interested in pipe and drum music. He'd been talking about bass and drums or drums and bass or whatever they called that racket nowadays. As usual, he'd only heard what he wanted to hear, so he'd disappeared into the spare room and re-emerged triumphantly with some dusty, faded 33s of military tattoos. Stupid.
But it still didn't excuse his grandson's rudeness. Rolling his eyes and saying those viciously pointed words and storming off like that. It hurt almost as much as his own stupidity.
That wasn't why his daughter had caught him crying though, and he was too slow in explaining to stop her castigating her child. No; his tears were of thankfulness and no little pride for the way his grandson had come back and apologised like a man, looking him in the eye and hugging him affectionately before insisting on putting the gramophone on and feigning interest in marching bands playing 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines'.
"Right then," he'd added with an impish smile, "I'm off to get a tattoo. You like them too, don't you?"
He's older than he looks, that one, he thought to himself.

BEFORE THE FLOOD: A DISCLAIMER

The first few posts here will be back dated as they were originally written using old fashioned 'pen and paper' software.

HIS FRIENDS STOPPED TALKING TO HIM

His friends stopped talking to him.
The barman shunned him. Well, more than usual at least. He was sure of it. His father made indistinct noises to himself and flicked the pages of his newspaper with vigour. Even his girlfriend mocked him in a way that was more cruel than playful.
His brother had run off with another man's wife. His best friend had been convicted of drink driving. His previous girlfriend had terminated her pregnancy. His mother had been abandoned by his father. And yet they had all been forgiven: only he was treated as an outcast. Only he had committed the greatest, the most unpardonable sin of all.
Only he had changed football teams.
If his father could divorce, if his girlfriend could shed an unwanted foetus, if his brother could endanger the lives of his drinking partners, why couldn't he ditch the one thing that caused him most misery in his life? But it didn't work like that. In football, once you'd made your choice, you had to stick with it through thick and thin. His father tried one night to explain, to talk about loyalty and learning about consequences of one's actions, about certain bonds that were unbreakable. "If you'd chosen City 20 years ago," his father said, "I'd have understood. I wouldn't have liked it, but I'd have understood. I'd even have taken you to your first game at Maine Road instead of Old Trafford, I'd have bought you those disgusting feeble blue shirts. I'd have got you Frannie Lee's autograph. But not this. Not now. You can't just swap teams like you swap girlfriends."
He'd never swapped a girlfriend. He'd never dream of thinking of it in such cold, black and white terms. And he told his father as such. Confusingly, his father thought this might be a sign that he was a homosexual.
"But I just don't like Ronaldo," he said. "Or Smith. Or Ferdinand. Or Silvestre. And I like City. They're honest."
His father looked him straight in the eye for the first time since he was 13. "Never talk to me about honesty ever again," he said. And truth be told, that was the last time they ever spoke about anything ever again.

EVERY TIME HE STARTED LOSING, HE PRESSED 'RESET'

Every time he started losing, he pressed 'reset'.
He knew he was only cheating himself (plus various other cliches), but he felt better when he was winning. He also knew that there was no 'reset' button in life available to him. But he was also pretty sure that the people with power, the people with the metaphorical buttons of control, had their own, far superior version. Cheats always prosper: it's something he learned long ago but by some freak of birth or upbringing, he was simply incapable of capitalising on in real life.
In some small way he guessed that made him a good person. Not that it made much difference to him. And in the meantime, he had his computer games to take his mind of the real world; to make him feel like a winner. Even if it was in a simulated Serie A match against Empoli.

THE MAN STARTED TO THINK ABOUT HIS LIFE

The man started to think about his life.
Take stock. He didn't even feel like a man - the word didn't seem to fit. But he was now at an age where he could no longer describe himself as a 'boy' to others. Plus he could remember his father being the age he now was, and all the time he'd known him, there had been no doubt in his mind that his father was a man.
He thought about how, as a boy, people had presumed he would 'go far'. Not only his family, or even his teachers, but his peers. It was just assumed, not least by the man - then a boy - himself. He still wasn't sure exactly what might constitute 'going far', but now that he was undeniably a man, he felt it was still somewhere he was yet to reach. This disturbed the man, and only served to reinforce his feeling that he was not yet fit to be called a man at all.
So, this being the first day of a new year, he decided upon a resolution. He decided that every day he would write a story, so that in a year's time, even if he had still failed to go far, he would at least have written 365 stories, which, he felt, would be an achievement of sorts.
But first he thought he'd better check if it was a leap year.
1/1/06