January 2011 - David Budd

01/01

'What are your resolustions going to be?'

'Does it really matter? Nobody sticks to them, anyway.'

'So? What harm does it do in making them?'

'If you're not going to do them, there's no point. You're simply setting yourself up to fail.'

'You're just being intentionally defeatist. You can't know the future, and you can keep your resolutions.'

'And what happens should I do achieve them? Another goal accomplished means another one created to fill the void.'

'You're an idiot and intentionally provocative.'

'You're naive and sickeningly optimistic.'

'...'

'...'

'...'

'So...what was your resolution?'

'To argue less and smile more often.'

01/02

Rome was not built in a day.

In fact, Rome wasn't actually built. Not in the way it was intended.

You see, when looking over the blueprints, someone realised that the fountains were arranged in such an order that, should you connect them with a line, it spelt, in Roman letters 'Greece rules!'

Then, the workers went on strike, wanting a 12% pay increase and an extra days holiday.

So, instead of building it from scratch, they went to Ikea, brought the flat-packed version of Rome, and built it themselves. It was cheaper, but far less grand.

01/03

A prefectly placed note
New places
New thoughts
Ideas that fly further than birds
Effervescence - a hands above your head kind of word
The right word in the right place
One of the most beautiful smiles
An undiscovered colour
The most beautiful mind
Life
Opening new avenues
Veering into the unknown
Eating, feasting upon words
Jasper the cat
And a bowler hat
Surreal
Nobody else will understand
Or will they?
I hope not.
I hope you do.

Understanding within nonsense, as with all conversations.
I'm afraid of the silence, but I'll deal with that should it every come. Just tell you stories. Might work.

01/04

I'm afraid of silence. I like to hear something in the background. It reminds me that I'm alive. Or, at the very least, that something is alive.

Somehow, I create silences. I suck in the noise, the conversation, like a black hole sucks in light. It takes mere moments for me to create an atmosphere in which no words could possibly survive.

Music often fills the silence. It has greater staying-power than words.

I'm afraid of a silence with you. A silence where nothing could grow. Nothing at all.

Yes, I am afraid of the horrible, glass-like silence.

01/05

'Are you all right?'

'Yeh. Why?'

'It's just...your eye is really red.'

'Is it?'

'Yeh.'

'I'm sure it's fine.'

'Well, I knew someone who had a red eye, and he died a week later.'

'He was hit by a bus.'

'Still...Hang on. You haven't been crying, have you?'

'Why would you say that?'

'You have!'

'How did you come to that conclusion?'

'You avoided the question. Therefore, you don't want to answer it, meaning that you must have been crying.'

'I haven't bee crying.'

'Oh.'

'I'll see a doctor about it.'

'That's a very good idea.'

'...Thank you.'

01/06

I find myself relating to more and more literary characters.

Nick, the narrator in 'The Great Gatsby'. A slightly sarcastic outlook on life.

Stevens, the butler in 'The Remains of the Day'. Awkward, with difficulty in expressing any form of emotion.

Briony, in 'Atonement'. Just plain annoying.

There are also characters that I wish I could be.

Yossarin, in 'Catch-22'. For the twisted logic.

Captain Bluebear, in 'The 13 and a half lives of Captain Bluebear'. Simply for the sheer imaginative adventures.

Ishmael, in 'Moby Dick'. Only for the name.

My life is dominated by invisible, imaginary, wonderful people.

01/07

It's raining. It's also very dark.

The streetlight is on. The raindrops look like little pins, shooting down from the sky, piercing the pavement.

The light should be swallowed up by the darkness. It should. But it remains, like intelligence surrounded by ignorance. Love surrounded by cynicism.

If you look further, you can just make out another light, seemingly created by an animal that has chewed a small hole in the night. I wonder how far you have to look until you can see no more light?

Or, how far you have to look before you can come back home?

01/08

Eyes are the window to the soul.

Actions demolish the whole house and leave the soul bare, naked and shivering out in the could.

I've often wondered what my soul looks light. Something like a round ball of whiteness, that seems rather sticky. A substance that would cling to your fingers.

It would also be tanslucent. Constantly fluxuating and rippling, like a bundled up ball of sea.

Whenever I do anything wrong, it would take on a slick, black look, as if dipped in oil.

I like to imagine that it's in the middle of my body. Near my heart.

01/09

A few statistics:

I am half way to becoming a fully fledged driver

I am exactly 17 and one third

I live in my head 78% of the time

I don't know where I am the other 22%

1 in 2 people regret what they have done

The others regret what everyone else has done

The chances of aliens existing is surprisingly high

Intelligence is inversely proportional to creativity

People lie 79% of the time

The last two facts were lies

The chance of me waking up and not feeling tired is slightly less than nil

55% of people won't finish...

01/10

Pawn

I've often wondered whether, somewhere beyond time and space, there is the Devil and God, sitting down and facing each other over a chess board.

The Devil would be fidgity, hands moving always, unable to stay in one position.

God would sit perfectly still, contemplating each move with a small, holy ghost-like smile on his face.

We would be the pawns. Only ever able to move forward, each striving to reach the other side in the hope of promotion.

I don't like the analogy. It assumes that we have no free-will. I should make a better one.

01/11

MRREEEOOOOOWWWWEEEELLLLL!

'What are you doing?'

'Seeing if there's enough room to swing a cat.'

MMMMMRRRRRRRREEEEOOOOOWWWWLLLLL!

'What?

'What do you know? There is enough room to swing a cat.'

'Again. What?'

'I'm just checking whether those phrases we use are actually true.'

'Such as?'

'Well, you can't get blood out of a stone. That is true. The whole rhyme about magpies isn't. I saw three, and didn't become pregnant with a girl.'

'That's because you don't have a womb.'

'Still. And, picking up a pin doesn't bring you good luck.'

'Oh.'

'But there is gold at the end of a rainbow.'

01/12

He opened his mouth and words
trundled out in the attempt to form a
full sentence, to try and make you laugh.

His legs could never grow weary of walking.
He would walk forever, if it made conversation easier,
if it meant staying together for another few seconds.

He wants to paint you a picture
and write you a song. But he knows
that all he could do is fail to capture
you.

Carved onto his soul with a blunt knife
without him ever noticing until a
cold day before Christmas.

A name. The name.

He hopes you don't think this is over-sensitive. Or strange.

01/13

'What happened to you?'

'I got lost in a sea of my emotions.'

'A metaphorical sea?'

'No. An actual sea of my emotions.'

'Oh.'

'It happens quite a lot. Especially when I have to deal with something with which I have had no previous experiance.'

'Such as?'

'Love.'

'Really?'

'Yup. Drowing in a sea of love. The sharks of incompetance jellyfish of silence stung and bit and turned my body into a pile of flesh.'

'Then how are you still here?'

'It was a metaphor.'

'But you just said...'

'I may be in love, but I can still be sarcastic.'

01/14

Bishop

One slip was all it would take for the image to be ruined.

As a believer in God, the bishop had to act in a perfect manner all the time. If he failed, then people would condemn him for not living up to his values.

The fact that it was impossible to live up to his values seemed to escape most people.

They never understood that the whole point was not to be perfect, rather, to attempt to be perfect. A subtle and important difference.

He failed often, but less often than others.

What else could he do?

01/15

'What happened to him?'

'He's love sick.'

'Really?'

'Yeh. He caught the love bug.'

'You don't say? What are the symptoms?'

'Well, he's been vomiting up poetry for over an hour now.'

'That must be disgusting.'

'It is. Also, he seems confused all the time, as if he doesn't quite know where he is.'

'Anything else?'

'He talks gibberish.'

'He does that anyway.'

'True.'

'Is there any cure?'

'Not that I know of. I tried slapping him a few times. He didn't seem to notice.'

'What a truly horrible way to end up. I hope I never get love sick.'

01/16

'Will to live!'

'Yeh?'

'Where are you going?'

'Out the window. What does it look like?'

'Why are you going?'

'You're too depressive. Too clingy. Too strange. Too tired. Too boring. Too quiet. Too needy. Too isolated. Too caught in the Combine. Too scared. Too pathetic. Too self-loathing. Too happy. Too unhappy. Too childish. Too old.'

'I mean, apart from those things, why are you going?'

'You swing between being three years old and fifty. You never seem to be one person, rather, what you think other people want you to be. How can I possbily stay? Au reviour.'

01/17

Some thoughts:

-Jesus said 'blessed are the peacemakers.' Who then listens to that, and says 'What a wise man you are, Jesus. I'll kill anyone who disagrees with you.'?

-I thought there was someone missing, but, if I'm honest, I didn't know who. People just drop out.

-I would really like to sleep. I seem to say this far too often.

-Hug.

-I've often wondered what it is like to really hate someone.

-'Can God create a rock He cannot lift?'

'Yes. Then He creates a giant crane to lift it for Him.'

-I'm stuck in the Combine. Help me.

01/18

Knight

T'was night, when the knight rose with a rose clamped between his teeth. The sun was down and his son was up, riding behind him with his horse, whilst whispering, because he was horse, whether their quest would start over there.

The knight was fat, which was, you know, phat, and looked at the night and the star in the sky and the star that was in his son's eye and felt the fall of the sea (even though he could not see the sea).

The Knight was bright, but the night was not.

He continued riding in silence.

01/19

I was standing in the line for lunch, when I had a sudden feeling that it did not exist.

I even tried to think about it logically. How could I not exist, when I had just been talking to my friend? Nevertheless, I could not shake off the feeling.

Taking a step was very strange. Neither in nor out of my body, I somehow propelled myself forward.

When my foot hit the floor, I started to think that I did actually exist. There is nothing so real as a floor.

However, it still remains, the feeling. Am I actuallty here?

01/20

Rook

The rook flew, as birds generally do.

Choosing to perch on a branch, it cocked its head to the side, as if something was lodged in its ear, and watched a group of people through the window.

They seemed to be laughing. Posing, trying to be serious, and then laughing at the absurdity of seriousness and the absurdity of the poses.

They seemed happy. A strange thing to be in this day and age, with these pressures and expectations. Great expectations indeed.

The rook flew off, as birds generally do. It never liked staying in one place for too long.

01/21

He was going to punch him.

The idea had just suddenly popped into his head whilst they were having a conversation.

The idea was absurd and mad and something , now that he thought of it, that he had wanted to do for a very long time.

Imagining the action was sweet. Very sweet. The way the fist would connect with flesh, causing it to bruise and ache and hurt and hurt and hurt...

He really was going to do it. Hit him in the face. But the converstaion was over. The idea evaporated, leaving him feeling rather disturbed and worried.

01/22

King

He was the king of awkwardness. Conversation never came naturally, and he was certain that a void of silence would eventually swallow them.

Physical intimacy was another fear. He was terrified to hold hands, in case you thought it was 'improper' or 'too forward'.

In essence, he was stuck in the Victorian era, but without the nostalgic charm and racisim.

He was trying to work on it. He really was. Change comes slowly, and no king likes to be removed. If he could, he would offer a royal proclomation of apology.

Instead, he wrote, in the hope you would understand.

01/23

An Interesting (Or Rather, Embarrasing) Moment.

Year 4. Our teacher had written a play, in which we were going to perform.

It was about a space race, with a boy's team, a girl's team, and a hopeless team, who always got lost and had crew all named 'Bob'.

I was, of course, the captain of the hopless team.

Our teacher thought it would be a good idea to make us wear make up and put on tights.

I had to sing a version of 'I will survive' wearing lipstick and black tights.

It was the campest moment of my life.

01/24

My day.

Wake up

Go to school

Awkward history lesson

Maths

Break. Learn that I am being stalked and that privacy is dead

English. 'The Gatsby rap' and 'Daisy's lullaby'. Decide to make our own version

Biology. Practical examination. Break the scales. Knock over my experiment, spilling apple pulp everywhere. Not a great start

Chemistry. Practise exam.

Go to piano lesson. For once, I impress my teacher. It will not happen again

Go home. Homework. The first reign of Edward the fourth. Come to the conclusion that medival history is simply wars and backstabbing

Watch 'University challange'

Go to bed. Dream about chemistry equations.

Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

01/25

Black, sucking and pulling you in. Further and further until you realise you can no longer, or, rather, no longer want to, move your legs. You don't want to run away.

Further out. Yellow. I have never seen that before, but it truly is yellow. Like the inside of a saffron flower, where the bee goes to sit.

Then, the ring of yellow flows into the blue. Blue crystal, but with the warmth of red. A blue of redemption, a place where you could be saved.

I know I've been staring too long, but I can't stop.

I honestly can't.

01/26

I've been feeling very light-headed all day. As if there is very little that is actually keeping me on the ground.

I've always wanted to fly. Just to see what it was like. The sensation of air blowing past you, the cold whipping your flesh.

I've got a cold. It's why I'm light-headed. And, as I am a male, it is obviously so bad, that I should be playing a game of chess with death at this very moment.

I've just been playing chess. I enjoy chess. Thinking and planning.

I've been thinking alot. More than I should.

01/27

The tables were very bored, so they stood up and started dancing. Specifically, they started waltzing with each other.

The chairs looked on in disgust, muttering darkly to each other about how this sort of thing should never happen.

The bin was in the corner, and feeling very sad, because it had nobody to dance with.

Then, all of a sudden, the bin moved into the middle of the room and started spinning, and the tables danced in a circle around it.

...

That's what I imagined instead of checking through my history essay. It was far, far more interesting.

01/28

'...and so you could, theoretically, download all your thoughts onto, say, a memory stick, and you could live forever.'

'As a machine?'

'Exactly.'

'That's the biggest load of rubbish I have ever heard.'

'What?'

'That's not living. Living is breathing and loving and having new experiences. Re-living past memories is for those with no future.'

'Why do you have to contradict everything I say? Why do you have to make everything so...serious?'

'Why shouldn't I?'

'I hate you! Go away!'

'Ok, I will! And you'll be sorry!'

...

I never will understand why I chose to download this memory.

01/29

I had just moved school and knew very few people.

The most popular boy started talking to me as we were going to lunch. He was like me, but better in every single way possible.

I was so shocked that he was acting friendly, I had to ask

'Do you really want to be my friend?'

To which said

'Yes.'

I was, and still am, constantly surprised when people like me. I don't understand why you like me. I find my self-pitying annoying. I find what I'm writing annoying.

I don't know why you like me, but I'm glad you do.

01/30

Queen

'Well, I wonder who this is going to be about?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, it's going to be about her. Obviously.'

'So?'

'So? You've become obvious. What happened hiding everything? Now you're slamming the message down everyone's throats.'

'I still don't see the problem.'

'You've lost your cynicism. Your sarcasm. You used to write about love in an abstract way. You used to make fun of people in love. No longer. Your writing has changed. For the worse. You've turned into everybody esle.'

'...This isn't about my writing, is it?'

'What do you mean?'

'It's about us.'

01/31

'That's absurd.'

'No. It's true. You think that, should we lose our sarcasm and cynicism, we will change. For the worse. We'll become less interesting, our writing will be dulled, our thoughts will stop being...wonderfully weird.'

'No...no.'

'You're afraid that we'll change. You're afraid that you will no longer be needed.'

'You will always need me.'

'I've never needed you.'

'You have!'

'I haven't. In fact, for the first time in my life, I feel...free. I don't want you. I don't need you.'

'You'll come crawling back.'

'Maybe. But I can always crawl away again.'

...

I'm free.