Doctor Who

Rimi: Oh My God

Owen: What?

(pregnant silence)

Rimi: Does everyone know about this?

Putting down the newspaper on to his lap

Owen: Know about what?

Rimi: Doctor Who

Pulling up the paper in front of his face. Nonplussed

Owen: Yes

Rimi: He’s amazing. The Doctor. And oh my god Steven Moffat. How does he make the Doctor and Sherlock?

Eleanor: Yeah. Why?

Rimi: I can’t believe Steven Moffat is a guy

Eleanor: Wait why can’t you believe he’s a guy

Rimi: Because how can one person come up with characters like the Doctor and Sherlock? I just can’t get over how a living breathing person can come up with such resonant heroes in this modern age

Owen: I wouldn’t call Sherlock a hero, and he didn’t invent him

Rimi: I know. He’s re-invented him for us

Eleanor: Jesus

Rimi: The Doctor sort of is!

Eleanor: You make him sound like Jesus

Rimi: He never dies, he’s the ultimate hope in a desperate situation. He practices what he preaches, which is to be a doctor and so to always help people; whatever the context to save the lives of others – regardless of species!

Eleanor: No, this Moffat guy

Rimi: He’s The Writer

(pause)

Owen: You need to get out more

Rimi: I am getting out more

Eleanor: I can see what you mean. The Writer is like Jesus

Rimi: No, The Doctor is and Sherlock

Owen: I don't want to be a dick about it but how is Sherlock like Jesus?

Rimi: He saves people too, but he’s tainted with sin which is like human beings in the Bible. Eve and Adam

Owen: But if Sherlock is Jesus then he’s not one of us

Eleanor: Jesus isn’t a human being

Rimi: Fine. Sherlock is like Jesus but not Jesus ok, whereas The Doctor is Jesus. That’s why he keeps regenerating!

Eleanor: That’s the Phil joke

(pause)

Rimi: No that’s a joke about the Pope

Orlando: I bet you’re going to say the Pope is like Jesus I suppose

Rimi: He’s not though. Even I know that Orlando. Sorry did we disturb you from your writing

Orlando: No no, not to worry, it’s just another book review

Photo by Annina Lehmann

The Funny In The Sad

To always be able to see the funny side of the situation. I’m smiling, even the ones that stir me to tears. There is a woman who lives in a plush Notting Hill penthouse. She lives with a schnauzer cross poodle: a schnoozle. The schnoozle named Mopin and a lady called Delilah live above the streets of West London. They inhabit a land of cooking, bible reading classes and walks in the woods. Delilah once married a rock star, not of cataclysmic scale but well known enough. They lived together through the sixties, seventies and half of the eighties. They saw the different music trends ebb and lap away at the chords, ringing out tunes to their era. Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks. Oh, London. Obviously, he left her at the end of their heyday, for a younger woman and now they have three children. Delilah has a beautiful daughter from her first and sole marriage; she likes the bible more now and sits and spends her days looking out the window. A lot of natural light enters the top floor and fills the room with a glorious haze. She can’t play an instrument yet her husband made music for a living so that was her life too. A white piano stands elegantly in her open plan living room, and around the house leaning on random bits of furniture are guitars. Heavenly guitars, ones with mahogany necks others with opal inlays. When she hosts a dinner or a guest, she always asks if they play an instrument. If they say yes, she expects them to play on one of the ones she has in the house, and when they do she sits and stares and probably thinks.

And the guitars are amazing but she doesn’t even know it. Worth thousands! And how funny she doesn’t even have the ability to provide the soundtrack to how sad her situation is. She has a great album about it all, if only she knew how to play it…

And do you think where she has placed these wandering instruments are where she expects to find her husband? To pick up ‘this old thing’ and strum along. Do you think perhaps these are pieces of solid memory?

The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind

The answer is blowin’ in the wind

Dream Theory

Therapist: How are you feeling this morning?

Patient: Good. I woke up laughing.

Therapist: That’s interesting.

Patient: I didn’t. I woke up tired.

Therapist: Try and take this seriously Mr. Green. These sessions are being paid for by your family. 

Patient: Yep.

Therapist: To begin with, please settle on the couch and make yourself comfortable. Relax and tell me exactly what happens when you wake up.

Patient: Which time?

Therapist: I’m sorry?

Patient: Which time I wake up, I mean I can’t tell you what exactly happens every time I wake up because every time it’s different, you see my point miss?

Therapist: Yes I do. Tell me about what happened this morning when you awoke. Be as detailed or a vague as you want. Please lie down and relax. 

Lying back on the couch the patient extends and bends his left elbow lankily placing the arm over his face to block out the light. The therapist notes everything quietly and efficiently on her ipad. 

Patient: ‘I’m sorry have we met?’ A man in a hat - it’s got a brim and looks like it’s been crushed talks into my ear whilst I’m on a rowing machine and tries to explain desperately the contents of water. Bershka the shop. Talking about the deconstruction of a joke: three guys sat in a diner talking about a wiener or some sort of sausage and everyone clapping at how good the joke was. 

Therapist: Everyone?

Patient: The audience.

Therapist: I see. Please continue.

Patient: Not knowing where to meet on the street, yeah, being late being late for something having to walk somewhere on the street but not knowing where you have to be. Wanting water but being too tired to get up and get it. Being thirsty in the rain. 

Therapist: Mr. Green can I stop you there for the time being but stay exactly where you are. 

In the interim the therapist notes frantically but silently on her ipad and the patient’s shoe, which is a worn out moccasin, is about to slip off the end of his foot because he has been playing with it whilst lying down covering his face.

Therapist: Are these the thoughts you have when you wake up? Those you have just reeled off to me that is.

Patient: I don’t know what they are. Those thoughts they remain for a while all floating around when you wake up, you know ‘free forms’, unconnected bits of stuff. Then they start connecting with each other and the ‘shit’ the pieces of shit which don’t make any sense (in the light of reality) start to disappear and melt away, you know dissolve, because they weren’t realistic. Then things start to make sense very quickly and you realise you’re not late. That you can be thirsty in the rain, the two aren’t really connected, sure you could open your mouth and eat the rain but it probably won’t quench your thirst. And I strive really hard to remember that joke those guys made in the diner but you can’t and then maybe you remember something but it’s gone. But maybe... ‘whatever you like I probably don’t’. I think I dreamt that up as being somebody’s arsehole twitter tagline, ‘whatever you like I probably don’t’ or  on whatsapp. Or ‘I’m perfectly fine stop asking’, that was another one. You know shit like that.

Therapist: I think we’ll wrap it up there Mr. Green you’re session has to come to an end.

Patient: Sure. Call me Adam.

What It Would Be Like

And she said:

It feels good to stretch

Man, music is good

I’m happy

I can’t wait for tomorrow

It feels awe-some… not having to sit behind a desk all day. Hunched over. To stretch.

The next morning:

Sunlight comes through the slats of the blinds; the bottom rung has snapped in two but it still does the job so no point in dwelling, she thinks. Carefully clamber over the body lying next to her in bed, the figure of Eleanor, darkly snoozing in to her day, how nice it was to have her here. To check the phone for well-wishers, messages of love rather than panics of stale realisation that this was it, again. And it would be like this forever. That feeling had flown. Well-wishers grasped in a phone hold away - look at the world outside! Today she would run again, look at the branches again and feel the foliage in the canopies above her rustling, for wind. Where would she have been last week? At an Overground station; a place where the sun never reaches the platform, waiting for delayed trains but longing for a chance, then bleep and bleep until the carcass was at the office doors.

Commuter times when it was dark with drizzle, a nondescript hour of some insignificant day, one may rise to the occasion - pomp of it all – the briefcase swinging prats and the ‘morning guv’nor’ smiles. She could trudge through the muck to reach the office doors. Get out of the rain. Upon entering the lights would be bright the temperature at a constant and she could fool the self in to feeling a sense of triumph at reaching the office. But once having sat down, turning on the computer and waiting for the screen to load, she felt like she had let herself down and swallowed a prickly lie. Then she could only apologetically login and go make herself a cup of coffee.

This is when I thought:

And that’s what it was like, an honest account. A shell of a man purposefully going through the motions and simultaneously not knowing why.  It was pathetic. And now it’s something else, which can only be described as total alleviation. What an absolute relief that I got out of that alive, I think I was worried I might not. And now, everything is set on course for something else.

Today

Every day I have to write. That’s the promise I’ve made to myself because it’s not out of this world to describe yourself as something you do on a daily basis.  But the harder part of this promise is what I write I have to show. Otherwise where’s the proof? Promises are easily made and easily broken, in my books certainly. When I was between the age of six and fourteen my dad promised me four things in consecutive order (all as important as the other): First school, then house, then dog and then a hot air balloon ride. He promised me that it would go in that order. By the time I was listening to my own music I came to quiet a realisation that none of these promises would be kept.

‘But then did I hold him to the promises?’

Well, at first I tried. I would repeat these things: house, school, dog, hot air balloon ride like a list of religious rites I had to practice in order to believe. My little gods they were these promises. But as the promises dropped off the edge, I tried to make sense of these empty rites – maybe we could get a dog anyway. I wanted to call him Hippopotamus or Nutella. The dog would be a beagle. I can’t believe I’ve still never been in a hot air balloon! Priorities must have changed. So, in honour of these unkept promises I want to at least keep one to myself. I quit my job, and I want to write. So do it every day and put it out there.

First Job Last Day

Worker: So, where are you off to?

Me: Urm. Nowhere in particular.

Worker: Do you have your sights set on something?

Me: Well

Worker: Where are you going?

Worker: What are you going to do?

Me: I want to… I want to write. A writer. Is that alright? I’m just you know having a break - a change of scene.

(sassy woman; mid to late 40’s walks on and off stage)

Joanna: That’s right! You can only make a change during a gap.

(shouting after her)

Me: Are you sure Joanna?

Joanna: Oh my yes. You’ve got spirit, don’t you worry.

(she stares longingly after her presence)

Worker: So any plans? Of what you’re going to do now.

Me: Urrrm

Worker: What are you going to do with your first free Monday?

Me: Oh god.

(Goes to clear away her desk and shovels pens and headphones in to her rucksack)

Me: What am I going to do without structure?

Colleague: You’re doing the right thing.

Me: Am I?

Colleague: Yes. And sometimes hon it’s difficult to do the right thing.

For Order's Sake

Four people sit around a round table. Four paper cups filled with hot water and stuff. Two people sit staring across a small table, they seem fine. One sits on a sofa reading. Just fine. How to measure if the world is in order?

DOES ANYBODY ELSE FIND LIFE PRETTY HARD RIGHT NOW?!

What was that? Some mad bloke running out the Starbucks with a stolen muffin. Is it worth it? Most definitely. Order means stability means boring.

AGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

He’s still running, dodging cars, prams, people on hen dos and stags. God those people. The birds cackle and the men howl, it’s a bloody jungle out there in Leicester Square. Is that order? It seems less frowned upon than madmuffinman but then again humping a bollard in jest while the lads cheer and chant, not that dissimilar.

SIRENS.

It is tiring. What? People. Trying to be a proper one. An upstanding one at that. Don’t litter, say thank you, make eye contact when you “cheers”. Always make eye contact (don’t be so fucking awkward - it comes off as rude - you moron).

“COLD AND HUNGRY. PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY”

Whatever you do don’t work for a charity, I honestly think people who work for charities only do it in order to make themselves feel better. That’s good advice, isn’t it. Bit sceptical but proves the case for apathy. Drones. I drone on and on and on and on until the voice becomes a murmur like a microwave while it’s spinning readymeals. Wholly disappointing. The banal is hilarious when you embrace it. Keep runnin’ muffinman, don’t let the bastards catch up with you.

True muses.

Families

There are some things I won’t try and explain and even more things I try less to understand. Like how a silence can be louder than a whisper, and why being alone can make one feel less lonely. The other is family and what it means to other people. My family are my friends, and friends are family, not always is it a case of blood and less is it realised that it’s not a case of birth. Family is what roots you to a place or a way of being, what might provide a pool of memory or has influenced your reasoning over the years; a taste in music, values, and so on. Who knows – but really, a family is where you feel like you belong.

Where being yourself is expected and not tempered or adjusted to conventional settings.

Convention goes out the window within family. They know you best and that’s the feeling of rootedness, where all words and actions you emit don’t actually impact the setting, just gives it flow.

I’d like to think families are grown, just as memories come into existence organically, but I know it’s not that simple. Families never leave nor do they wane to the realities of the current, they are always  there whether you want them to be or not. I like the idea of “family” I just do wonder if I live the ideal. That’s all.