Friends at the centre of the universe

It was the hay fever. The pollen count was exponential and my eyes itched and I couldn’t breathe. I had to speak with an open dry palate, every - breath - effort. As your brain snapped in to gear it would stop intermittently with sneezing fits turning it in to sludge. 

I arrived at the bar and burst in to tears. A gin and tonic ordered straight away and they listened, carefully like teachers and molly coddled me like a newborn puppy. I cried the world was too much! My job, the work, the state of it. I couldn’t breathe! I blew my nose and had a nose bleed and drank my gin and felt better. The pair of them. Dressed in dungarees, a mustard yellow baggy sweater, crop top, bright socks, hair messed up, scrunched atop their pretty heads like bird’s nests. I loved them. And they told me tales of theatre.

Imprisoned indoors because of the grass I was sad and spoke to Susan. She listened and offered to wash my towels because of my conjunctivitis. I bought hair perming solution. Susan positioned a seat in front of the bathroom mirror, twizzling my hair, making me feel better. Her delicate fingertips massaged my head and pushed me adrift on to a swimming pool, where I lay dozing on an inflatable alligator. Not a single strand left loose, she’s a pro. I clumsily rinsed my hair out twice and woke up with curls. 

Brixton Market on the hunt for a shopfront with ‘a blue hue’. It rained the night before so the air has clarity. I feel almost human again. Sunglasses acting as protective shields, vaseline smeared across nostrils to stop particles. She lets me tell my sorry tale. Encourages, coaxes, gives me fuel.

I have a sty in my eye but it doesn’t matter, I believe. Bounding my way across London to a pub at The Centre of the Universe, where all my Friends shall meet. Four friends who’s paths rarely cross between London, New York and Berlin but it happens. Get a round-in, pork scratchings and pints, gin and tonics for me (because wine and beer contain histamines). Spilling over the pavement then filling our booth. It looks like a cabin from a timeless fleet, with portholes of stained-glass windows peering out on to the street. How much time has elapsed. None at all. Ten years. We end with pizza at Pollo’s and a bottle of red to wash it down.

Now I lie on my bed. The final night. Peripeteia complete. Annina lies by my side with her asthma inhaler, I with a bloodied tissue pressed against my nose. She tells me to tilt my head back and I can’t because I’m lying on my back. ‘Do you know the story? Of the man who is standing in the middle of the square. Looking upwards. In to the sky so people start to wonder, what is he doing? One stranger stands next to him and looks up too. Then another joins the pair and begins to stare upwards. Soon whole crowds are joining the men, all wondering what can he see? Then the first man stops and looks down. The second man asks him with awe-inspired breath, ‘What did you see? What could you see?’ And he replies, ‘Nothing. I had a nosebleed.’

I smile and believe that my friends have saved me.

Walk On Amy

‘I mean, whatever way you look at this you’re a prick.’

Amy begrudgingly walks over the bridge towards the ornate gates, on through the cemetery until she’s soon at the far north end leaving under the cherubim splodged arch, out on to a busy road whilst turning left towards a junction, she tugs her hair. ‘You’re such a prick’, she says breathless like she doesn’t really mean it. Above is the clearest blue sky she has seen in years, or taken note of - you see, only on an unplanned day like this would Amy have time to notice such things; usually she’s on her phone putting filter upon filter over her Instagram shots or perusing the maps to get somewhere quicker. Today she had no where to be. She wished at the start of the realisation process that someone would call, anybody with a need for her to be somewhere, anywhere. Alas, nobody called and her phone was now dead without battery. Her little flat soles ached from the standing, then the pacing, and the prolonged walking that followed. She thought, ‘I might as well enjoy the day if I have it to myself’ and set off in any old direction reaching a park, in the end. Now mid park she sees a bench and decides to have a rest.

‘When will you be back?’

‘I’ll be back on Saturday by 14:00’

‘Yay’

‘Looking forward to seeing your pretty face’

‘[insert blush emoticon]’

There are some ducks lying on the grass, a whole group of them with one or two waggling their tails. The pond water looks prettier than she expects it to because a park in the city is probably full of tramps or lager cans they leave behind, but today it was particularly beautiful, shimmering with the strokes of the wind. Taking out her phone she kisses it for luck but no signs of revival, then one duck makes a splash. He had said 14:00. Stretching her toes in to a point and then back again, Amy thought to herself that once she did ballet and later she had aspirations of being a backing dancer for R&B music videos. Where could she be if Amy had pursued these dreams? Where could he be? Biting her lip, we know what she’s thinking, but why would he do that? 

‘Prick’, she says at herself. The reason her phone’s dead is because she had been calling his number every half hour after he was late by two hours, then every five minutes after the third hour. There was probably never an intention for him to show up, but she mistook his positive messaging as a promise to meet. He never showed. The wind blew and her skin prickled. Earlier in the morning Amy had moisturised her skin so that it would be smooth to the touch if he ever touched her, just in case he did - you see she wanted to be ready, with smooth skin. She’d also painted her nails a vermillion and applied some hair serum to make her locks smell nice as well as bounce, but she only hoped and couldn’t be sure flirting would occur. She had thought it was a date but…

Big. Fat. Tears plop next to her hands that grip the bench oh so hard. She sobs but tries to stifle it and ends up snorting and then getting a bout of hiccups. The wind rushes past her rouged cheeks to evaporate off her rolling tears and to leave crusty salt marks by her ears. Poor Amy. Nothing would wish this upon her, particularly not the guy who’s really very fond of Amy but mistook Saturday for a Sunday. Tomorrow Patrick would turn up on the south side of the bridge at two o’clock precisely and wait and wait and wait.