James

The view from my flat is a metaphor for my life.

I moved in three years ago. The agent promised a breathtaking panoramic sweep across Bristol’s skyline with beautiful sunrises and romantic sunsets until, out of nowhere, a week before I moved in a grotty wall emerged attached to three other grotty walls forming a grotty tower block of cheap grotty apartments. There was nothing I could do; I had no money left to find another place. I was stuck between concrete. If it wasn’t for that brick wall I’d have rising suns at my disposal, but I don’t. Instead there’s dripping mould and leaking pipes and that right there, is my life: a potential for something beautiful behind an obtrusive and ugly wall that will never go away.

I’m trying hard to remember that life is beautiful or worth living or that it’s what you make of it or some other dumb-ass automated slogan people vomit out at each other. Despite my obvious cynicism I am trying hard to attach some sort of meaning to my life and I’m failing disasterously. Yesterday, I ventured outside for the first time this week. I bought myself a notebook and a pen and a highlighter. With these tools I sat down at my desk, added a large mug of coffee to the equation, and carefully wrote the title: MY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WORLD. After an hour of painting my nails neon yellow then wiping it off then painting it on again, I realized my contributions add up to just about nothing. If I died the world that bustles beyond the brick wall wouldn’t mind. The world wouldn’t care. The world doesn’t even know me.

I took a good look at myself in the mirror this morning and attempted a self-motivating “hey you’re not such a bad guy – you can still turn your life around, you’re only twenty-four.” Then I realized I was talking to myself and felt worse. What’s next? I’ll probably start seeing ghosts or think people on television are communicating the secrets of the universe to me. And as if everything isn’t bad enough; the one speck of light in my dark depressing days, the last Christmas bulb flickering on a bare tree in January – that speck has disappeared out of my life forever. The girl with icy blue hair. I haven’t seen the girl with the icy blue hair for four months now. One day I’m prentending to read an intellecual book in a coffee shop, accidentally spilling my coffee, having the conversation of my life with the most beautiful girl in the entire world and the next day I’m falling asleep on my laptop, drool seeping into the keyboard, wondering if it’s okay to have another Mars bar ice-cream for dinner.

To add to the list of why I’m such a goddamn failure, I haven’t been keeping up with my “must have at least have three conversations a day” rule. My conversation with the blue haired girl was the last real (as in not across two computer screens) conversation I had. I just don’t see the point of forcing myself on others anymore, striking up some small talk they’ll only forget about. It’s a stupid rule anyway, a pathetic attempt at a normal social life but who’d actually want a conversation with me? What in the world would I have to say to anyone? I might as well just live my life in mute. I’m so fucking sick of hearing myself whine. I sound like a male Bridget Jones but with no sex and heavier thighs. Besides, I recently figured out that television is a lot more interesting when you mute it.

In a sleepless haze of boredom and misery I’ve been spending these past few days on google maps deciding which bridges are suitable to jump off of. I’d like to avoid rocks, crowds and cars, which pretty much cancels out all of the bridges around Bristol. Then I had a strange moment this morning where I stared at my limp wrist, flopping it about, insepecting it like a slab of meat in the butchers. I thought about how it would feel to slice it but as my eyes drew imaginary red lines I felt this nauseating wave of guilt. What has my poor wrist ever done to me? It didn’t choose to be attached to this lonely good for just about nothing idiot. It shouldn’t have to be cut or sliced into. It’s an innocent wrist! It could have been a Jude Law wrist or a Franz Kafka wrist and instead it’s my wrist and it can’t do anything about it.

And I can’t do anything about that fucking wall.