“I can see them down there you know, the little people, the worker ants of our society. People just like you and me scurrying around and for once I can lie back and just sit here alone with my crossword. Three down, seven letters, intense joy, that’s what I feel up here alone on top of this hill. I’ve always liked it here it has to be one of my favourite places in the world, somewhere I can come to and look down on creation and feel like a god.
I met him once you know, God he was right here. At least I thought it was him but thinking back it could have just been one too many joints, a little too much of the squidgy black. Whatever it was I was lying right here, on this very spot looking up at the stars in the sky when I saw him, or it could have been one of his angels looking down on me. You can imagine how surprised I was, it was one of those change of underwear moments and then. Then he spoke to me. I can’t remember the exact words but I remember he did speak and afterwards I remember being happy like I was at one with the world. It was like, you know religious in the words of a modern day philosopher, I wished I could fly.
Whatever he said and yes I’m pretty sure it was a he, I remember it made me look at my life in a different way. You see back then my life was shit, I spent my days working in the very same pot banks I swore I would never work in when I was growing up and the nights? The nights were just one long carousel of drink and drugs and girls. How I loved those girls! Every weekend we’d end up in the pubs or a nightclub if there’d been overtime and there they’d be. Make up plastered on like war paint, big hair and cheap perfume, god I love the smell of cheap perfume it takes me back to those pubs and clubs on a Friday night. I’ve got this friend at work who reckons the older you become the more expensive your tastes get, maybe they do but back then I liked it cheap. Cheap wine, cheap holidays to my Nan’s caravan in Rhyl and cheap girls, two pints of snakebite and black and they were yours. Well at least most of the time they were and this is where I would bring them, right here to my little room on top of the world and then!
You can guess the rest. It’s funny I still remember them all, the blondes, the brunettes, some a little overweight, some too skinny but they all had pretty eyes, every one. They had to have pretty eyes. And everyone they gave something to me, they made me feel. How good did they make me feel? You know that feeling right at the end? What’s that word? It was like, like I was wanted. They made me feel like I belonged. But I’m getting lost in memories a little distracted. What about the crossword? Fourth letter, T!
T! I went to T in the park last summer, what a waste of time. The only thing I got out of it was I learned I’m not just getting old, I am old. All the bands sound the same, sad, morose wanting to kill themselves. The audience never felt like that when I used to go to concerts back when I was a teenager but maybe I shouldn’t be so critical. I used to like Bon Jovi, Guns and Roses that sort of music you know, that tried to be rock but wasn’t quite rock the way it should be, a bit like the bands today they want to be different but! I even liked Skid Row, do you remember them? I bought their album on CD the other day and listening to it made me think back to Hunter’s Way Drive. I guess that’s why I’m here thinking of what used to be.
Back then I was young, still at school trying too hard to act the tough guy, chasing after girls and everything seemed, well I guess everything would seem different looking back now. Back then when things went wrong, like you’d been caught smoking behind the bike sheds, you felt as if it was the end of your days on earth. You couldn’t conceive of a future or even think of tomorrow, your life was over. On the other hand when things were good they were damn good. That first kiss made you feel like you were going to explode and your first love! It was a love that would never end until you met your best friend’s sister that is.
Feelings back then were so extreme. I guess you could say it’s just a learning curve but do we really learn or are we desensitised? As we get older do we learn to recognise feelings for what they are or do we become so hardened by life’s emotional swings and roundabouts that we can’t experience feelings the way that we used to? I don’t know I’m just a middle aged man sat upon a hill, looking down on my home town and thinking back to how it used to be, trying to complete my crossword.
I got it ecstasy that’s the missing word, like everything it means so much less these days, these days it’s just a word. I know the crossword clue says intense joy, it’s a feeling, a moment like when I was close to god or holding a woman in my arms but it’s not anymore, it’s just a drug. A synthetic, smiling faces and dilated pupils, a drug nothing more! The feeling you get when you hold your first born in your arms for the first time is amazing, life changing, emotions words can’t describe but if I had to pick a word it wouldn’t be ecstasy, it’s a drug nothing more.
Words change as society progresses through the ages, what was once rapturous delight, a religious connection with your god is now a drug nothing more. When we were growing up weed grew in the garden and to our parents he lived with Bill and Ben now you’re more likely to find him hanging out with Charlie, who used to be the boy at the back of the class with NHS specs, now they’re drugs nothing more. That’s life, it’s progress, it’s what we call society today. God knows what we’ll call it tomorrow?”
No comments:
Post a Comment