crawling out of an aeroplane, the interior so much like the toys inside those hollow, thin-shelled chocolate eggs cheap aunties and uncles would palm to me, with a bag mounted on my back and a plastic bag of thick magazines aching in my right hand. onto carpets muted with dust and pressed down by the broken wheels of so many well-travelled suitcases. me and e walked roughly together, he was older, more fashionable, not a hero but someone i was proud of knowing, he was good natured but probably uncomfortably placid in his task of humouring me.
we sat on a bench made of one flowing sheet of metal netting, some cushions seemlessly padded them, the colour of dried blood, of proud industrial sacrifices, it was all fashionably false though, like the flicker of long hair on a grandiose designer, announcing some retro movement playing on some awful war and bringing it back through sweet avantgarde toyboxes. we sat awkwardly, my bag on my lap, the various electronics cutting into my thighs, and e, with one hand on the trolley awaiting the luggage.
i didn't notice him before, but sure enough he made himself known.
there was a small boy, maybe four years of age, moving around on the crest of the benchs, where two rows met, back-to-back, he had a few crooked teeth crammed into his mouth and a crazy stare, eyes to which everything was a sight so curious and amusing in some unfathomable way.
"hello".
e replied first, being older and with confidence, i, however, just stirred and faced the boy, but misjudged eye-contact constantly, not knowing whether it was rude or not.
"i like lollies. do you like lollies?"
ha ha ha, how amusing this was, and yet how uncomfortable too. i just forced my face into a failed comforting smile, but e replied heartily, asking the boy what his favourite flavour was.
"chocolate, yes i like chocolate"
but he couldn't quite pronounce it, not entirely.
he was young and was free of all the unwritten rules and obligations that i was entangled in, where curiosity was spliced by politics and further broken down by waving fingers or standing in corners.
he seemed disinterested in us now and crawled around a little longer before he spoke to us for the final time.
"do you have a daddy?"
but then he was gone, slid down the other side of the bench to waddle after his family, his friends, guardians, whatever. and all i remember was being a little discomforted, and trying so hard not to run away with this boy-shape, tried not to do it injustice in his absence. but it was futile. it seems that all we hate, all we love, all we like, all we recognise are empty images, a world of illusions, you love what you see, what you believe, what you think you know, not what actually might be there. it's what makes us heroes to some, enemies to others, that someone can paper up all the cracks in your world in one glorious moment, because you need that now, not necessarily because they actually are so wonderful.
and when it's all over, when it finally rots and becomes Real, you can't help but blame those very same illusions for betraying you. blame anyone but yourself.
so, taking louise's advice, i shall introduce myself.
hello.
i am mudge, a name derived from my true surname (which is pronounced mudger but spelt stubbornly different), and i live in Leeds, England. i reside in a house on top of a rather large hill of some kind, this means i am often soothed to sleep by the chattering of the rooftiles during another galeforce wind. i am sixteen years old, something i dislike telling people because they have an inclination to then disregard me or my work as products of an immature teenager and that they are all fake, that i have cheated somehow. i have a website, you can stumble upon it at
http://www.ghostcassette.com, it's name comes from something i came across in one of my favourite books (any book by William Gibson) called a "ghost cassette". "ghost cassettes" are recordings of someone's personality, a tape, a cd, a piece of hardware that has, basically, a person written onto it, so that after you have shuffled off this mortal coil, you still exist in this recording, so it is literally a ghost cassette. i thought it was appropriate because i write about myself and store photographs in an effort to preserve part of myself so that i can look back at it through rose-tinted glasses that i fashioned myself at the time. oh, and it sounds cool.
like louise, i don't really want to write journal entries here because this is Josh's blog, not mine, and i don't want to pretend that i am him. instead, consider me to be one of the mere snacks you'll get during the intermission. perhaps an orange iced lolly (or is that "popsicle"?).
i've had very bad experiences with guest bloggers myself, having had one of my guest's suddenly turn on me and starting to write big hateful diatribes attacking me whereas the other only updated once in two weeks and, with that one post, managed to, rather amazingly, break my archiving system. however, i'll try to be a little less destructive, sorry.
i'll probably end up noting down random thoughts or memories that i have, as i have done, rather bewilderingly, at the beginning of this post. i hope i don't bore you too much.
but now i'm going to get myself some breakfast/lunch (i awoke at 1:50pm) and avoid the large english essay i have to do on the first volume of Emma by Jane Austen. boo.
take care.
