Oops. Double shot. Summer in London . Christmas a year
ago or a year to come. It doesn’t matter.
Exhibit A. After midnight. On the
kitchen floor. No more, no more joy for her world.
Exhibit B. The dying days of
winter. But before the April sun has fully risen. A text message at three in
the morning, to Exhibit C. Why, why, do I sabotage my own…
Sabotage (From the French) n & v.
Deliberate damage to productive capacity, esp as a political act.
Like her facebook usage. She’s
giving up her Australian passport if (when) the Liberals get in.
In London , exhibit B reads The Guardian. Making
her open minded, intelligent, concerned, yet unattractive to a certain class of
boys. Nice boys. Suits. Country homes.
Lunch in the City. Tweed . Not for you Guardian
reader. Go quietly home and cry them, cry your gin tears.
Cry them for yourself. Cry them
for what will never be. But much more so, cry them for the underprivileged. The
voiceless. The nameless children on the streets in Syria . The protesters in Thailand , Kiev ,
Egypt
..especially
as a political act…
French
from saboteur ‘make a noise with
sabots, bungle wilfully, destroy.’
Exhibit C. Exhibit C, Also a
Guardian Reading Ranting Dissatisfied Leftie. In the North. Years ago, weeks
old snow packed on the ground. Darkness descending by the time you’ve cleared
away lunch, or soon enough after. In the early hours of the morning, or the
late hours of the night, The Monster sat on the end of the bed. The Monster
read the right paper. He made her seem conservative. She loved him once. He would only disappoint, he insisted. She
really ought to cut her losses and run, run back to the sunshine. Hurt, she
ran, she ran home to the south to cry for the years that would never come back,
but that outcome was inevitable, really.
Exhibit B is planning a holiday.
To Cornwall , or Scotland
or the South of France .
It doesn’t matter.
Originally the
idea of Right and Left stemmed from the seating arrangement of the National Assembly
after the French Revolution. The deputies on the left of the chamber wanted to
carry the goals of the revolution -
liberty, equality and fraternity – through to their logical and radical
conclusion. (Mc Knight: 2005: 3)
Exhibit B is away for the summer.
She doses under a tree, mild sunlight slowly thawing her fingers and toes and
cooking her milky white English skin. Another summer, in another time, in
another place, there was someone who lay beside her and pulled little daisies
from the ground, ripping, tearing, shredding, removing their tiny petals. What
are you doing? She’d asked. But hadn’t heard his answer. In her mind, he’d
confessed to his unoriginality, apologised for being a literary trope, a
metaphor a device. Taking the petals off daisies, then casting them aside. For
god’s sake. Then it was September and they had to go their own ways, she had to
leave, had to do more important things. Study things. Write things. Be things.
Though not be her writing, or perhaps always be her writing. She wasn’t sure if
she was dead or not.
But, perhaps foolishly, she was
sure she had to grow up and leave the boy and the broken daisies behind her,
like everyone else before her. She was not, there was not anything new under
the sun.
Gin. Why. Double shot. Again. Oops.
In London , still in possession of her Australian
passport, exhibit C refills the Pimms and Lemonade with Bombay Sapphire. Why?
Why? Next you’ll be on the stairs, in tears. It is how this always ends. It
always does, and always will. Again, and Again.
Or it could end like this. Two. To
Marylebone. As the late summer sun is rising, and the birds sing an ode to 5am.
Minimal sleep on an unknown floor. Fully clothed. Stockings and Heels and all.
Like a perfect pin up, Exhibit A
is still in the kitchen. Neat skirt, perfect hair, stockings, heels, apron and
all. Dinner is organic, always organic. She lived with a boy a while ago. In a haze of
contentment, because he was just so perfect, you know. They could discuss the
logical and radical until today turned into tomorrow. He had no intention of
marrying her, but it didn’t matter.
But life moves on, and tomorrow
fades into yesterday, and the haze of contentment lifts, until one day you find
yourself cooking a dairy free, grain free, locally produced organic meal for
one, and wondering what the appeal was. What your appeal was. Your baking, your
stockings and heels? Because what man reclines on his pillow, afterwards, and
looks into your eyes and says God, you’re intelligent.
Fucking Feminism. Quite literally.
Exhibit A sings carols again. Joy,
joy, not necessarily happiness, to the world. Though, she’s fairly certain
she’ll find herself on the kitchen floor at midnight crying the gin tears again
one day.
And, so again and again, at 3 am we
ask, Why, Why, do I sabotage my own happiness?
