aftermath (again)
written 4 June 2008, 1:22 am
It is two days past the Click Five concert and my mind is still filled with those boys. I fantasise about them and being with them and put these fantasies into words.
The day, promisingly started with filing, gradually deteriorates into an attempt at rewriting my Lit essay, and then writing slash that is firmly engraved in pure fiction. Between my brief, futile efforts to be even mildly productive I let my brain revert to a languid state that comes with reading.
Today the book of choice is rather appropriately titled Descent, written by a woman sharing the same first name as my cousin (Sabrina) and a last name that is either a joke or simply insane (Broadbent).
In this manner I waste my day away, making a last ditch attempt at arranging math tution sessions with another cousin. He is apparently busy. I have the feeling that I should be, too, and think guiltily about my miserable 2.13 gpa and the three projects I am supposed to be juggling but am currently doing nothing about.
What is so attractive about non-productivity?
After I am forced into shutting this addictive computer down I resist the withdrawal symptoms by concentrating my attention on Descent. Somewhere in the midst of Chapter Twenty-Eight, page 285, I start to cry, experiencing a feeling of intense sadness that may or may not be connected to what I have just read i.e. “[Peter] was a little boy, and [Wendy] was grown up. She huddled by the fire not daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman. Something inside her was crying Woman, Woman, let go of me.” (Quoted from Descent by Sabrina Broadbent and subsequently taken from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie)
For the rest of the book (of which there is not much left) I cry approximately once every fifty words or so, give or take a few pages. Broadbent’s writing unleashes an indescribable unindentifiable feeling in me which I do not understand. I think of my own writing and wonder if someday someone might read it and feel like they do not know themselves anymore.
I nurse a tissue and write this journal entry in my notebook, clutching the 0.38 pen like a talisman. Looking at the Borders 25% discount voucher lying crumpled and forlorn on my desk, I resolve to buy Descent tomorrow.
In the aftermath of the book, some emotional residue leaks out in the form of tears and sniffles. I wonder why I seem to start going hysterical past 1 am and as usual come up with no particularly coherent reasons.
I think I might be going insane.
When was it that I started to slowly lose control?
What tenacity and intelligence did I possess, that is no longer there?
“I give in. There is a perverse relief in letting go. Of you. Of your impossible dreams. Of our hopeless, unspoken histories.
You have always been careless with your possessions. Lost more wallets, sunglasses and jackets than I can remember. An endearing lack of concern about material things. But now you seem to have mislaid us. Such bad timing.
Didn’t you notice I was already losing it?”
- Descent, by Sabrina Broadbent
p.s. Bothers Borders did not have Descent as in they did not stock it, so I bought If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor, finally caving in over the fuck ugly cover, because apparently only the library has the pretty one. (Credits to Eden for the endearing name of Bothers Borders.)
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