hopping, the suicide, the abandoning, the repression. It’s all getting to me a bit, but we can’t move. We’ve got too much debt, we’re trapped.
(3.0)
I’m looking at him and wondering if I’ve made a big mistake. I didn’t know who else to turn to and so I thought I’d try you. I thought you’d understand. I thought you’d be able to see into my lives and give me an answer.
(.)
But I’m only allowed one question.
I’ll have to formulate all my ramblings into one, all of these floating thoughts into one question.
(.)
You see I’ve got to thinking that maybe life is continual.
I know that this goes against what you, what some people believe in. Well it sort of does. Doesn’t it?
(2.3)
That’s not my question.
(.)
I just think that life is one big series of livings and deaths. And the more that I think about it, the more I get to worrying that there may be one true soul mate for each of us.
(1.5)
I’m rambling on. I’m trying not to sound too manic. Too confused. But I guess that I am.
(.)
You see, I’m wondering if there is just one special person for each of us. And then I’m wondering if life is really simply about bumping into them. If that one special person keeps coming in and out of our lives. And if only true believers, I mean believers in true love, could ever realise.
(.)
Does that make any sense?
(4.1)
That’s not my question.
(.)
I’m getting to wonder if life is one big game of Russian Roulette, but without the gun. It’s like holding your nerve until the time is right. Until you get a feeling that there is no next one. Really no next one. That this one person, this one connection is true.
(1.8)
I met a lad called Simon when I was five and he was six. I clicked with him instantly. We met at a family wedding. He was on the groom’s side, being a pageboy. I was on the bride’s side, being a bridesmaid. I remember dancing with him during the do. We held hands and loads of people snapped photos. I remember it being late, dark and I remember him leaving the party.
(.)
My mam used to have a photo of the two of us on the sideboard. She’d polish it and tell the same story.
(.)
The story went that when Simon left, I started crying. Apparently I was inconsolable. I sobbed and sobbed.
(.)
‘When will I see my boyfriend again?’ I asked my mam. ‘Maybe when there’s another party,’ she’d answered.
(2.7)
I never did see him again. Well I don’t think that I did. Maybe we brushed into each other. There must have been other family parties. But maybe that one meeting was our only scheduled hit for this life.
(.)
Am I making any sense at all? I know that you’ll be thinking that my question is about Simon, but it isn’t really. Not at all, really.
(1.3)
You see, I think that I must have loved Simon. Truly loved Simon.
(.)
Apparently I cried all the way home from the party. Apparently I fell asleep, releasing tiny sobs. Mam says that the next morning I woke up and told her not to laugh at me. She’d been shocked by how mature, how adult like I’d sounded when I was only five years old. Mam reckons that I grew up during that night.
(1.1)
What if Simon was the one? What if he was my one true love?
(.)
No they’re not really questions for this reading. Not really. I’m rambling again.
(2.9)
Simon and me never met again. The connection that I had with him was instant. I still remember him. Or is it the photograph that prompts the memory? You see that’s where I get stuck.
(2.2)
I think that I came here for you to tell me about life and death. I think that I wanted an answer to my wondering about if I kill myself, if I die tomorrow, will I simply start a new life?
(.)
Because I’m kind of thinking that this life is shit and if I try the next one, then I might meet Simon and I might actually manage to live.
(5.0)
You see me and Len have money problems. It’s no big secret. I’m not coping. We married young. I was eighteen and Len was nineteen. We lived beyond Len’s wages. We spent, we lived and soon the debts started to pile up. We tackled the bills by getting into more debt and then it all spiralled. We’ve had bailiffs knocking on our door. I’ve got nothing. They’ve had everything.
(2.2)
I’ve got zero, zilch, nothing left to give anyone. You’re my last option. I guess that I came here, hoping that you’d see into my future and tell me what to do.
(.)
You know that I work in Woolworths in Coastend. But what you probably don’t know is that I’m only thirty-two years old. I know you’re shocked, I can see it in your eyes. I look twice my age.
(3.1)
And Len, well he doesn’t work. He spends his days in the bookies in North Shields, he says that it’s work. He has bad days and good days. Mainly he has bad days.
(1.7)
He’s
