Fragment #26 - Lost in the wasted land of love

How can it be this difficult? How can’t you just ask for what you want? I’m waiting at the bus stop in front of the school. I’m meant to meet Mike in the West End in an hour or so. I told him on the phone I would fancy a drink, and he had seemed surprised. Surprised that I ask for something? Surprised that I’m trying to take our relationship out of the bedroom? I don’t know how to start a relationship properly. A bit younger I decided sex was an easy opening line. Maybe the only one I was able to go for. I don’t believe a guy can get interested to me for something else, not anymore. Do I really believe anyone can fall in love with me, someone I would love in return? I’ve definitely lost faith in the prince charming myth a long time ago, and it seemed healthy, mature and clever to me at the time. Was I right? How can I go back then, healthily, in the wasted land of love?



It’s raining cats and dogs. I’ve always found, since I’ve been studying English at uni, that this expression is pretty weird. But what’s weirder maybe, is that I learned this expression during a university class, that I had to study at school this language I live now with. Will this always make a difference between me and them? Anyway, it doesn’t depend on where I am that I feel different and alien amongst other people.



A bus comes and I go in with the people surrounding me. It’s a double decker, one of those buses which go to the City Center. I sit down upstairs, lying against the window. The rain is dropping on the windowpane. The sky is dark grey outside, the atmosphere is damp. It’s like the city is crying for me. I still like to sit upstairs in the double deckers and look by the window like a damn tourist. I can contemplate a city I fall in love with. The red facades of the houses are made darker with the rain. I’ve always found there is something really human in this place, I don’t know why, but I feel there is some inside warmth that makes both the city and its inhabitants welcoming.



I take my mobile out of my bag. This is one of those days when I feel the urge to call someone, anyone, and just ask for help: when I feel so lost that I can’t even start enunciating where the problem is; when I feel so powerless that I try to close my eyes, but I can’t make it go away; when I don’t want to see anymore what is the issue I won’t solve. I leave my mobile for now, and try and be rational. I take out my pink notebook, turn the last written page – something about a nightmare with my mother in it… - and face a new white page. I hate white pages. It looks like there is some quintessential truth waiting to be told.

I need to be precise, to find a starting point to get out from this vicious circle of dark thoughts. I look at the window again. The bus is going past Bellahouston Park. The lawns are amazing, with their vivid green colour, emphasized by the rain. I take a pencil out of my bag, and write down the one thing I should start with.


I need a starting point.