Seagulls and Shivering

May you never know the bugbears an addiction to the strong-water brings. It is no joke. All that you have built you will watch crumble inexorably around you as you flounder in alcoholic despair loyal only to the contents of the bottle that brings this state of affairs about.

Phone calls, excuses, lies, admissions – post lies unopened, important matters fester and slumber only to re-ignite in your consciousness in some awful future when one is scarce prepared or equipped to deal with them. Usually, this is in the darkest middle of a rainy night when the rain runs down the walls because the bastard seagulls peck at the fixings on the roof (or so you’re told by untrustworthy roofers who are taught to lie convincingly as part of their apprenticeship.)

To be plagued by seagulls at the seaside! For seven years I hadn’t even noticed them, they just blended in with the noise-scape. It’s only when they start breeding on the roof next to you that you realise what noisy, greedy bastards they are; like half a dozen Jimmy Cagney gangster-birds right next to your ear six months of every year. Try drinking to escape them and you’ll end up toxified on your bed, forced to listen to their constant yowlings and the mewling whistle of their offspring attempting to imitate their yakking parent’s. 

It’s as if they’re laughing at you. Your fevered, fetid shiverings are funny to them as they peck at your window, eyes filled with dumb malice. You try to sleep but your mind has rat’s tails running around it. You can get no peace and you kid yourself that you’ll feel so much better with the dawn but you won’t. This will take days and days before any semblance of health returns, mental or physical.

Just to get out of the house you will wander the streets looking shabby and bent; maybe it’s even raining, even worse warm and bright and the seaside streets will be filled with happy folk, just to mark the cruel distinction between you and just about everyone else in the world. They will be sweating through the exertion of games and lust, you will be streaming toxins from your very blood. 

Probably best, the rain. Keeps the bastards indoors.

I am becoming misanthropic to an almost obscene degree. The world is a play but it is poorly cast – there are more and more people that I would gladly see drown in the sea. Indeed, quite often these days about the only thing that even vaguely cheers me up is the thought of imminent environmental or nuclear cataclysm. I’m actually glad Trump is in power and not some sane liberal who’s not stupid enough to jeopardize his or her own well-to-do life-style. I’m hoping Trump goes for his place in history, regardless of the fact that there maybe won’t be anyone left to record the event.