Two Heads Pt. 4

And so we began to get to know each other. It was awkward at first – neither of us could forget those first trying months and the things we’d said to each other. But Timmy was willing, and I wanted to make a fresh start. As a peace offering, I said I’d take our body anywhere he wanted to go, giving him the control he had long craved. To my surprise he said he wanted to go to the beach. It was my favourite place to go too. It was a cold, blustery day and we faced out to the sea, with the salty air lashing against our faces. I closed my eyes and breathed deep, enjoying the fresh air in my lungs. I snuck a look at Timmy – He was imitating my expression, his own eyes closed, a relaxed expression on his face. As I took a deep breath, I felt him do the same and my lungs felt so full of life that I wanted to burst. I’d never felt so full of life as I did at that moment. The rush of oxygen made me feel slightly giddy and I had to ease my breathing for fear that I’d faint. Timmy said he wanted to go to an arcade, so I changed up some money and we spent the afternoon on the 2p machines and the dance mats. I’d never done better on the dance mats than I did that day – I gave total control of my lungs and heart to Timmy, and focussed my strength and mind on moving my legs to the images on the screen. Without the burden of breathing, I could go twice as long as I usually could, and found it easier to keep up with the challenging steps. We got the second highest score, and I put Timmy’s name as the tag, out of recognition of his help. I could feel it pleased him. We went home late in the evening, more relaxed than we’d been for months, and as I lay down to go to sleep, Timmy turned his head slightly to me and said ‘That wasn’t so bad, eh my boy?’ ‘No, no it wasn’t’.

I soon found out that Timmy could be quite funny. I think his years without saying anything were the cause, as he often said inappropriate things, which didn’t really abide by social niceties but were very amusing. It was quite refreshing really, to have someone around who just said whatever they were thinking. And he often voiced the things I was thinking but wasn’t brave enough to say. No one knew that he could read my thoughts, so I could get away with them being said and Timmy taking the blame. He didn’t mind; he never realised he’d said anything wrong anyway. It sometimes got a bit much at work; he once commented that the regional director had incredibly bad body odour, suggesting that whilst Mr Jefferies was possibly being considerate of the environment by saving water, he should also try being considerate of his fellow human’s noses and taking a shower once in a while. I almost spat out my sparkling water with laughter, but turned it into a disapproving cough before any of my superiors noticed.

Timmy could be moody though. Sometimes he’d spend days being entirely surly and making scathing remarks about everyone and every thing. Other days he’d just be silent, and spend hours looking at me with his unpleasant gaze. I tried to shake him out of it, but it was tough and his mind was virtually impenetrable. I had to trick him into talking by making him watch hours of daytime soaps. The downside was that I too had to watch hours of daytime soaps, but it was worth it when his mouth started twitching, and he became more and more agitated before finally breaking his silence and telling me to ‘Turn off this shit’. If that didn’t work then I’d just pop in my ear phones and listen to some tunes until he was ready to talk again.

We lived a happy life. It was hard and lonely without a female companion at times, but at the end of the day I always had someone to talk to. And Timmy always had something new and interesting to say; he gave a new perspective on things I’d long had a different opinion on. We grew old, as people do. I could feel it happening. Some days it became too much for Timmy to assist in breathing, and I had to do it for both of us. That really took it out of me. It took it out of Timmy too, who had to fight even harder to stay alive because of his abnormal, weak form. I could sense our time was coming to an end, and Timmy could too. ‘I can’t imagine my life without you, Timmy’ I sighed one day. ‘Nor I, boy’, he said in an old, rumbling voice. ‘You’ve made my days in this world so special’. His voice broke slightly, and I sensed his high emotions. ‘I think it’s going to be over soon though, don’t you?’ I asked him. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him nodding his small, now wrinkled head. ‘Yes, boy. Death is near. You’re not scared are you?’ I was a bit. He sensed my fearful thoughts, ‘Now that’s ridiculous, boy. Death is just another adventure, no different from this one we’ve been having’. I wasn’t convinced, but Timmy didn’t give up. ‘And I’ll be there boy, don’t you worry. You won’t be alone. Let’s just face it as we did the spray of the sea on that sunny day at the beach. You remember?’ ‘Yes I remember, Timmy’. ‘Well then, let’s just face death as we did the sea spray’. And two weeks later, taking a deep, final breath, we closed our eyes and faced the spray of the sea.

Two Heads Pt. 3

I tested Timmy a few times, to work out his capabilities and control over my body. It seemed he could control my breathing and my heart (though it was exhausting for him) but couldn’t control my legs or arms or head. Usually he was fairly placid, content to just look at me as I walked around wherever I pleased. But every now and then he played up. If I was doing something he really didn’t want to do, he’d whine in my ear and if I put earphones in to block out his voice he’d start licking my face. It was disgusting. I had to start wearing a woollen hat with long ear flaps, so whenever he tried to lick my face all he got was a mouthful of fluff. On days where it was too warm to wear the hat, I just covered my cheek and ear in plasters. I knew I looked silly, but there was no one around to see.

Night time was awkward. I’d worked out that I had to sleep on my back as if I slept on either side, either my head fell onto his, or his onto mine, and touching him was unbearable. He may have been made of my skin and cells, but he still felt like an alien form. I couldn’t sleep on my front either, as Timmy’s neck didn’t have the leverage to turn fully to the side, and he started suffocating in the pillow, the pain of which I felt myself moments later. I still did it sometimes though, ‘carelessly’ forgetting that we had to be on our back, just for the satisfying choking sound he made. It was worth the discomfort, though not usually worth the backchat and seething glares I got the next day. He didn’t snore though, so that was lucky, and despite my initial fears that he wouldn’t (like some Gandalf character), he did sleep with his eyes closed. It was the one time I knew he wasn’t watching me and I felt such a relief knowing it. But morning always came round soon enough, and I was faced yet again with a day of his suspicious stares.

For three weeks, I didn’t leave the house. I ordered food online and had it delivered, and I called in sick to work saying I had a malignant growth which needed operating on. It was truthful, in part, though I knew they assumed it was cancer rather than a second head. My mother called several times to see where I was, and I could hear the hurt in her voice when I told her that I was too busy to pop round. Timmy didn’t like it - being cooped up indoors. ‘I’ve spent my entire life only seeing the world through your eyes, boy. Let me see it for myself!’ he’d say. But I wouldn’t let him; I was too ashamed of having two heads. It was only after I had a strange dream that I finally decided to bring an end to my reclusive behaviour. I dreamt that I was in a swimming pool. Timmy was attached to my shoulder, and I was trying to drown him but I couldn’t because he kept licking my face. Then Timmy started speaking, only it wasn’t Timmy’s voice it was David Tennant as Dr Who speaking to me. Timmy’s whole head suddenly turned into David Tennant as Dr Who’s head, and he said to me ‘I’ve got two hearts. Two’s better than one. Two heads are better than one’. And he giggled, and suddenly we were at the seaside, walking along the promenade, with the sun in our faces. ‘Two heads are better than one!’ David Tennant kept saying, giggling. I found myself giggling too. It wouldn’t be too bad having Dr Who’s head next to me all the time, I thought. ‘Two heads are better than one?’ I asked him. ‘Yes! Two heads are better than one,’ he said, excitedly ‘Two heads are better than one!’ It was a shame to wake up the next morning and find I didn’t have the head of David Tennant as Dr Who attached to my body, but a cranky, slightly shrunken head who called himself Timmy, but still, I thought, two heads are better than one. ‘Timmy?’ ‘Yes, boy?’ he answered, yawning. ‘Timmy, we’re going out!’

It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. That first time we didn’t see anyone till we were someway along the street, and apart from a double take, the passer-by simply passed by. In the newsagent, a child pulled on his mother’s sleeve and pointed at us, but that didn’t bother me, as a second later he pointed to a group of teenage Goths who’d just walked in. In a way, I think I was lucky that I was in England when Timmy had grown. The English are so reserved and polite that they felt too rude to question why I had two heads, whereas I’d probably have been lynched in some countries for being a freak. I didn’t always experience such reserve, however; I once encountered a group of kids with a nasty attitude and little to no intelligence between them. They made some low-grade comment about Timmy. To give him his due, quick as a flash he screwed up his face, and fed me thoughts of what to say. With his small head, and wrinkled face, he looked like a shrunken head, and on his cue I mildly threatened the kids with a voodoo curse. Laughter. Timmy started chanting - in Latin - rocking his head from side to side, chanting louder and louder until he was shouting. The laughter had subsided. Timmy let out a high pitched scream, and viciously rocked his head back and forth, opening his eyelids to reveal the whites of his eyeballs. ‘Cast off the devils! Cast off the devils!’ I cried, and lunged toward the group, shaking my arms as if caught in a supernatural spasm. They ran for their lives; I think one child wet himself. Timmy and I walked on, chuckling to ourselves.

Work was tricky. The first day I went back, I walked in and went straight to my desk as I usually did, pretending nothing was wrong. I could see my colleagues looking at me, mouths gaping, but I ignored them. I picked up the phone, ‘Janet, can you send me status reports from the last three weeks?...Yes, great. Thanks, Janet’. People were still staring. ‘What are you looking at, bozos?’ Timmy sneered. ‘Get back to work before I have Sheila in HR slap an intolerance warning on your employment records’. Staff quickly got back to work, and I tried to ignore their eyes boring into the back of our heads for the rest of the day. The next day my boss was in. ‘Mornin-‘ he stopped dead in his tracks. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it when he realised nothing was coming out. He turned and kept walking, only to stop again and look at me. ‘I-‘ still not able to finish his sentence, he walked off to his office and shut the door, though through the morning I could see him peering through the blinds at me every so often, quickly replacing them when I glanced his way. I received an email requesting a meeting that afternoon. ‘Now, about this…situation we have’ he said, grimacing slightly. ‘Actually, my name’s Timmy’, said Timmy. ‘Oh, you speak?’ He looked quite flustered. ‘Yes, of course I speak’, sneered my small head. The silence was awkward; I had some inspiration – ‘Two heads are better than one, right, Sir?’ ‘Yes, but…but…’. Timmy stepped in - ‘You’re not about to discriminate against us, are you Sir?’ ‘What? No, no of course not. It’s just quite an unusual situation, you see, and I’m not sure the company can cater for- I mean, there’s the security-‘. ‘I can’t see the problem, Sir’, I said. ‘And I’m sure my lawyer would support my claim that this won’t affect my work’. ‘Lawyer?’ my boss tapped his sweaty forehead with a hankie. ‘No, no, that won’t be necessary. We’ll just…work though it. Yes’. I stood up. ‘Glad to hear it, Sir. And thank you for your understanding’. I could sense that Timmy was about to make a sarcastic comment, so I walked out sharpish.

Before Timmy grew from my neck, I’d been dating this girl called Claire. She was a nice, pretty girl. She annoyed me a bit at times, because she always talked about really mundane things, like her hairdressing appointment, or about seeing a funny looking dog on her way to work, but I still quite liked her. She’d always been sweet and considerate and I thought perhaps she could live with me, despite Timmy’s presence. I called her and told her about the situation, and to my relief she agreed to see me. But when she first saw him, she gasped in horror. I’ll never forget that look on her face as her eyes took in Timmy’s small, bald head. She recovered her manners and apologised for her initial reaction but as we talked, I could see her eyes flicking back every few seconds to Timmy’s head. It didn’t help that he kept saying things like, ‘Mmm, come here, babe, and give me some of that sug-ah’. I asked her to try to ignore the head. ‘I’m sorry’, she cried. ‘But I don’t know where to look! It’s positively ridiculous that you have grown a new head!’ I didn’t see her again after that. She clearly couldn’t accept me if I came with Timmy. I don’t think any girl would. ‘Oh well, boy’, Timmy said. ‘At least you’ll always have me’. And I would always have Timmy; I could never get rid of him. I started crying. Really crying. Falling to my knees, I cried out of despair, out of anger, out of disgust, draining myself of all emotion. I cried for hours, a flood of tears soaking my clothes. I cried until I was utterly exhausted and my eyes and throat soar and until I could barely breathe. I lay down on my back on the carpet and tried to regain my breath. ‘There, there’, said Timmy. ‘Do you feel better now?’ I didn’t answer; my mind had gone blank and a calm had descended over my body. ‘You know the sooner you start accepting me, the better it’ll be for everyone’. Perhaps he was right. I’d been repelling him from the outset; never welcoming him into my life or trying to get to know him, always suspicious of his motives. I sighed then took a deep breath. ‘You’re right, Timmy. I’m sorry. Let’s start again’.

Two Heads Pt. 2

I came around a few minutes later. ‘Well, that was unnecessary’ said a voice in my right ear. ‘This can’t be happening’, I said to myself. ‘Well it is, my boy’, said the voice. ‘You ought to just get used to it’. ‘But how?’ I asked. ‘This doesn’t make sense. Where did you come from? Have you been in my body this entire time?’ ‘Yes, I’ve been there the entire time’, said the voice. My head was spinning; this was a scientific impossibility. It cannot possibly have just grown out of my own body. It must have been an alien; I must have been abducted, and something planted in my skin without me knowing. ‘Are you an alien?’ I asked. ‘Of course I’m not an Alien,’ he scoffed. ‘Then what are you? Who are you?’ ‘I’m you’, he said matter-of-factly. ‘Well, I’m me I suppose. Because whilst I’m you, I also have my own mind, my own thoughts, and my own head. I suppose we’re one body, and two minds. I’ve not yet been given a name though, if that’s what you mean by asking who I am. Call me Timmy’.

It was difficult giving this head an existence by giving it a name, so at first I just addressed him as head. But it became ridiculous when he started calling me head in return and so I relented and started calling him Timmy. The worst thing about Timmy was the way he stared at me. I could sense him looking at me all the time, but every time I glanced his way, his eyes quickly averted. Whilst his head was angled slightly toward mine, he still had to look quite far to his left to see me and with his dark, glittering eyes it made him look quite furtive. I became paranoid that he was plotting against me, and thought some dark intention lurked in his gaze. I’d ask him to quit with his staring. ‘I’m not staring, my boy’, he’d say. But if I walked us past a reflective surface, I could see him looking, staring, plotting away at me. I put dark sunglasses on him one day, ones he could barely see out of, but he bucked his head back and forward until they slid off, and I knew it was no good. I put a bag over his head another time, but he started screaming. I tried to blank it out, but he kept screaming and screaming; a scream so blood-curdling that I was worried the neighbours would hear and come to investigate. He was fuming when I took it off, almost foaming at the mouth. ‘Don’t you EVER do that again, boy’, he seethed, ‘I’ll make your life a living hell’.

One day I tried to pull the head off. Timmy gnawed and spat at me in earnest, useless really without any hands and with such a small, weak head. It hurt though. It was like I was pulling a limb off, and I collapsed on the carpet, exhausted both physically and emotionally. ‘Now, that wasn’t very nice, was it, boy?’ Timmy wheezed, out of breath himself. He never mentioned it again, but I could tell he didn’t forget it. His eyes gazed at me even more keenly after that time. I had worse thoughts; thoughts of murder, or surgery to remove him from my shoulder. My mind raced with the possibilities; I could have him shot, I could strangle him, I could go to- ‘I wouldn’t do any of those things if I were you, boy’ Timmy murmured. What? Could he hear my thoughts? ‘Of course I can hear your thoughts, boy. And I must say, I really don’t like the way they’ve been heading recently’. I tried to blank all thought. ‘Why shouldn’t I have you killed?’ I blurted. ‘You’re completely ruining my life!’ ‘Because I control you, boy’, he said and went silent. I risked a look at him. His eyes were open, but they were unfocussed, like he was concentrating internally. I was about to ask him what he was talking about when I felt it. My heart. It started beating faster; quicker and quicker until it was quite erratic. I bought my hand to my chest when I suddenly felt a fierce pain. Like someone had taken my heart in their fist and squeezed it tightly. I gasped, and the pressure released. ‘Yes’, said Timmy, clearing his throat. ‘I think we’ve got that sorted, don’t we boy? I want to live, and you want to live, so we’ll just have to live together. And if I think I'm about to die, I can make you die too’.

Two Heads Pt. 1

I’d just left the corner shop when I felt it happen; an odd, tingling sensation between my neck and my right shoulder. I instinctively scratched it away, only to feel the exact same feeling arise a few seconds later. By the time I had reached the traffic lights the tingling had changed to an ache in the muscle and I started rubbing it for some relief. However, the rubbing had completely the opposite affect and the ache turned into a slow burn, heating my skin. I rushed on, eager to get home to examine my neck, but as I turned up the alley way, just minutes from my house, the burn turned into a ripping pain. My right arm tensed involuntarily and a white-hot pain shot from my shoulder stopping me in my tracks; my face became distorted with the pain, and my mouth stretched open. I tried to cry out but another jolt of pain stunned the air from my lungs and I was unable to make a sound. It eased for a second, becoming a dull throb and I dropped to the floor, gasping; a film of sweat over my face. Then it hit again and I fell onto my back, twisting on the floor, trying to pull my head as far from my shoulder as possibly. I threw my hand to my neck, trying to knead away the pain but to my horror, my finger tips felt movement under the skin, an alien-like bubbling stretching the surface, pressing upwards. I tried to push it down, but it was too strong and the pain was too great and another wave forced my hand away in a spasm. Another wrenching stab of pain and I found myself screaming, my eyes locked wide open, my back arched away from the ground in agony as the alien-thing forced through. I could feel my skin stretching, a new form moulding, rising up beside my head, pushing and stretching, tearing at muscle ligaments, pushing bone aside. The pain was so great I felt I’d be burned up in its explosive heat. Another surge of pain so excruciating that blurry stars began to dance before my eyes and I felt I was going to die. Then suddenly it stopped. The pain vanished, all except for a dull ache to remind me of and the sting of grazes on my arms as I’d writhed against the gravel. Exhausted, my head dropped back against the ground and my eyes closed. My lungs opened again, gasping for much needed air. I lay for several minutes, perhaps longer, waiting for my heart to return to its normal speed and my muscles to relax from their contorted state. My mind was frozen to all thought except the feel of a pain-free body. Slowly the calls of the birds in the trees, the hum of the insects and the faint sounds of distant traffic returned to my ears. It was so calm, I almost cried at the beauty. But then I heard it; a rasping breath just next to my right ear. I fearfully turned my head slightly to face it, only to find an eye, inches away looking at me intently. I couldn’t turn my head more than a fraction it was so close. Not just one eye, but two, attached to a human head, small but fully formed. The head’s rasping breaths came out in moist gasps onto my mouth. I glanced to the base of the head out of the corner of my eye. The neck of the head protruded from my own body. I passed out with the shock.

The Werewolf Game

I went to a murder mystery on Saturday. They’ve really got with the times on those games – they come with dvd footage complete with dodgy scripts and OTT acting. Brilliant. Aside from discovering that my Italian accent is fairly appalling, I also discovered this game later in the evening:

http://www.eblong.com/zarf/werewolf.html

It was so much fun. Everyone gets really involved and people make accusations all over the place. I think I played it too aggressively though – instead of the ‘tapping’ suggested in the version above, we used a version where we slapped our thighs and yelled ‘sex and brains’ repeatedly until the morning section. I consequently have these weird bruises on my thighs. We also played a version where we had a healer as well as a Seer. The healer could pick someone (including themselves) to heal each night. It's a good game if you're an accomplished liar.

Be warned – I will attempt to play this game at any future party I organise/am invited to.

Re-enactment!

So I had a brilliant idea – to ward of the tedium that is human life, I thought it would be a really cool idea to re-enact album covers. I admittedly stole this idea from a website, but it occurred to me that a lot of fun could be had from this - there are thousands to choose from and I have a lot of time on my hands. They’d have to be fairly good mind, with a bit of photo-shopping here and there and a fair amount of effort, but the finished piece could be wonderful. I’m recruiting a friend tonight to get started, and cover by cover, we could really pile these up. I suggested this project to a friend of mine, and whilst I initially thought it could be a good idea to make it a competition between the two of us, I then thought that we could cover much more by working together. So watch this space. Album covers will be coming your way…

Lessening excitement

I think that the older you get, the less excitement you’ll be able to feel. Already it’s happened in certain ways – Christmas and birthdays no longer hold the exhilaration they once did. Whilst music and books currently hold an excitement, eventually you’ll have heard and seen so much that nothing can surprise you or excite you in the same way that it did when you were younger. It’s a sobering thought to think it’ll be a rare occurrence that you’ll come across something that you’ve never seen before and have no experience of. I don’t think you can really get excited about the same thing time and time again, unless you’re incredibly lucky or have a childlike mentality. And the fact is that every new thing you do experience is always hindered by yourself – the fact that it’s you experiencing it, with your history, your memories and your prejudices. You can never experience anything with a completely open mind, because you’ll always be coming at it with a mind clouded with your previous experiences. I suggested this to a friend, and he said that the main feelings of excitement that he continued to feel as he got older were mainly sexual. Thinking back, the moments when you’ve first gotten physically close to someone stand out as exciting more than anything else, where your whole body is alive with the moment, and your mind can’t think about anything other than right then and there and the person you’re with. I originally thought that this could be the only true excitement in life, and whilst I think this is probably the most consuming excitement you can feel, I now don’t think that excitement is solely limited to sexual activity, but is somewhat limited to human interaction. People will always be a mystery – you can generalise and stereotype, but most people will always have a different view to offer on something and until you get to know them you can never fully predict how they’ll act or what they’ll say. Some will have more to offer than others, and the problem is that it’s hard to get to fully know people – most are understandably very closed off to revealing things about themselves and don’t always tell you what they’re truly thinking. You’ll often have to pry deeply to discover their true thoughts, and unless you offer something of yourself in return it can come across as intrusive. But you have to try. And every now and then you’ll meet someone willing to share a little of themselves and someone who has something worthwhile to offer. So yeah, I do think that excitement will fade for most things in life, but as long as you try to meet as many new people as possible, those initial moments – the first time you experience someone’s thoughts and their feelings, their reactions to things you’ve already seen – will help to keep life exciting.

My weekend in films

Being as all my friends in the entire world (apart from a few) were at V this past weekend, I had a fairly low key few days – films with friends, etc. I watched The Life of David Gale, Ghost World, and then Mystic River. In a strange coincidence, following my reading on the US death penalty last week, that night the life of David Gale appeared on ITV2 (my sister having told me what it was about a few years previously), and whilst I don’t think it’s fate or anything so crazy, if you have a coincidence like that, if there are two opportunities or mentions of something in a short space of time, then I’m of the opinion that you should follow it through. So I taped it on our jazzy hard-drive and watched it on Friday. I hadn’t realised both Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet were cast in it, but they were, and they were good. Kevin especially – playing this professor whose life has completely fallen apart through a series of unfortunate circumstances. A thought provoking film – with the idea that in many cases you can never be 100% sure that a person is guilty, and that small doubt should be enough to prevent you from killing them. One argument the campaigners against the death penalty use is that it not only ruins the life of the accused, it also ruins the lives of the family, and everyone who knew the accused. Something along the lines of ‘evil spreads’, I guess. I went charity shop hopping on Saturday – a good place to pick up cheap films, though the selection is often limited. Picked up a film called Mystic River – directed by Clint, and starring Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Laura Linney, who was coincidentally also in David Gale – this coincidence to me was a sure sign that I should pick it up. It kind of continued the theme that evil spreads – a guy who was abused as a child can’t quite escape his past, and the situation all sort of spirals out of control. Sean Penn was brilliant – ever since I saw him in Milk, I think he’s ace. It’s astounding how he can entirely create and become a new character, and the fact that he’s Sean Penn just passes you by. I’m not sure I can think of any other actors, no matter how good they are, who can entirely make you forget who they really are. It’s usually always in the back of your mind that they’re portraying someone– not with Sean though. I believe him.

The meaning of life

I’ve always wanted a label for myself – a philosophy that I could belong to, be it Existentialist, Marxist or whatever - and everything I do, everything I read is for that purpose of trying to find something that I truly believe in. I’ve always been jealous that many of my peers seem so sure of themselves and their opinions, when I feel like a mess most of the time, my mind all over the place, and no certainty about anything or anyone. But I’ve just finished reading Albert Camus and suddenly I’m not so concerned that I don’t belong to any group of thought and haven’t made any decisions. Perhaps later in life, when I’m older, more experienced and well-read, I will find myself settling in an area but it now seems absurd to want to close-yourself off to one outlook, when it’s really so much more exciting and important to be confused and unsure what’s right, and to be constantly striving and looking for answers. Camus was like that – he rarely sided himself with any particular philosophy and refused the labels that critics tried to give him. Apparently he was an Existentialist or an Absurdist, but he refused these labels, and each piece of writing seemed an enhancement of the previous piece, as he came closer and closer to what he thought was the meaning of life. Seemingly, he created his own philosophy, and whilst it was based on existing schools of thought, it wasn’t restricted to it. I read The Outsider, and I suddenly feel like a weight has been lifted off of me. Whilst I know I need to read more of his work and the work of other philosophers, the initial effect of his writing is liberating. I’ve been struggling with the idea that life is meaningless, that everything we do is pointless, and it won’t lead anywhere and each day we live just brings us closer to the end. A lot of the things that I see in life are dark; on a global level, with many people seeming to be inherently selfish, willing to leave half the world suffering and in poverty, whilst other people commit evil crimes against each other, through warfare and hatred, and the outcome is the same, with so many lives ending in unhappiness. Even on a personal level, I meet a lot of people who are so focussed on their own lives and feelings that they don’t care if their own actions hurt others. Absurdism is the idea that it’s humanly impossible to discover the meaning of life. Because either you admit defeat, and end up committing suicide or you find religion – and even if you decide God is the meaning of life, what’s the meaning of God? We can strive on earth to get to Heaven when we die, but once in Heaven, what’s the meaning? What is there to strive for? It’s surely just a bland, pointless existence with no purpose. Camus rejects absurdism, and suggests that the meaning of life lies within ourselves – setting our own meanings, through achieving whatever we wish to achieve in life, or constantly striving to see the beauty in life - the split second when something amazing happens, when someone does something wonderful or when you fulfil a dream, or when the earth renders you speechless. Constantly looking for those moments, all the while knowing that this is it, and there’s nothing beyond this life. You have to accept that life is futile, but not succumb to it. And that battle is what makes life worth living. And perhaps one way to give our lives meaning is to support each other and mankind, striving to make each other’s lives as good as possible, whether through charity work or education, through music or literature, or even on a more basic level of trying to positively effect and improve the lives of those people around you every day.

The power to punish

I read this week that corporal punishment at school is still legal in about 19 states in America. It had never occurred to me that kids can still be hit in schools; it seems so outdated given that it was banned in the UK about 20 years ago. Then I remembered that this country still has the death penalty, and it suddenly didn’t seem so shocking that punishment could be dished out in the form of inflicting pain on another person. I was certain that I didn’t believe in the Death Penalty, but I then a few days after this I watched an episode of Bones, where a guy was on death row for killing a young girl, and the lead character (a liberal sort of person) said that she agreed in the death penalty for people like the men in Rwanda who’d hacked hundreds of children to death at their desks at school. I’d always thought a worse punishment would be to spend the rest of your life in prison, but what’s the point? And do people like those Rwandans deserve to keep on living? These people aren’t and won’t contribute to society, could potentially get out of their sentence later in life and are a financial burden on the people that their crimes have affected (in the U.S. it costs approximately $30,000 a year to keep a prisoner). It’s not about money though, really – it’s about how much evil you have to commit, and how many human rights you abuse before you start losing yours.

The original article though was about the fact that a disproportionately high amount of corporal punishments in schools in the US are given to students with disabilities. 13.7% of students in the US have disabilities, and 18.8% of corporal punishments are given to them (20.8% in Texas – 10,222 out of 49,157 beatings in 2008). I don’t think teachers should be allowed to physically discipline children.

I know who designed your shirt.

I bought a new guitar today (a Guild Gad-F20 for those with the guitar knowledge); a beautiful instrument for a mere £549. I think that’s the single largest sum I’ve ever paid for one item, and I felt a little shaky for at least the next hour, worrying that I’d made the wrong decision and spent loads of my savings with a few clicks of a mouse. It was due to be delivered tomorrow, but I received a call from the supplier saying that they’d checked the guitar and it was damaged beyond sellable (I discussed this with a friend, and he thinks ‘damaged beyond sellable’ probably meant the neck had been snapped off – the usual wear and tear) and they’d have to send away for a new one, which would take 7 – 10 days. The retail price has now risen £80 (because of the economic downturn) but fortunately I’ll still get it for the original price, so I now feel relieved to have bought it at the right time (the shaking has subsided) – what with my plans to move out next month, I can’t really justify spending another £80 on what is really a few polished bits of wood, and some bits of metal.

So yes, I’m planning on moving out next month. As I hit my 22nd birthday last month, I realised that I'm getting on a bit (just reaching my physical peak according to some article I read a few months ago) and I need to shake things up a bit – I love Billericay (boy, I do) but it doesn’t in any way provide a challenging or exciting existence. My friend Lucy is in a similar position, and so we’re pursuing two rooms in the east London area (preferably Bethnal green, Shoreditch way). We went to look round one place – a 7 bedroom funky townhouse in Aldgate, with a lovely roof terrace - with a 'I wouldn't lean on that if I were you' railing. We went for drinks before the meeting – to catch up and also to quell our nerves slightly at the impending housemate interview. Unfortunately, we were both a bit tipsy when we arrived (15 minutes later than we’d said we’d be there). After the tour, we were asked to sit in the living room to ‘chill out’ for a while. The alcohol had made Lucy dozy, and as she sat down, she found it hard to keep her eyes open. I was on fire though – cracking jokes, telling stories, relating my hobbies, giving interesting facts (these facts were met with silences before I inserted the old ‘well, I thought that was interesting’ – probably not a good sign). After 5/10 minutes of slightly awkward chat we left, and as soon as we were out of earshot, burst into laughter. It was a weird experience being interviewed on a personal level, rather than a professional level. Still, an email the next day suggested that we’d passed, and the rooms were ours. Sadly, neither of us could afford the larger, more expensive room (which we really knew before we went to look at the place), so we had to say no. Good to be wanted though – even when one of us was asleep, and the other wouldn’t shut up about inane rubbish, five strangers gave us the mark of approval.

Anyway, shortly after buying my Guitar, I wandered across Millennium Bridge at lunch to go to the Tate Modern. London was looking beautiful. The sun softly shone in my face, the warm breeze brushed my bare arms, and even the hundreds of tourists taking photos of St Paul’s didn’t bother me. Usually I huff at them for walking slowly and suddenly stopping right in front of me and walking five across on the pavement with no consideration for those who need to pass the other way, but today it didn’t vex me at all. I even considered offering to take photos for families – there’s always one person left out who has to take the photo (usually the Dad), and I bet they’d love to have a photo of the whole family. I could either do it as a good Samaritan (to make myself feel good) or I could do it in exchange for cash. I’d probably have to dress down, as a student maybe, not as a homeless person, because people might not give 50p (recommended pricing) a photo to a professional. It would obviously be a strictly summer pursuit, as there aren’t so many tourists round St. Paul’s over winter, but at 50p a photo, or even 20p, and a 1 hour lunch break, I could make myself a fair amount. And if put on the spot, I bet tourists never really know what our weird foreign money is worth). There’s actually this homeless guy who always parks himself at the end of Millennium Bridge with a sign and a hat for money, who I could possibly forward this business plan onto. I don’t think he gets much, as this guy in a wheelchair sits a short distance away playing one of those Caribbean tin drums, and I think people would rather give to him. The flaw in this plan is that there’s always a chance that people wouldn’t trust their nice, expensive digital cameras to a stranger who’s clearly desperate for money, and could probably run quite fast. Though if they’re homeless, they’re probably starving and might not have the energy to run. A tourist probably won’t analyse how hungry and therefore how much energy the guy who’s just offered to take their photo for cash has. I’ll look into this, and report back at a later date.

Whilst in the Tate shop, looking through a picture book of red army propaganda, I spotted a book by David Byrne – ‘The Bicycle Diaries’. Being a huge Talking Heads (and consequent Byrne) fan, my eyes lit up. Whilst the content and style of the book seemed like it would be The David Byrne, no other information suggested it was by him, and I didn’t want to foolishly waste my money on a book about fold-up bikes by some random dude. I got back to the office and googled it, and it was only by The David Byrne, wasn't it? I’ll go back tomorrow and buy it, but whilst on David’s wikipedia page, I saw a link to his Journal (which I’d heard about recently because of his criticism of U2’s un-green world tour – he makes a good point). So I spent a short while reading Dave’s journal, and it’s a very good read. It’s fluidly written and covers a lot of subjects. I recommend it. A year or so ago I started a blog (with a total of two or three entries), and this spurred me on to start it up again. Sure my life isn’t as interesting as D’s (see Thom Yorke identifying the fashion designer who designed Byrne’s shirt - this has, as of yet, never happened to me), but every now and then something happens which I’m sure I can relate in a vaguely interesting way. The real trick is to keep them fairly short, so I’ve already ruined this one. And nothing that happened today should really be of any interest to anyone other than myself. But it killed 30 minutes for me, and if you were sensible enough to skim-read, then it probably only wasted about two minutes for you. And you can get that back by waking up a bit earlier tomorrow.