Vignette XX

I suppose it was inevitable. It had to be. I don't suppose I would have known what to do if it wasn't.

I'm...losing the will. The wrong person, or the wrong time, or going about it the wrong way. Nothing ever goes right.

So. Here's to the end of the week, the end of the degree, and to a certain extent the end of the world. I brought this one on myself, so no sympathy, thank you.

Even losers must make do.

Send the boy away, there is no place for him here. Not now. You need nothing but fire and clay. Go to hell.

...Please turn on your magic beam...

I remember when I met Morpheus. I remember where I met Morpheus. I remember how I met Morpheus. Dream, of the Endless.

I'd been interested in joining the Forum Library for a while. The UEA book bunker doesn't to graphic novels, but thankfully their sheet music collection is pretty good. There's an eight shelf island just past the borrowing machines in the Millenium library that's full of graphic novels, trade paperbacks, one-shots and so on. There's also a six shelf island that's full of Manga. Thanks to the library, I've been able to read the entire works of Nemesis the Warlock, several Batman series, Transformers Spotlights and so on and so forth.

One day, I was getting the train. I'd misread the timing and ended up in town an hour early. I don't know how, but I did. This was my second year, mind you, so I was probably just trying to get out of the house. I pulled into the library, and wandered up to the graphic novel island. Skimming across the shelves, I thought it was time to step up to the plate, and picked up Preludes and Nocturnes. This is the first collected volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic. I say comic. I have difficulty in imagining buying Sandman in a monthly format, having never been a big comics buyer anyway. I'd always been afraid of the Sandman series, due to Dave McKean's artwork on the cover. There's nothing really frightening about it all. It's...how do you say, very primal. Raw and genuine. It is fully in control of its own mesmeric power. Anyway. As a child I was scared and intimidated by it, so I stayed well away. Having polished off Grant Morrison's Batman Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, illustrated completely by McKean, I felt more confident, and took the plunge.

As the entire world already knows, Neil Gaiman is one of the most incredible writers ever. As you progress through the narrative, the entire mythology of the Endless is built from the ground up, appearing out of nowhere, an immacualte conception of fantasy. The Endless are...well, they are the personifications of universal ideas. Death, of course, being the most obvious, the end of all things, and Destruction, the personification of energy. The others are immaterial in aspect; Destiny, Despair, Desire and Delerium (formerly Delight). And of course, Dream.

Dream of the Endless, in his guise as Morpheus, the eponymous Sandman. Reading his character description on the most ubiquitous of all internet resources, passages like these leap of the page: "He is sometimes slow when dealing with humor, occasionally insensitive, often self-obsessed, and is very slow to forgive or forget a slight. He has a long history of failed romances...", "...defeated by his most tragic flaw, his inability to accept change..." and from Season of Mists, "accumulating names to himself as others make friends, but he permits himself few friends." I feel very close to dream. I too have more names than I will ever have friends. The only thing that reall seems to change about me is my weight and my appearance. Nothing in my wardrobe screams summer more than my current new taste in Cravats, but seeing as they're just archaic ties, where's the real difference anyway?

Ultimately, Dream is the most human of all the Endless, he is like an everyman. He makes mistakes, he condemns jilted lovers (I mean, who hasn't wanted the other party in an unsuccessful love affair to go to hell? Just sayin'), he has a house and grounds to tend to...kind of like normal people, if normal people were near-omnipotent spectral personifications of concepts. The Sandman series is a journey that we take with Morpheus, hand in hand, where we see these things happen. Where we see him consider the important things. Ultimately he makes a choice, whether to change or not. As he cannot, will not, must not, or crucially chooses not to change, he dies instead. What? Sorry, but I am a living spoiler. Morpheus ceases to be, but Dream does not. You must, dear reader, peruse the 10th book, The Wake, in order to discover what really happens in the end.

I'm sure there are times when anyone who's read Sandman can see a little bit of themselves reflected back at them in the shape of Morpheus; maybe, sometimes its something they don't want to see, and sometimes that's important. Criticism, especially when it comes from within is one of the most important and powerful forces of personal development.

The Wake touches me. It makes me cry. You heard me. It makes me sad in a way that I can't deal with. Maybe it makes me think about my death. But I'm not really worried about dying. I don't particularly wish to die, that much is true, but it comes to us all, and when my time is then my time is up. Like the Big Man, I'm not going until I'm done. But you read Morpheus' Wake and see for yourself. There's a copy in Derby Central, I'm sure they don't have it in Norfolk at all because it's too beautiful.

So go and meet Morpheus for yourself. Make your own mind up. Find him, and maybe he'll find you. Sweet dreams.

Vignette XIX

Some things are so secret, you can keep them from yourself. And you can even forget that you're hiding it. And then, of course, you remember.

I said I had a rule. I have a rule for a reason; to stop me from making the same mistake again. But...well.

Not to mention I can never tell when it's all gone a little too far.

Oh. Well.

Decisions, Decisions

You may notice that after March and April's fiesta of writing, things have calmed down a little round here. A lot's been going off, actually! Unlike the end of March, when I was stuck in writing my dissertation, the natural reflex was just to keep writing, funnily enough. I'm so much better at dealing with things in this written fashion, as you will well know by now. But this is a tough time. You know. I've two weeks before my final recital, and I haven't sorted my program out at all. TCHAM! Ok. Shit. No, it'll be fine. I mean, since when have I done it any other way? See? It'll be just like the good old days.

However. In the last few days I have made my mind up. About a lot of things, actually. The biggest of these is that I won't be staying in Norwich next year. OUCH. I know. I need a rest from higher education, but I need to stay away from home, basically. If I go back to Derby, what will I do? They won't have me at the Cathedral, and there sure isn't anything more singing in Derby, especially for money. I can't go home for any great length of time. There's no time these days to plan in relative relaxation for the next step, and to be fair, I should have come to this conclusion before the end of last year. But we all know how that year went.

I am casting the net, and looking at the Chuch Times. Oh yes. Time to find a place on the stall and trade my Songman status for a Choral Scholarship. If I want to continue my musical studies in any serious way, I'll need experience. And to me, there is no greater experience for a singer except for singing every day, which pretty much leaves one place only.
I've been very unfortunate at UEA, mostly having the wrong sort of face, or certainly the wrong sort of voice. My characteristic pungency and projection are definitely unwelcome.

With settling on an exit from Norwich, we have to consider the next most pressing matter. What about a girl? Well. What about a girl. It's funny really. I've made so many consecutive bad decisions that I don't know whether it's worth bothering any more. However. Last night, I basically ran into what I consider to be an unofficial Fan Club, made up of a small cadre of girls who live just across the courtyard! I promise to always look to your window when I pass. Hilarious! I still feel too flattered to do much about it, but you know. There's a glimmer of potential. I might just heave myself from my self loathing and do something about it. There's no time like the present, but I'm genuinely worried! You understand all the usual things. Mine is to do and die, regardless of how much of a scaredy I am.
But...I no longer Dream of Spires, nor any other vapid specimen. I've spent a long time wasting my time on people who will not and never will return my affection. I've been very very angry over the past few days about that specifically. People who turn out to be, at the punch, completely useless and not interested, but don't have the wherewithal to say so for definite. Because I so do love wasting my time. I reached this new level of ground a little while ago, but was looking back somewhat. Now, I won't turn around. Not even like Orpheus, out of curiosity. Ho ho!

On a day to day basis though, I'm doing a little more. I'm piling on the pounds after the disaster that was the Easter holiday health crash, and have been eating very serious amounts of very good food. Only two days ago did I make a Pasta sauce from nothing but bacon, garlic, chilis and chopped tomatoes. Absolutely godly! It won't be long before the Captain's Curry House can add a Trattoria next door. I'm getting up earlier on a more consistent basis as well, probably due to the sunlight streaming in through the gap between my shelf and the curtain...and the incredible amounts of booze I have ingested lately. Drinking always helps me get up early, as many a sunday morning can testify...
Ok, not many. But a few. I mean, I'm only saving up my Alcohol unit allowance to one point in the week, right? That's ok? Isn't it?
No, on the whole I'm much more active. It is the sunlight, what with me being solar powered, and the fact that I've now got my bicycle back on the road always does me good.

Now. You will excuse me. I have a lot of washing up to do, and then I must sojourn to the first floor of this flat. I'm far too worried to go to anybody else's for starters, but I have a place here. And will for a long time.

Vignette XVIII

I'll admit it, I can't take it anymore. I'm crushed, and battered, and beaten by disinterest, misadventure and plain idiocy. I am driven to destruction through ignorance. I grimly await the tides of madness to sweep me away. Why won't they hurry?

I have been less angry, shall we say. Hnnn.

I am a bitter man. I live by my regrets for the most part, sorry to say. Follow my words, but not my deeds, as I can't even follow them myself. I don't have very much longer here. I need to sort it all out, and right soon.

I regret.

I regret the pain. I regret the sorrow. I regret not being there. I regret running away and hiding. I regret the hurt. I regret losing touch. I regret all the heartbreak. I regret the fights. I regret the namecalling. I regret my lack of gratitude. I regret being afraid.

I regret not saying that I love you.