Friday 8 March 2013

Anthony Esposito - 03/03/1986



Dear Kitty,
      I must apologise immediately about two things. Firstly, I neither set out nor desired to give this entry the title I have, but sometimes one finds that outside matters overtake you and impose themselves upon your thoughts, like immortal parasites, they lodge themselves to your internal streams and suck away quietly. So partly, I have decided not stick my head the sand, but to expose these alien intruders, I have taken the path of siding with nature and not turning from what unnaturally occupies my thoughts. But I have also gone with this title because it seems to embody so much of how I feel right now, that everything is so unfair in the world.
      Secondly, I must apologise for using bad language this morning to Mummy. It is no excuse, but I was furious with her blank words and even blanker stare at such an early hour. I usually have the fortitude to control my words, even faced with such heightened emotion, and remain civilised in the hope that I might exist in a civilised world. I don’t really believe that mother is what I called her, although I’m not sure she didn’t deserve to feel the sting of it.
      Though I might hate Mummy and Daddy for their lack of understanding and compulsion to compromise to societal norms at the moment, I positively despise Anthony Esposito. He is everything that is wrong with the world.
      It is not that I find distasteful the fact that the little red-brick bungalow across the way looks decidedly out-of-place and unkempt among a lane of large, well-established rare Georgian sandstone dwellings. It is not his uncle’s rotund, perpetually uncovered beer-belly with its brown-leathery sideways horizon sporting horrid grey hairs  that bothers me. It is not even the apparent idleness of Master Esposito’s entire demeanour which sickens me. No. What I really hate is the noise he makes. At every given opportunity he seems to be hammering at the drum kit in his little garage, or revving his uncle’s car when his uncle happens to have gone out on foot. He veritably drowns out all the nature in the world and fills it with inane, pointless, repetitive, grating noise.
  After mother and I had our obligatory morning shouting match and she left for work, I decided that I would venture up to the attic at some point today - a place I haven’t been for years - to explore what will seem to me now, like a new space. I took one of Daddy’s screwdrivers and the stepladder from the utility room and carefully removed the catch so that no-one could detect where I had been when I re-attached it.
I fed my bedside lamp up by an extension lead in the hall and was soon scanning round the classic graveyard of items removed from our main living space, due to a perceived uselessness or just plain ugliness. This graveyard to me, however, has a tonne more character than our clinically-arranged, neutrally-themed modern-minimalist existence downstairs.
I was in my element: rummaging through old suitcases of photos of people I never knew, emptying bags of cuddly toys I’d long forgotten, blowing dust from the thick, beautiful editions of books I never imagined could exist between these four sterile walls. From under a stack of sun-bleached, dog-eared board games I pulled a dusty old eighties Smith Corona electric typewriter. It had been bashed around beyond repair and the stickers which donned the half-cover plastic case had been scribbled on, years ago with biro. A a red oval sticker which should probably have said “Bisto” or something, instead said “Kill Me Now” in a bold black font and scribbled around it, in different inks in a dreadfully messy hand was “Concept of time” above, “grandiose ideas” below and “I have a gun and I’m not afraid to use it” at the side.
As I was putting it back, I noticed a slot at the frontin which contained an old floppy disk port. I pressed the mechanical eject button and was surprised to find a yellowed plastic square simply marked “back-up” in neat freehand, which I duly popped in my pocket.
After a good rake around and satisfying my curiosity sufficiently to call it a successful day, I replaced everything the way it was, except for the dust, and bolted back the attic.
I wonder if I will ever be able to see the contents of the floppy disc. I am curious to find out if it has anything on it and who it was by – and this brings me directly to my old ted, Mystery, and one last apology. You see, Kitty, you are not my only friend, old Mystery was here before you and I apologise profusely to him for forgetting about him. Sorry Mystery, you have always been there when I needed a hug, you are my first, best and foremost friend and you shall now have the honour of being Kitty’s guardian.

Mother has just been in to shout at me again about my attitude, the great school debate and my wasted potential. Potential, potential, if I hear that word one more time I should positively scream these four walls down.
For now, goodnight Mystery, goodnight Kitty, let tomorrow bring some adventure for once.

-

     Have just been woken up by that foul, inconsiderate boy across the lane. Strolling home at 1 am, singing loudly and out of tune like an idiot. I doubt I shall get back to sleep for another hour thanks to that degenerate boy. His noise irritates me, his voice irritates me, why, even the way his uncombed hair stupidly flops over one eye irritates me! Goodnight again Kitty, hopefully his uncle will sell his house soon and the boy will end up in some detention centre or rehabilitation camp where he belongs.

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