An anniversary

As such. Two years to this day that I was beaten up whilst walking home from town.
It was raining and the time was between 10:30 and 11:00 pm. I’d just left the paradise balti house and was pretty much in a world of my own. I’d stuck my cap on and had my pony tail through the back, my ear phones were in and I wasn’t paying attention. I walked into the subway completely oblivious to the small kid that was stood leant against the far wall. When I got closer he approached me and mumbled something. I took my earphones out so I could hear what he was saying but he was talking nonsense. He kept asking me what I was doing and telling me that I shouldn’t be in the town, that it was his town and I shouldn’t be there. I tried to walk past him but he moved to get in my way.

In truth I panicked and ended up shoving past him so I could get out onto the street again. He pulled me around and ripped my hat off. Startled, he choked on the words ‘you’re a girl’. I said nothing, just turned around and was greeted by a punch in the nose. I went down like a sack of potatoes, my face just exploded in blood. When I finally got my bearings again I found myself scrunched up on the floor being kicked repeatedly.

I must have passed out because eventually they stopped, I don’t know why, maybe they were afraid they’d killed me or something. I got up and tried to wipe my face, I knew something was wrong because I couldn’t seem to breathe through my nose. One of them laughed and joked about the state of my face.

Rather absurdly I bent down and picked up my keys and wallet from the ground, I couldn’t find my hat. Even more absurdly I turned to the little guy who I’d met in the subway and asked from my hat back. There was a second of calm before I realised what I was doing and took off running towards the blockbuster store across the street. The security lock was on the door. I remember hammering my fists on the doors, frantically trying to get them to let me in. When they realised what was happening they opened the door. The woman behind the desk tried to phone the police and an ambulance but I wouldn’t let her. I asked if I could phone my dad instead.

He picked me up in the car, he didn’t bring my mom and he wouldn’t look at me. He took me to the hospital and left me there when my sister arrived. He drove straight back to the police station and reported it.

I sat in the A&E department with my sister in silence. I never loved her as much I loved her then.

A woman sat next to me and cried, she said it was a shame and she kissed my face. She was drunk.

I went to the toilet and washed my hands, when I saw my reflection in the mirror over the basin my life changed. I wasn’t an immortal kid any more, I wasn’t one of these people who always walked around thinking that it was never going to happen to them. I became a statistic. I became damaged and scarred. I became afraid.
My left eye was shut completely, nothing was visible, not even the tips of eyelashes. It was just a huge ball of hideously discoloured purple flesh, swollen to massive proportions. My right eye was swollen slightly less and I could still see through a triangle of blood filled eyeball. My nose was swollen and I had a clear, obvious foot print on my jaw and cheek. Even my ears were purple from bruising.

I had to wait two weeks for the swelling to go down and discover if I could still see or not. In the end I had a fractured skull, a fractured eye socked and a broken nose. I went home and hugged my mom. She cried. I put ice on my eye and slept on the floor of my parents bedroom.

I was twenty years old and had to sleep at the foot of my parents bed because of my fear. I’m more ashamed of that than any other part of that entire night.

Creative mind

Now any artistic creation is a labour of love, drawn or painted with painstaking caution and infinite vision by the artist. Every tiny detail has purpose, every nuance of colour a deeper meaning.


See it? That’s a representation of the deepest corner of my mind, my inner most psyche, the most hidden recess of my brain. The colours represent my life - different, ever changing but ever linked. The lines represent the oppression of society and how it knots and weaves throughout my every waking thought. The spirals are the conflicts in my life, the unresolved queries and undulating problems. There is something else in the picture as well, something that everyone should see, bullshit.

It’s actually nothing but a scribble I did using a piece of paper from my printer and a pot of 1 year old safe Crayola wax crayons. Pretty ace though isn’t it? Had you going didn’t i?

There is a point here somewhere….
I’m sure there is.

A cold snap

And not just the weather. A time of year is approaching that slowly but surely turns the majority of people I know into miserable, grumpy, moaning gits. And the reason for this is simple, money. Everyone wants to spend money. Gone are the days when you could spend a couple of quid on a present for someone you loved and actually have it mean something, gone are the days when the thought actually counted more than the gift itself. Now it’s ipods and digital cameras, mobile phones and expensive perfumes. It’s all a little bit sad.  

This year I’m trying to do something different and actually pour some thought into my gifts whilst not spending a lot of money, and no, it’s not because I’m tight, it’s because I still believe that you can make someone happy without going into the red. My boyfriend is getting a piece of art work from me because he loves the fact that I draw and keeps harping on about me not drawing anything for him. My sister and brother in law are going to receive a book -well a photo album to be more exact- entitled ‘the life of Ben’. All the pictures they have of him are locked up in their PC, so I’ve had 50 of the best printed and placed in an album for them. Hopefully they’ll like it.

As for the rest of my family… who knows. I might yet sell myself out and go spend all my money on tacky, materialistic things.

Wales

Well there goes another holiday, now I have to get Christmas out of the way. I spent last week in a remote village called Tirabad in Wales. A three and a half hour car journey away and we were smack bang in the middle of this idyllic little logging community, it was beautiful.

I go to Wales (the big country) a lot, I find it hard to believe just how many English people never take a trip out there, because it truly is a peaceful and beautiful country, perfect for a relaxing week. Unfortunately the weather is utter tripe though!

Lucky for us that Wales had the worst weather it’s had for 40 years, so after day one we were pretty much confined to the house for the duration of the week as the roads were flooded (if you call a single dirt track a road). Still I got to spend some quality time with my sister and my nephew, who I miss already.  

The only time the rain stopped;
"

My nephew, ready to face the cold;


The view from almost right outside our door;

A dying breed.

The English tradition of course. November the fifth is a significant date in the English calendar, and one of my favourite yearly celebrations. It celebrates the foiling of Guy Fawkes plot to blow up the houses of parliament and so far it’s managed to stay relatively inoffensive to every one. By that I mean it’s different from St Georges day, which is now toned down in order to not offend the non English who choose to live in England. Silly isn’t it?

I cannot put an English flag up outside my house because the government thinks its offensive to people from other cultures. At Christmas you aren’t allowed actually discuss Christ because, guess what? It offends non Christians. Natwest (a bank famous for the use of piggy banks in the 80’s) and the Halifax have both disallowed the use of piggy banks and the pig image because it’s offensive to Muslims. But all that’s fine, because we still have bonfire night. Fire and bright lights don’t seem to offend anyone, yet.

Anyway, this Saturday I will be wrapped up, holding my sparkler and watching the Catherine wheels, stuffing my face with hot dogs and jacket potatoes and just generally enjoying the merriment at our local rugby club…. If that’s ok of course, as long as it doesn’t like… make anyone uncomfortable or anything.

Animals

How distant we are from the animals that inhabit the same planet as us. I took my sister, mother and nephew to the safari park a few days ago and was witness to the most pathetic display of human animal interaction I think I have ever seen. The only animals that didn’t scare my sister and mother senseless were the pigmy goats, and that was only because they were so insanely fat that they could be outrun in two swift steps.

Emus for example, there really is no need to lock the doors, shut the sun roof, wind up the windows and tremble with fear at the sight of one solitary Emu. They don’t hatch with diamond rimmed beaks that enable them to cut through cars, they just peck, they don’t kill and maim, just peck. As for the camels, oh… my… god, one actually stuck his head in the car window and nearly had it severed off as my sister stuck her foot down and sped off at 160 miles per hour.

The best part though was the free flying bat cave. To see two adults absolutely frozen in fear in case one of them got hit by a tiny flying mammal that sucks on melon all day was just ace. My poor mom had such a headache afterwards.

I guess the point I’m getting at is that we tend to have this distance from anything that’s not human or pet worthy. Did they really think a bat, with its super sonic hearing and immaculate flight patters would just accidentally fly into one of their faces? I doubt the species would have survived till the modern day if they couldn’t manoeuvre around two large lumps in the dark.

The camel on the approach


Just about to start his attack!


What he thought of my sister’s hasty escape