And it's no wonder he's unhappy when all his friends are dead long before he even meets them...
It manifested itself again the way it always had. Part intuition, part horrible recollection, part physical ache, part simple self-disgust, it had started again.
You thought it was over, didn't you? You should have known it wasn't gone, though. Even you're not that stupid. Something your new friends - your lovely new friends - have heard about but won't yet recognise. Something that stops you sleeping; that makes you feel fifteen again despite your full-time job, bills to pay and impending marriage.
You're a fool if you thought time was really a healer. An idiot if you dared to believe that was true. You've had plenty of it after all. You're a proper grown-up now. Things change, but you won't. The roads you drive along now have been resurfaced, dug up and altered since you walked along the footpaths besides them. The field where you were once flashed is now retirement flats. But then, isn't everything these days? Ask the biddies moving into their shiny new flats with their stairlifts and zimmer frames and emergency cords to pull when they fall and can't get up again. Go on. Ask them if time is a healer.
No, of course I wasn't expecting it to go away. I'd just forgotten about this feeling. Feeling slightly sick when I think about myself in any capacity, Almost forgot what I was meant to do in this situation. But therein lies the dilemma. I'm a grown up now and whatever happens, there is supposed to be no more drugtaking, no more heavy drinking, no more smoking, nothing that leaves a scar... You can keep the secret of the pills you take. So many people have to, after all.
Clever though, how intuitively one's body automatically decides to restrict food that tiny bit. It's so easy, like slipping back into an old pair of shoes. Something you can explain away with an excuse about stress or nerves or feeling ill so much more easily than the physical marks your little friends have already noticed and put down to experience. But they'll learn. We all will.
You thought it was over, didn't you? You should have known it wasn't gone, though. Even you're not that stupid. Something your new friends - your lovely new friends - have heard about but won't yet recognise. Something that stops you sleeping; that makes you feel fifteen again despite your full-time job, bills to pay and impending marriage.
You're a fool if you thought time was really a healer. An idiot if you dared to believe that was true. You've had plenty of it after all. You're a proper grown-up now. Things change, but you won't. The roads you drive along now have been resurfaced, dug up and altered since you walked along the footpaths besides them. The field where you were once flashed is now retirement flats. But then, isn't everything these days? Ask the biddies moving into their shiny new flats with their stairlifts and zimmer frames and emergency cords to pull when they fall and can't get up again. Go on. Ask them if time is a healer.
No, of course I wasn't expecting it to go away. I'd just forgotten about this feeling. Feeling slightly sick when I think about myself in any capacity, Almost forgot what I was meant to do in this situation. But therein lies the dilemma. I'm a grown up now and whatever happens, there is supposed to be no more drugtaking, no more heavy drinking, no more smoking, nothing that leaves a scar... You can keep the secret of the pills you take. So many people have to, after all.
Clever though, how intuitively one's body automatically decides to restrict food that tiny bit. It's so easy, like slipping back into an old pair of shoes. Something you can explain away with an excuse about stress or nerves or feeling ill so much more easily than the physical marks your little friends have already noticed and put down to experience. But they'll learn. We all will.