Projection on to Plaster

Its 1:00am, my computer fan sounds like someone is breathing on a mirror so they can write a message, a message that will fade away and disappear. But this sound doesn't, it stays. The message stays. The bulb is too strong. Even the dull mother-of-pearl light shade cannot stem its unrelenting stream. My fingers smell of onion. The rich smell of Ben fills my room, everyone has a smell. It's chemistry.

As I get older I seem to be becoming more and more disappointed with who I become. Yet this doesn't seem to worry me. It's inevitable. The child that you were will always be twice the man you are now. That's why I always remember back with a grin. Yes, there were bad days just like there are now; the time me and a kid from the Cricket team I was on were messing about in the car and his finger got caught in the door, and no matter how much I yelled and how much he screamed no one seemed to hear. No one seemed to care. That was not a good day. Nor was the day I was running through the big concrete pipes we had in the play ground and a friend tripped me up by accident. I cried. The lad who was chasing me cried. My friend said sorry. Yet I chose to blame it on the lad who was chasing me. I knew it was my own fault, yet I blamed it on him. For some reason I still harbour a great shame about that incident. The boy's crying, helpless face still burnt into my mind like a bright light in closed eyes. A bright unrelenting stream. Though these were not the proudest moment of my childhood, the best moments far outweigh and outlast the worst. I wish I could remember the kid from the Cricket team's name.

As I said, it is not the disappointment in myself that worries me, or even upsets me. I only hope that one day I will redeem myself in the eyes of all. But I know that will never happen. There will always be that one person. The one who I was insensitive to, the one who didn't like that sarcastic tone, the one who didn't click, the one who didn't like my smell, my chemistry. I have yet to meet a person who has not hurt anyone in some manner or level or sensibility.

Here in lies the contraction.

To be disappointed in friends. That is the worst. It upsets me so that I have no fantastic story, no quirky metaphor, nothing to show for it. Nothing but a noisy computer fan that is about to end it's secret little message in the mirror.