Cherrypicked stories

The sun shone down over the fresh dew settled on the beautiful autumn leaves. The light gently accentuated every piece of rotting waste, strewn across the street, carelessly left by those with no pride for where they live.

It was that fateful afternoon that the exclusively black cat named - 'Puddy' as a ridiculous nametag betrayed, made its entrance into my life. Cuddly moniker aside the beast had an almost ethereal presence. With its fierce emerald eyes resonating eerie intensity and black outline of exquisite proportions, it was certainly 'otherworldly.' It is said that the ancient Egyptians ascribed to the cat a god like status and 'Puddy' with his sleek graces and his regal manifestation was the living illustration that this was not misplaced.

Regret. People say they have no regrets. I think they are in denial. How do you learn if you have no regrets? How do you change? How do you get it right the next time? How do you progress? How do you get happy? If you have no regrets, you've just stopped feeling your feelings, you've stopped aiming, stopped trying, you're avoiding.

It's Gardener's birthday.

********

She held her hands out like forgiveness for all the sinew and pavement I mounted like a playground, she offered me socks and sleep her eyes gummed shut like my tin of vaseline.

Stephen lived in a bedroom crawling with feelings. His duvet was shiny and slipped over him like a slug when he slept, and his headboard was hairy like a hyena and coarse if you stroked it the wrong way. Sometimes the headboard got a bit unruly and tried to eat him when he wasn't looking.

This (together with the Iceland and Camden pieces) completes a sort of tryptich of articles about watching rock bands and getting older. I'm done with that now.

for Bagie