Day 16
There is a vine that exists purely on the death of a tree. It climbs and then wraps itself around and then strangles. I once heard a man explaining it to a girl as they sat in the park. He was trying to be tough, and when she left he grabbed her coat tail. She pulled it from his hands and he didn’t kiss her.
I wondered for some time whether the vine knows it is killing the tree. Whether it knows it is murdering kin. I’m still not sure.
This afternoon I had a job interview with a company that fixes cash registers. I drank so much water in the waiting room because I was nervous. I told them that I was good with computers, and even ran my own site. That I would be good with registers, no doubt.
I had to stop myself from walking out in the interview because I didn’t like the boss, or their company logo. And the car you drive is a small yellow thing with the ugly logo painted all over the sides. I didn’t want to imagine myself driving it.
In another job I once had, I had my own toilet because it was such a small, tight room that no one else wanted to use it. It also smelt from the leaking tap, and so was mine. It was like a small cupboard, squashed under the stairs like an airplane toilet.
It was mine, but also came with a secret that belonged to me too. There was a family of spiders in there that grew from one to 26 and soon spread to each corner. The boss would have hired a cleaner to get rid of them, so I kept them secret.
I felt a small victory when they left the bathroom for every small crevice of the otherwise perfect house: my 26-strong army fighting for me.
Sometimes in the street I feel smothered, like the air is thick and covering me; squashing me between sound and dust from the train station. I stand very still, sometimes, and stare and think and I become invisible, I feel. I am so still that no one sees me, and maybe the city doesn’t see me because I feel better.