Half Truths

I create a dream each day. The draw of a wood fire is its breath, a fast machine ride therapy for a jumped up pantry boy. In this world of opinions and momentum there is no certain way. Man is not master of the forces he unleashes woman neither; she is as bored with her materialism as a popular actor with a new toy on his fiftieth birthday. No more toys for God’s sake. Intelligent design could not have got us here surely? The dream is a pathway of justification through each highly paid day’s fraud that I commit. I have what to most would be a perfect life. I am a bee with a surfeit of nectar, a sugar rushed lazy of a man toying with my rudder. Toying too much with it, bloody thing and the Internet, how the hell am I supposed to make sense of my life with so much distraction?

Still I have a girl with a beautiful haircut and a cosmetically unchallenged body to contend with. Her enthusiasm is my noire, her enthusiasm for meals, my generosity and me, I am a waning moon and on the cusp of being alone, she’ll deny all this but as I crouch over her and admire her beauty in silence I can’t help but smile at the stupidity of youth when it encounters wealth. My crotch aches and for a moment I consider turning her to one side, she asked me in the night as she curled into me if I would leave her, in my half waken humour I comforted her with ‘of course not, I couldn't be bothered', now I can’t but soon self protection will mean I must.

I ought to be friends with my family. I have left them scattered across the country. My mother is alive and I’ve tried to keep in touch with her, she visits but the coordination is fraught. She’ll want a lengthy visit so as to get best value from her discounted fare; I have to get whichever unsuitable companion is in my life out of the way for a day or two. I try not to make it any more than that; I think I’m an unfortunate son for a widow to suffer. She arrives at ten and Jana leaves at nine, off to a weekend field trip. It is five now. I have to write a paper for a company chairman, give her what she wants and condemn a few more workers to having to think about their future. It is as pointless to import Bordeaux during prohibition as to fight this particular firebird with words. To be caught in the squall of her capitalism would be the death of me no doubt, I am lucky to ride its up draught for while yet. Do I wish that I was still married? On days like these the comfort of being known to each other and corralled by vows and legal obligations makes visiting matriarchy more comfortable. She’s not daft my mother and she knows that I have lovers, and she knows their absence when she visits is a portent of a dark future for me. But I couldn’t stand the way my wife would make sure I sent cards and gifts, made me out to be something I am not. I am not friends with my family because after I insisted on keeping the flat and left her the country house and returned to my uncommunicative ways they realised she was the one who they’d been enjoying and I was the same introspective dreamer I’d always been.
I’ll never break with tradition and will keep melodies at the centre of the life I compose. Though I harbour visions of a self-less revolutionary fervour I am no doubt a conservative and reticent man.

Out of bed and through to my office. Coffee, smoke and toast; butter and yeast extract, butter and honey, one slice of each. I précis my thoughts into a scribbled map and gradually collate them into an idea and then I start to write. Words tumble out of my bleary head and struggle through the dehydration of a cask strength Rosebank, as old as my daughter. I always tell myself that each paper I write is a work of art. I re-present the truth but as they wish it to be see. I calculate each margin and ratio, I summarise the spreadsheet model that I made last week between fucking and porn and being frustrated. True I did re-learn the Hotel California guitar solo again after a twenty year hiatus. After a couple of hours I have something half-baked which wouldn’t stand up to so much scrutiny. I read it through, correct some grammar and add a couple tables and graphs for effect. It will come back with a mixture of spite and admonishment for my lack of progress. Then I’ll turn it round, I always do. The Chairman is my judge and jury but sometimes not that bright. I am aware of my hubris. I just don’t care. I press send.

Time to wake up Jana. I am often ashamed of my never ceasing lust for her. She must be sore to distraction sometimes. I know she'd be better off without me. I shall make her a coffee and let her decide about fucking, the field trip and my mother. If she decides wrongly I shall be anxious and hateful to her. My inherent deterrent is not an attractive side to me and it will probably be a main reason why she will leave at nine and one day for good. I won't change though, I decided not to, a long time ago.