Time, And How Best To Waste It.

 First and fore most - THE OPENING CEREMONY! Personally, I thought it was amazing - I loved the fact that it told a story, and totally grasped what it is like to be British. More than anything, however, I loved the Children's literacy part. J K ROWLING WAS THERE! I almost burst! The cauldron was fantastic, too. I loved how it was a little bit different - I couldn't understand why everyone was getting so excited about it until I realized that it was truly a piece of art. I think it was nice that the show wasn't completely concentrated on flashy fireworks and stunts - I loved the simple, totally you'd-only-get-it-if-you-where-British feel too it. However, I could've done without Paul McCartney - yes, he is a music legend, I loved the Beatles, and think their music is amazing but... is it just me who feels he is a tad past it? He's sort of croaky and painful to listen too, and his weird jackets kind of make me cringe a bit... I mean, if you didn't know who he was - what he had written - how talented he had been in his hay-day - and simply closed your eyes and listened to him NOW... Well, you know what I mean. Or maybe you don't. Hey-ho, as my Granny Pat would say, it wouldn't do if we where all the same.

Now though, I've come up with an idea - an idea that could either go brilliantly well, or be a total and utter disaster. Either way - and I'm warning you now, it may well be the most atrocious piece of garbage I've ever written - I'm going to post it, because otherwise, I'm not going to move forward AT ALL. The story I mentioned yesterday is mainly dark fantasy - so I thought that I might try out some of the more emotional, real-life stuff - the kind that I wrote for my Pushkin portfolio. I'd never written that kind of stuff before the competition, it has always, mainly, been totally fictional goblins and dragons type stuff, so looking back, it was the most bizarre and stupid think to randomly put two stories forward of a genre I rarely wrote in. However, I did enjoy it (even if it was a bit depressing) so I'm going to try it out again, and see if it helps me shift this writer's block...

Wish me luck,
Sarah x
(P.S. I'm writing this in installments, different periods of time in this girl's life... I don't know where it's going, no more than you, but maybe it'll turn out alright).
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Time, And How Best To Waste It.

Karma isn’t the bitch, time is.

Karma is the belief that if someone is a bad person, in the end, they will get their comeuppance, what they deserve. Time is different, time is worse, in my opinion. Time is a relentless, overpowering force that drums on regardless - never stops, never gives you a moments rest. Time is a race, a race with no destination, it just keeps on going - and going - until you are breathless and panting and desperate to stop. Yet you will never stop. You will just keep running - and running - and running - sure that, one day, you will reach the end, you’ll finally cross that finishing line...

But you won’t.

You’ll die. Right there, on your feet. You’ll slump to the ground, a pulse less, lifeless body - crippled and wizened with age, broken and aching. You will never reach the end of time’s race - nor will your children, your grandchildren, anyone. Yet you will all run it, you will all die trying to overcome it, and yet you will never question the race’s motives, nor why you must keep running, you must keep going,why you must run this tiresome race at all.

No matter what you have done - no matter how hard you have tried in life, how hard you have worked, you will still run the race of time, and you will - inevitably - lose. No matter how good a person, you will still die on that track, still never reach the end. Karma is only for the bad in us, is only for those who deserve it. Time is a battle for us all - good or not. It is a punishment, not only for the murderous, the cruel, the deceiving - but for the good, the kind, the loving, too. And time will always triumph - time will always win. No one can beat time, just like no one can control it - manipulate it - stop it, even.

However - and perhaps this is the cruelest of time’s many feats - time can be wasted. Time can be dwindled away - hours and hours lost forever, days upon days slipping through outstretched fingers, year after year fading into a great, infinite expanse of nothingness. It is both sad and laughable - how we desperately try and claw it back when it is too late. How we concentrate all of our emotions, all of our strength, on stupid, pointless things - until, too late, we realize all that time we took on reaching a stupid, pointless conclusion, has left us with no time at all.

Observe, if you will, time - and how best to waste it.

11.39am.

There is no place more undignified to break down in aching, gut-wrenching tears than your school toilets. Trust me on that one. As I slumped there - a weak and pathetic being - clutching at the toilet bowl, drenched in sweat, eyes blurred as they stared up at the painfully bright, strip-light above me, I came to find perfect clarity:

I hate my life.

I take a gasping breath, surfacing from frothing, dark waters, the torrents grappling my body like icy hands - only for a moment, before their grasp fastens, tighter still, and I am pulled under once more. The sea is the truth, you see, and within it, I am drowning.

I really, really hate my life.

Hot tears, burning like fiery coals against my cool, pasty skin, drip down my cheeks like droplets of tar, bubbling on the tarmac streets beneath the heady, burning sunlight. I briefly wonder why, after everything that occurred this morning, why I had bothered to put on eyeliner and mascara. Was I really so painfully plastic, so disgustingly obsessed with my own reflection, that no matter how fast my world is crumbling, how heavily I have fallen from grace, I will never stop applying make-up.
My stomach gives another pulsating, coiling gurgle. I can imagine it - squirming uncontrollably, withering like snakes, taking it's time, stalking the moment, waiting to strike. Bile rises in my throat, and I hunch over, my perfectly manicured nails gripping at the porcelain bowl, my body contorted as if halfway through a terrible, and painful transformation - blood pounding in my ears - tears, pouring, faster and thicker still. I am disgusted in myself, my actions. As I vomit - God, this is horrible - I dimly hear someone squeal in horror from the sinks and hurry out the door. No doubt I’d face another anorexia rumor, now. If only - it would be far easier to face than when they finally got their hands on the truth.

Oh God, don’t remind me.

The explicit activities of last night burned in the back of my mind like a white-hot poker, searing against bare flesh. Blurred, tainted images slip through my mind, no matter how hard I try and forget them forever. The fifth empty bottle in my hand…The glance across the room at Damian Price, kissing some blonde bitch so passionately, so aggressively, that you couldn’t make out which limb belonged to who…The feeling - the desire - to avenge myself, to prove that it was his loss, and another man’s gain… The hot prickle of that boy’s eyes on the back of my neck. Examining my body like I was some piece of meat on the counter, as if I was nothing more than some biology experiment, something to pick over and probe, without needing to feel ashamed - guilty for his actions…Another bottle…Another glance at Damian Price…Now his gaze wasn’t quite as offending…Another shot…Another swig…The room is spinning, my conscience’s warning sirens fading… And then, I feel myself move - the heavy weight that is my body - stumbling towards the boy - the boy with no name, with no story. The boy who has been staring at me all night… Finally, I smirk to myself, someone who gives a damn.