Photo albums

Just a little something I wrote. I've had the imagery in my head for a long time but have only just now formed it into something cohesive. Anyway, let me know what you think... Or not.

"I followed her up the stairs, noticing how springy the new carpet was under my feet and how smooth the oak of the banister was as it slid under my hand while we made our ascent.
“They did such a great job of the staircase, it’s so beautiful!” I told my friend.
“Yeah, I would have been a bit angry if it was anything less than perfect for the price they charged that’s for sure!” She laughed happily.

I hadn’t actually seen the house yet, her and her now husband had been whisked off to the Caribbean for their honeymoon so fast I hadn’t had chance. Now we were inside, I could see it suited the two of them perfectly. I tried to focus on this thought and let the happiness I felt for the two of them fill me as much as I could.

We were at the top of the stairs now and she was turning right into a medium sized living room with comfy looking sofas and chairs scattered around, all facing each other to be as sociable as possible. There on the back wall was my friend’s life. A whole wall taken up with photo albums, wallets of photographs not yet organised into albums, pictures in photo frames and of course, her cameras filling up every space on the bookcase that wasn’t taken up with pictures. No doubt half of them had rolls of film not yet developed.

I wondered if she still had the album she had made for me when we were in primary school, the album full of smiling pictures of our friends with notes wishing me well and saying good luck. Then of course there was the other album that went along side the happy album. The other album contained pictures of me as a child, lying in a sterile bed, in garish hospital gear with wires sticking out of my wrists, my eyes sunken, and my skin pulling tight on my bones through lack of fat. I’d lost a lot of weight that week. That was the week the doctors told me my pancreas was no longer working and I’d have to inject myself every day for the rest of my life.

But she wasn’t pulling out one of the thick, leather bound photographic books, she was pulling out a fancy new laptop I hadn’t seen before from under the bookcase. We sat together on the new sofa and she switched it on, flashing me one of her beautiful smiles that I had seen almost every day since the age of three. When the laptop had finally loaded, she brought up another kind of album, an electronic album, the kind I didn’t know because the week we had been taught about them was the week my pancreas had died. Inside were the pictures of her wedding.

There of course, was my best friend in the entire world looking like an angel in her white dress and bright smile stood under the arm of her beloved, now husband. Her parents were stood on either side of the smiling, newly married couple with their gray hair and pastel coloured suits.

And this is the point I started to cry.
“What’s wrong?” She exclaimed when she saw the liquid running down my face.
“Oh, nothing,” I replied, “you just look so happy and beautiful. I’m so pleased for you!” And she embraced me like she always had, not realising how much my world had changed since these pictures had been taken on such a happy day.

I realised this was the world I was never going to be able to see, the world that was leaving me behind and I would one day be forgotten from, never to return again. I thought back to our pasts, to our nervous grins of the first day of school. We lived through my embarrassment when I wet myself on stage in front of everyone, how she had stood up for me shouting to the whole hall “Well she’s a sheep! What do sheep do other than eat grass, wee and sleep?” She had been there when I was told a week later about my dead organ. We’d practiced injecting oranges together so it wouldn’t seem so bad when I had to inject myself.

We’d been through high school, 6th form college and university together. I’d been there cheering her on as she met her beloved and eventually got engaged to be married. We told each other everything.

But as she prepared to walk down the aisle in that beautiful white dress, as she chatted and laughed with her family and made the final arrangements for creating her own brand new family, how could I tell her what had happened? How could I explain something so horrific during this time of such happiness?

She placed the laptop on my lap while she ran to the bathroom and so I took a moment to put a hand to my temple, running my finger over the place where the thing that would very soon kill me should be. How could I let her know I was soon to depart from this world without ruining her happy dreams for the future?

I ran my finger over the spot on my temple that little lump is positioned one more time, the lump no bigger than a small bead, but a lump the size of my world."

This is the final straw

Nah, it's not really. that's a line from Snow Patrol's song "final straw". However, as much as I'm not complaining because I love the sun we've been getting, I wish I knew the cure for heat rash! I'm covered!! It's all over my arms, chest and legs and is very very itchy. I look like I have a mild case of chickenpox.

Ah that's all I can be bothered writing. sorry!

p.s. sorry for leaving the messages on your answer phone grandma and grandpa, I'd completely forgot you've gone to Russia. Hope you had a good time!

Hey, goodmorning

"I feel like death warmed up" always makes me think of a corpse shoved in a microwave for 2 minutes on high.