A Flea's Small World...

Just say something will you? I don't care who.

Will One of you say something? Anything? We can't sit silent forever. Make today the day We tell Them All about who We really are. You know it's about time.

I suppose it started yesterday, if you must know the truth, as I was sitting on the kitchen bench in my Spot, smoking as usual. I was looking out of the window; it is only half open and has Venetian blinds that have black dust clinging to the oil-spattered slats. The fly screen- when it is in the window at all- is grey and furry with dust bunnies- but there's not that much to see anyway; the view is crap- all I can see is the overgrown lawn and Her pathetic attempts at gardening. Weeding more like. There are no flowers in Her garden except for a few stubborn bulbs that she hasn't been able to completly dig out yet. She can't be bothered with girly stuff like flowers. Just like I can't.

But yesterday, while sitting next to the spice rack while looking out the window, I watched a big black dog take a big black shit next to my car. I welcomed the diversion but I also took it as a sign; a message from that dog that my life is as crap as the view. It's funny. Yesterday was the day I was meant to graduate from University. I don't regret choosing not to go, either, if that's what you're thinking- that probably won't happen for a few years yet. But as I was sitting there I realised that I'm still the same Loser that I was before I 'got' my degree. I'm not any different at all. Now I'm not Just a high school drop out sitting on a bench- people might expect that sort of behaviour from scum like that- now I'm a university graduate sitting on a bench. Nothing else has changed- getting that stupid piece of paper hasn't fixed the problem one bit.

Here I am at thirty one and I've still accomplished nothing. What a waste of time that was. Nine years. I feel like ripping it up when it comes in the mail. I'm not even going to open it until I've paid for it. No- I'll give it to my Parents orGrandmother or Hubby and ask them if they are proud of me yet, at last, after all those years of failing and disappointing them. Oh; hang on a sec; I forget those years aren't even over for me. Not yet. No one will let them be over. I'll be a failure in their eyes forever.

Why do I feel like I'm screaming but that no one is listening?

Why?

Well imagine, if you can, existing in a microcosm; living in a small world within a much larger world. The small creatures of our large world, like ants and fleas, have a view of the world that is vastly different to yours and mine; their world is overcrowded with the crap left over from the larger world- like the clumps of matted hair that I take from my hairbrush each day that somehow manages to find their way under my bed, for example.

But the ants and fleas have another smaller world within their small world, a world that consists of things that are even smaller than they are, like specks of glitter and dust and bacteria; things that only these little creatures can see but which remain hidden from the majority of people and things...

Watching Life from a window is like living in A Flea's Small World. Everything is going on around me but I may as well not even exist for all that the real World pays attention to me. I am invisible. That's why when I speak no one hears me anymore. They used to listen to me. Maybe I am already dead, like Bruce Willis was in The Sixth Sense. Perhaps I wear my Writing Jacket to cover the bloodstain of some fatal wound. What did I do to Myself? I wonder if I did it on the Hanging Tree or if I jumped off the Train Bridge? Did I ruin the Driver's life when I threw Myself off it- just like my Mother predicted I would? What about how it would ruin My life?

The problem is that I don't actually do anything anymore, so now I have to write Myself a life. I wish I was more talented at it. I've been thinking about this for a lot longer than you might expect- since I was eighteen and came up with the title of this Story that I always knew I would write one day. I don't expect too many people will believe that, except that it's the Truth for a change. But that doesn't matter anymore either...

Yesterday, during the one hour of the day that He gives us the pleasure of his company to Myself and our children, my Hubby told me not to smoke in the car or house anymore as I will give our youngest 'breathing difficulties'; I know this is so but the only reason I smoke with him in the car is when I'm picking Him up from the pub or work. But I got the Hint. So- so long smoking bench. So long smoking in the car. I will only smoke on the verandah that overlooks the Hanging Tree. It's the dead one amidst the forest of green life. It's stark and ghost-like grey in the moonshine; and sometimes I visualise myself hanging there when They All get home from work and school. I wonder if I could get Myself run over by a passing train as I cross over to the other side and save Myself the task of climbing a dead tree with seven branches. I'm wishing that I could just fly up the highest branch...

Or I could just sit on the broken chair out the front instead.

There's a lot more to look at when you are Outside. Now I can see entire people walking their dogs past and not only sets of legs and leashes. I can see the Neighbour's faces when they get out of their cars if I want- but it's very likely I'll avoid doing this. I can watch the cars drive further down the road than before and all the while I can feel the warm sunlight that is dappling my thigh. I can smell the cool evening breeze approaching.

Then I notice the old Totem Tennis game that's been stuck in the ground for months- it's faded green ball hanging motionless as usual- and I realise it's still not a great view- the dirty yellow house paint is chipped in places and covered by soot-coloured dust, but it surely beats the view I had before- even if I must witness the paint peeling more and more each passing day.

I don't like being the One blamed for my Little Son's cough. Maybe if my Hubby were home for longer than one hour a day he might have contributed to the problem of our Son's breathing as well. I might not go to the park every day but I still go more than he fucking does. And most of the journeys in the car are for Him, not Myself. We are only in the car to take him to work, which I wouldn't mind doing if he would only thank me for getting out of bed at six in the morning just because He can't drive a car because He drinks and drives; or to take him to the pub and then have to bring him home again just because He can't stand being here.

I wouldn't be smoking in the car if I wasn't in the car doing shit for him or chauffering him around. He's as much to blame as I am. He smokes around the kids when he's at home. He's spent plenty of his His days getting drunk and stoned and being wasted but I just have to cop it on the chin. He just can't take it when I do it back to him. That's what I have to put up with- because his life didn't change when we had kids- he just got someone new to play with. I'm not his Mother but I treat him better than I do my own kids most of the time- and for what?

For him to jump in the car and tell our Son that his Mother has given him future lung diseases?

What's our Little Son going to get from him?

Five minutes of his time each day between eating his re-heated dinner and before the time they go to bed? How does he justify putting the pub before his Family five nights a week and then have a go at me for the little things that I do wrong? Why is everything I do wrong to him? I can't even pick a radio station correctly. He says he doesn't understand why I think he's being hurtful but I should think it's very fucking obvious and I'm not even stoned right now. Not yet. I've chased this man my entire adult life to get Him to be with me when he doesn't much like me. And if I am the one who has been following him all these years- then he must have been the one always walking away, right? Not according to him.

He tells us he gives us as much time as he can. He says he is content and that I should be too. If he's so content then why is he never here? Why does he ignore me and dismiss my feelings as meaningless? Why does it feel like he has to be forced into spending time with us? No one follows Me.

I mean Us.

You can't follow one person four ways. The person who is Me is just the shell who houses Us. I know what you are thinking. I know what you all think. Here comes the Crazy-Alcohol-Prostitute-Bitch and her eighty seven friends, appearing briefly on a stage somewhere near you, in a new production of the Muppet Show. I don't know what I am- but I don't think I have different personalities who are totally distinct from each other. If I'm not really crazy and fucked up at least know that I'm being sincere when I tell you that I really think that I am. I really believe that I am crazy.

I don't 'do' different voices or have memories of Myself as someone else exactly, but I've given the main Ones their own names to make things easier to explain to 'Myself'. She's the sum of all parts and runs the engine room much of the time. She's also the One who answers to my Real name.

'Me' is the melancholy One. I call her Rosie sometimes because that's what I call the character in all the stories that I write about Myself, but she'll always be 'Me' to me. She drinks and smokes drugs- but I suppose that they All do- and is very sad. She cries sometimes but only while no one watches.

Then there's the maniacal and paranoid rn_buffoon. I got most of the name from an Adam Sandler skit and it's actually the beginning of my email address if anybody feels like dropping me a line sometime. I don't think that She is a boy but she thinks she was supposed to be one. The Other's are happy enough being girls. Actually, rn_buffoon doesn't much like anything about him/herself at all. That's why she doesn't like it when the Hubby tells her how hopeless she is. She beats herself up enough without him starting in on her as well. So instead, she gets defensive and acts angry rather than sad.

If the truth be known, without rn_buffoon many of the problems might just go away on their own, but Myself couldn't cope without her to do all the worrying and being suspicious of people. I know it isn't normal to think that I have five distinct personalities in my head. On one level I know that they are only Parts of the shell who I shall call myself- 'myself' is One- with a little 'm', as is 'Myself'- the One closest to being normal- written with a capital 'M', Rosie and rn_buffoon. And in the morning I am 'Her' again- the One that is in complete denial about the Other's actions of the previous day. This One blames everybody but Us.

They might only come out under different circumstances and moods but people don't even seem to notice as They come and go. I can change in an instant and no one can even tell the difference anymore. They just think that I am in one of Myself's moods, rn_buffoon is drunk and going off, or that Rosie is seeking attention again. I don't think it's crossed anyone's mind, except maybe for my Hubby's, that there were more of Us in here- and Myself's not about to let on that fact to anyone else.

I don't blame her exactly; she gets worried that everyone will leave when they learn the truth about her. For good reason. I'm the real reason why She hasn't got any friends anymore. I- rn_buffoon- have driven them all away with my needless neediness, paranoia and self-absorption. They didn't like her much anymore, anyway.

And they probably never did.