Thursday 10 April 2008

These Walls, This Skull...

These Walls, This Skull…..
I’ve been sat on this chair now for an hour, just drinking vodka and staring out my window, I could stay here forever. It’s 4.24pm, my landlord is coming round in two hours to inspect my flat and then I shall be, for all intents and purposes, homeless. It’s a difficult thing to think that this is the end of a time, (I hesitate to say era) that has seen both incredible pain and incredible happiness. From the horror of police being called round (twice) by my vile neighbours because my ex-girlfriend was screaming and hitting me, to the general pleasurable malaise that my best friend and I managed to encapsulate since we’ve lived here, to disgraceful comedowns from too many drugs, to equally disgraceful highs. These five rooms have borne witness to self-harm, alcoholism, drug abuse, cheating and virtual eating disorders. Now I look back on it I can’t believe that so many things have been contained in this oddly shaped box. In the time I have lived here, I have drank more than most people do in their life times, slept with more people than I can remember, formed a band, got a job, left a job, broken up with a long term girlfriend, got together with someone who is desperately wonderful, cheated on the former with the latter whilst the former was in another room and now I’m going to London. Why am I doing this? Is it for the band? Is it because I want something new? Or is it because I felt I needed to escape what has happened here? Every corner of every room has a memory, being it clearing cat shit from the floor, having sex with people I could neither name nor recognise again, or having various discourses on why the Manics are better than any other band…….ever. I feel indescribably sad right now, I want to think of a better word but there are none that I can think of. It’s currently 4.46pm, and I’ve still not left my chair although I’m now obviously staring at the screen rather than out the window which is far less romantic. So what was the point in this naval gazing, well I don’t know, I just feel the sorrow of a departure, a goodbye to this flat and everything that has happened here, the pubs and clubs that I’ve sleazed around is in retrospect a time of deep sadness and I’m not sure why.By writing this I can perhaps make some kind of sense of it and put it in to perspective. In fact, maybe this is the crux of this slightly self absorbed biopic of my time here. Writing things helps, saying things probably helps but I can’t do that yet. But maybe one day I will.

Robert Hardy


Robert Hardy is the vocalist and guitarist in The Drowners (www.myspace.com/thedrownersuk)
He enjoys vodka, literature and his cat and currently lives in N7.

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