Extract

I guess there comes a time in your life when you look back and go over all the bad things you did. It doesn’t matter if you were a kid when you did them, they haunt you just the same. They come back more vivid and louder and larger than you want to remember them, especially the worst things.

Sticking your head under the pillow and shouting, ‘Go away!’ at black demons doesn’t work. I know, because I’ve tried it. They just stick around for longer, till you’re forced to unwrap them like some sort of unsavoury present. You’re forced to gaze in horror at the inky wriggling, squirming scorpion like mass of hate and violence. You try to justify actions you can’t change. You’re forced to admit that this was you, this is what you did. You led it, were part of it, accepted it. Then you stuff the writhing memories back into their black putrid bag, pretending with as much bravado as you can muster, that everything is okay. It’s not okay.

When does it happen to me? Just after midnight when I’m wrestling with my quilt and losing and night is at its blackest and dawn is a long way off. That’s when the bad memories return and it’s no good me saying like a mantra, ‘I wish I hadn’t’ because I had.

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