Ghosts

Back when I was 17 and a sixth former, I used to make a habit of going to the pub with a good friend of mine on Friday afternoons. Neither of us had any classes and the idea of using the free time to study seemed a bit absurd, despite the fact we were both desperate to pass our A levels and get out of our hometown. The folly/arrogance of youth, perhaps.

With that in mind, we'd jaunt off into town to enjoy a pint or two, play pool and feed the jukebox. Certain songs were stapes, two being Paint It, Black by the Stones and Australia by the Manic Street Preachers.

The latter was down to both of us expressing a desire to head down there at some point. In my own family, my dad's aunty had moved there in the 1950s, and at the start of the 20th century, two of my great-great uncles had left England to work out some kind of new life on the other side of the world.

I bring this up because the last few weeks have seen a return to my own feelings of cashing in my chips and buying a ticket there. There is next to nothing to keep me here, except that I'd rarely (if ever) see some family members again, but I have no career, no home and no connections worth staying here for. Perhaps if I can beat my own doubts and fears, I'll end up doing it.

Such thoughts were doing laps in my head last night. Saturday had been a good day: company of someone I can bear to be around for any length of time, tickets to the game, drinks for the rest of the day. Sunday started well enough but progressed with a different kind of hangover, defences I had spent the last few weeks trying to build up crashing down like sandcastles at high tide. Somewhat fittingly, it rained for what seems the first time in weeks.

Though I never sleep well Sunday nights, with the dread of the Monday providing a waking nightmare, it was worse than usual. Lying awake at 5am with the tweets of birds like klaxons, I wanted to charter a plane to spray a pesticide capable of killing all living creatures on the streets within 200m of my flat.

Like Peter Gibbons in Office Space, I am not a Monday person.