ART LOOKS LIKE RAT FROM A DISTANCE

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LINDSAY’S BOOBS

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AS I said I have been in a funk recently and haven’t felt like talking to anyone. Every day is the same in the way that I now have to do things. There has been no spark in my life to keep me going. It has a large amount to do with how a disabled man is seen by the general public. I couldn’t explain it to you because you wouldn’t understand. A hot Chinese girl was staring at me for too long tonight so I smiled at her. The look. The look she gave me was that she just realised I was a human being and not a thing sitting in a chair. She almost laughed at me sitting there smiling at her. I have been completely emasculated in becoming a paraplegic; this must be God’s punishment. How can I expect somebody else to love me when I can’t even love myself?

I shouldn’t be saying any of this but I will because I’ve had a few drinks and nothing really means anything anyway, not quite true as every email is put in a big, big box where a slim dandelion coloured monster sits with a magnifying glass and reads them all very quickly. It’s fourteen eyes aren’t so good these days, emails last for perpetuity and are tangible, but I went out with a woman that I like today. I have liked her for a long time but hadn’t seen her for three years (she told me that). One of my friends has met her and didn’t think she was that hot but she is beautiful beautiful beautiful. She is half my age but when I saw her tonight she looked like she had aged a thousand years. Women are the stronger sex. She was guarded and it didn’t suit her. We had a Thai meal at a place where they know me. It was busy and noisy so I had trouble hearing what Sweetcheeks was saying. I apologized and put my good ear up to her face to hear her. The ingenuity of man produces some amazing luck. I didn’t realise she was having trouble looking me in the eye for her reasons and not because of me.

My memory is bad but I will never be able to forget the way she was presenting herself. The reason I fell in love with her had disappeared. Sitting here writing it, it was like she had completely forgotten who she was. I thought it was because of me but a part inside her has been hurt so badly that it has killed the spark in her. She is too young for me but she is lovely, lovely lovely. I loved her spark but talking to her tonight she was talking back to me like I was a stranger. That is why I have enjoyed being by myself for a while, I mean being single. I haven’t had anybody enter and change my life. I won’t tell you, because it’s cruel, but a man made her life hell. Hearing her story I told her I would punch him if I saw him, I turned to her but it looked like she didn’t believe me. Her eyes are dark but they used to have a fire in them. The more she didn’t have to look into my eyes the more relaxed she became. A woman lives a thousand times the life of a man in her 82.45 years, at the start of the meal she looked like she had lived over half of those but as I sat and listened to her she opened up. I bought a bottle of white wine in China town. I asked for a bottle of New Zealand Sav Blanc but the Chinese man gave me an Australian bottle instead. I sat and heard her travails and how hard it has been for her. She now works in mental health. Eight hours of that a day can’t be good for your soul either.

I fell in love with her because she was one hundred percent. Talking with her felt like we had always known each other and had lived though eternity together. It felt like we had survived flood and pestilence together, she is half my age but she is so cool. I knew what she meant and she knew what I meant. I should have known that another man had stolen a part of her identity. Women are the host. Men are the parasite. She had forgotten me and how nice a man can actually be. I have always operated on one hundred until I landed and cracked my skull open so once I knew why she had changed so much I understood. I just leaned in and listened to her. She could have me if she wanted but she doesn’t want a man like me. My identity has been stolen too but I am slowly becoming more masculine as I remember the spark still lies within me. We talked for about four hours and I felt her opening towards me, like to the sun.

Almost everybody in this world has been damaged by life. If she would only give me the chance I would defend her honour. I would kill a man to see her smile the way she did at the end of our dinner. I reminded her that man is still good, she reached out and touched me lightly with her dainty hands several times. I had also reminded her that she is still good and one hundred percent of her lies behind the character she has had to assume. We all build a fence around our heart out of fear. She does not want me the same way she used to. I sniffed back a tear when I got home because I cannot help her the way she needs to be helped. She has extricated herself from a bad situation but she had left over half of her spark behind with it. As the night went on I got her laughing. I told her that she had changed so much from the start of the night. She knows that I am a good man and genuinely care about her. I hope she gives me a chance to love her, I hope she gives me a chance to defend her honour. I doubt she will though. Tonight she didn’t see the man inside me until the night was nearly over. Yes I am literally half the man I used to be and I may only get one punch in but it will be a good punch. I would defend her with everything I have. She is lovely lovely lovely and I would do anything to see her smile all the time

 
 
 
I should really stop writing and go to sleep, it’s one in the morning. I hope I can sleep in-spite of the spark within me. She is still her coolest when she is herself and not trying,

 
she is lovely lovely lovely

 
 
 
 
 
 
Andrew Stuart Buchanan