Thom

Dear ex-housemate,

Congratulations! You moved out. I hate to say it, I really do but this couldn't be better timing. Your incessant whining and shrill voice was starting to do my fucking head in . The way you paraded your fat stomach around in the mornings put me off my bran flakes and every Friday when you got your chubby biscuit-coloured legs out made me want to chunder.

Even from the first moment I moved in I knew I could hate you. You had been drinking and were dancing on the kitchen table like something out of an American teen film, except you weren't hot. You looked ridiculous and I cringed. I cringed harder than ever before.

Your fake black hair next to that orange skin looks horrendous. You used to leave your door open so it was impossible to get away from the noise that religiously blasted from your bedroom. Cringey pop everyday. Back street Boys. Once I heard the cheeky girls.

And every time I see you, you ask me fucking ridiculous questions, but always start the sentence with a little kid's remark, "Ummm Thom, I know I sound stupid but....?". Yes you do sound stupid. If you don't know how many days February has- go look it up on the fucking internet, bitch. And don't try to hug me when you are drunk, you make my skin crawl.

Harsh, yes. But there's only some many times you can push the boundary between inquisitive and damn right nosey. I don't want to tell you about my life, that's why I pretend I can't hear you, why I don't make it to events you are going to, why when you saw me upset that one time I pretended I had fucking chilli in my eyes. And I don't want to hear about your life either. It's mundane as fuck. And you dramatise every single thing. Going to get chips is a big deal. An offer at Tesco's doesn't interest me, because the food you buy makes me want to have an eating disorder. The freezer was constantly full of your microwave meals and pizza and chips in a box. And you wonder why you have acne? Really? But let's not forget you were proud of your body..

However, what really has scarred me is the sound of your voice. I can hear it still. That city twang even though you are from the country..and how you started every sentence with "urrrgh/ummmm/errrrrr.." as loud as you possibly could, as if desperate to be heard. We CAN hear you. Pipe down slut.

I am sorry you are having "family difficulties", but perhaps this is a turning point in your life. Maybe this experience will change your selfishness, ignorance and arrogance. Perhaps you will learn to speak to people like a human being. But probs not. I'm just glad I wont ever get the chance to walk in on you and your chavvy boyfriend doing doggy ever.again.

Seeeee ya

Thomas

p.s. i think i might just turn up to your leaving do

Anna

I caught the bus home tonight, and I sat on the top deck where people were sparsely seated, quiet. Sunday afternoon blues and contented tiredness. As we pulled off, another bus pulled up alongside us. I looked over; the other bus was rammed, people leaning over to other seats, laughing, shopping bags spilled over handbags and people squished into tiny seats. Black people sat next to white people, next to Asian people, next to mixed race people. Mothers, boyfriends, lovers, friends, fathers, daughters, enemies. All Newspapers and talking on telephones, headphones, eating quick substitutes to a meal. Everyone's own worlds colliding together in a moving rectangular box, all oblivious to each other.

As we rounded the corner, the buses split apart, and in one split second, one last look, I saw a lady with her head in her hands. Amidst the silent noise and the static rush, one face stuck out to me,a picture of grief. Unnoticed by her neighbours, she sat the stillest, the quietest. A statue of despair.

And she was crying.

Brian

I go to the cash machine, only to find I've got £9.77 left in my bank. Can't draw any money out, can't go to the bank. It's Saturday. I look through my change in my right pocket as I role the skinniest, driest roley ever. Hard time. It hardly smokes. Four quid. Fuck. I'm supposed to go to Charles' tonight, but I owe him money for the coke last night, so I abandon our Pro-Evo sesh and head to Liam's.

There is no doorbell and no-one answers the knocks so I climb around the back of the house, and in through the kitchen window. He's home. It smells of oven. It's quarter four on a Saturday afternoon, but he's sat in his massive, bare living room, doing lines off a Fisher Price plastic mirror. Each snort echoes twice round the room. He moved in five months ago but all that is there is a sofa, an upturned bin, a forty inch telly and a cardboard box; the content of polystyrene bones spilled across the carpet.

"Alright mate?", he doesn't look up. Sweaty pikey fuck has the same thing on as Saturday; creased shirt with stains down. On the left hand side of his lip hangs a "coke-bogey", like those luminous white balls snotty kids have in the playground, and it's sliding half towards the mirror, half towards his open mouth. The other one, Jew, is in the kitchen, cooking God knows what. What exactly do these people actually eat? I'm here because Liam is company and he gets some pretty good blow from the Albanians he knows. Plus, the longer he keeps on going, the more generous he becomes.

"Hold this", he hands me the mirror, "I'm going for a piss, help yourself".

I start grinding it up with a Sky card, the fatter the line; the cheaper my night is gonna be.

Vroom.

My girlfriend hates coke. She said that she always imagined it would be some sort of glamorous, sophisticated experience but she never tried it cos her mother (who was a groupie with some fucking awful band in the 80's) used to be a dealer and used to hide it in my girlfriend's dolls house when she was a kid. When she finally did it, she said it was like when she had tried Karma Sutra; hanging on, hanging on, but when she was actually allowed to come, she couldn't. For me, coke is like stepping onto a double decker, only it is really fast and once you get on, you can't get it to stop. Time passes you, flies by, and you are ringing the bell to stop, but it won't let you off. So actually...both our analogies are pretty much the same.

Liam comes back; he's smoking a fag now, but it's not even lit. Fucking druggie. And he's inhaling it, flicking the ash but I don't dare light it- cokeheads get very fucking nasty. I'd rather jump in front of a police dog, jackets full of fucking smack and pills than insult a fucking cokehead. Definitely the more deadly of the drug user.

"Pro, mate?"

I'm Barcelona, he's Madrid. I let him win. I get a "commiserations" line. Who'll be fucking crying when the Albanian hands him a massive fuck off bill. Not me Son. The coke makes me more aggressive and I beat him 3-1. Not bad, but when I beat him again he asks the Jew what the sharpest thing in the kitchen is. Lucky for me, it's a tin-opener.

We plug the rest of the coke and head to the G's and it's the same as usual; drugged up dick heads and dolled up slags. We head to the bar and Liam buys me a drink. He tells me he hasn't been to sleep in three days, so when he buys me a Stella I don't dare tell him my usual is a vodka.

Christ it's busy. Some fat girl in this elastic pink number is trying it on with this gay guy in the corner. Evie's friend is here, the hot one, doing this sort of sexy slow dance with this guy my ex cheated on me with. Fucker. Does look pretty hot, except the music is the Prodigy. Hardly high-class romance. Bored, and not nearly as fucked as I want to be, I grasp a near full pint near my wrist on the sticky bar.

Swig, gulp..Ahhhhh...

The Jew comes back from the bog, his eyes bloodshot, not fixed on anything, dilated, fucking oblivious as fuck to what he's been doing. Yet he still manages to pull. Bastard. This place is a fucking dive, mate. You wanna wash her face before you put your tongue down her throat, pal. I meet a friend from my old job who's into selling MDMA now apparently. I give it a tester, persuade some girl to buy me a sambucca. Raaaaaaay! It's now my birthday..a drink on the house please Sir. It gets a cheer and another free beer. It works. Perhaps I'll get a birthday shag and all.

Fuck me, if I spent my birthday like this, I'd fucking hang myself.

Stephanie

I lie and watch him whilst he sleeps, and under this light, the kind that comes through the curtains from the streetlights; yellow and artificial, he looks so statuesque, flawless, beautiful. The shadows create such a defined figure, accentuating all the right places; his cheek bones, naked shoulders. I don't know what or how this makes me feel, these deep violets shadows of the summer night, but I get up to grab my pen and paper- I have to write this moment down.

But it fails me. As I go to look for a pen and paper, I have to unwrap the protective arm around me, leave the warmth of the bed and tip-toe down the stairs. Plain, unromantic blackness, forcing lined school paper from under the phone-book, digging around for a pen...The moment is lost, never to be found again.

When I return to bed, a coldness has taken my place and squinting eyes of the man beside me. He fumbles and struggles with the exercise book, alarmed such a hard and solid shape has made it's way into our nest. He looks at me confused, "Bored are you kitten?".

And even though I am, I don't tell him so and shake his wild, sleepy hair, kiss his moist head and pretend that everything is normal, fine. Pretend. I pretend, because I think I'm depressed. I'm not sure whether I really am, whether I would even qualify in a medically assessed situation. I don't think I would like that label, I don't want to be burdened with a title, to be overcome with something I have no control over, so I keep quiet.

My history teacher once said that if you want to know what "depressed" feels like, you should read "The Bell Jar" and I did, but I'm pretty sure it was about anorexia and not depression. And if I was on a scale of one to depression, I couldn't be that depressed because I haven't stuck my head in the oven, yet.

But anyway, sometimes I get this sense of hysteria which completely overcomes me; deep, shuddering ripples of self-doubt, anxiety, fear and the most definite self-loathing I could possibly imagine. I can't help but cry, cannot help but be drowned in my own tears of self pity. And I can't help it. I cannot look forward to anything when I am like this, there is no point in trying. But I do try to feel better, yet I cannot face the outside, I cannot let people see how wasted a life is on me. I can't face more guilt at being me. And it lasts for days.

He rolls over and I hate him. I hate him for not being able to understand this feeling. And I hate myself for not feeling better. I lie down, hugging the book, and as I face the wall I am taken over by floods of silent tears.