Sinister: a story about the boy who plays bass guitar

[sophie watkinson]

you know when everything gets so frustrating and you get this spring in
your stomach and it's about to break and you just want to hit something.
well i felt like that on sunday. my mum said it might help if i went for
a walk and took a break from revision.

so i cued up my walkman with a tape of b&s eps and began to stroll off
up the road up the big hill. it was llpj so i started quite fast (i know
it's silly but its hard *not* to walk in time to the music). but as i
got further up the hill the songs got sadder and everything seemed to be
reminding me of the boy i like because we used to go on walks that way
together. and he is the boy who plays bass guitar, so there is an
obvious link there in you made me forget my dreams.

so i started walking slower and slower and i got to this bit where you
can see down over the town, so i stopped and was looking at the view,
feeling all upset and nostalgic. i had my holey jumper on. and my hair
was a mess. and my eyes were all tired looking from weeks of revision
and lack of sleep.

hell, if i'd stumbled across myself i would've been scared.

this couple came jogging up the hill and saw me stood there in the rain.
i didn't notice them at first because of my walkman, but when i saw them
looking at me i tried to regain some air of sanity. i started to walk
back down the hill taking a different path and stopped just out of sight
so i could look at the view again without being stared at like an
escapee from the local mental asylum.

but they followed me down and were behind me so i had to walk down the
hill which was so damn annoying. and they kept looking at me. i could
feel their eyes on the back of my head and i just wanted them to go
away.

i walked the long way home because i thought i might bump into the boy
who plays bass guitar because he lives around there. as i passed the
entrance to the estate where he lived i saw a car and i looked in the
passenger window and a saw a face. and for a second i couldn't see
anything and my legs went to jelly and my heart was racing so fast. it
wasn't the boy who plays bass guitar. the reflections on the window had
distorted a face. but for a moment, i thought it was.

my stomach was lurching and i thought i was going to be sick and even
though i knew it wasn't him, my heart was beating so fast and the spring
in my stomach had turned into a big knot. i felt like lying down on the
pavement but there were people about so i went through the ginnel to
find some solitude.

as i went through the ginnel my neighbour walked past me and made a
passing comment. i wanted her to go away. she did. and i sat next to the
little stream and tried to think and was so engrossed in my walkman that
i didn't hear the group of townies come around the corner. i jumped a
mile when i saw them: i guess i wasn't expecting them. they laughed at
me and they wanted to beat me up but their 'leader' had once borrowed a
cigarette off my friend in the pub so he said they shouldn't beat me up,
even though his friends wanted to. then my neighbour came back through
the ginnel, from the opposite direction and i realised i musta been sat
there for about 20 min. and i knew my  neighbour was thinking "what the
hell is she doing just sat there with her messy hair and holey jumper"
so i jumped off the wall and sprinted home to get away from her. i felt
like i was going to cry. all i wanted was a bit of space.

so: this story is not in fact a story and has no beginning, middle or
end. it's just something that happened to me on sunday when i had a
spring in my stomach that was about the break and it's something that
happens to me quite a lot on sundays, or on any day in fact.
and writing it down makes me feel better.




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