Sinister: Once a Sinisterine, always a Sinisterine

[Dimitra Daisy]

Dear Sinister,

I thought of you on the bus home from work on Friday. Usually (meaning the 
four previous days: I'm new to this job), I take the train back because it 
goes a shorter way and it is faster, not to mention it gets me nearer to my 
house. But it was a Friday as I said and I was feeling like I had time to 
spare and when the nice boy who lives vaguely near me suggested we took the 
bus together I agreed.

I like buses precisely for that reason: because they give you time to sit 
back with nothing to do but think or look at the city unfold or talk some 
crap. Or get to know someone a little better. So we were sitting there 
discussing the possibility of packing him in a suitcase and taking him with 
me to London when he asked if I was going over for a gig or something.

"Yes! I am indeed! It's a festival and..."

Naturally, he asked who's playing. I namedropped "Stevie Jackson from Belle 
and Sebastian" in a slightly hopeful way. I thought he might know what I'm 
talking about.

"I once went out with Stevie!"
"I've seen Belle and Sebastian seven times! Though I never went out with any 
of them."

It is amazing how fast I can get excited about something -especially, 
something I thought I had stopped getting excited about -or how long it 
takes me to be surprised, sometimes.

"I saw them once."
"It was a good gig, the one you saw."

(It was. Not great, maybe, but I don't think I have seen a truly magical 
Belle and Sebastian show, they always seemed to have those when I weren't 
there, and compared to the other six I've been to the one in Athens ranks as 
"really good".)

So we went on to talk about them a bit more, and as I gazed excitedly out of 
the window all the phrases that I haven't used in a while came out of my 
mouth, sounding oddly familiar: "changed my life," "met most of my friends," 
"done the greatest things" and of course "I wonder what my life would be 
like". That last one is accompanied by a half-sad, half-happy sigh, because 
it is a scary thought, what my life would have been without Belle and 
Sebastian, really. He agreed and slowly the feeling of surprise started 
catching up on me and I was left marvelling at how I found myself sitting on 
a bus with someone I met at work who's life was changed by Belle and 
Sebastian quite like mine.

And when he talked about the Greek Fanclub, which I was never a member of, I 
felt like I had to make some sort of excuse to "one of its founding members" 
as he put it.

"Well, I used to be on Sinister. Or actually..."
Hold on, I told myself. You never unsubsribed. You never even stopped 
reading, Dimitra.
"Actually, I am on Sinister."

Now if you only keep in mind that I had already given him the 
nearly-out-of-print-now printed version of Friends of the Heroes, and he had 
read it, and he knew I call myself Dimitra Daisy, you can maybe understand 
what it felt like when he turned round and said he was on Sinister too, he's 
been on it for ages though he never posted, and, hey, wait...

"Is THAT who you are?! I used to read your posts!"

That's when I thought that I will not be surprised if Sinister keeps 
haunting me for years to come, and if I end up in an old people's home 
sometime in the 2060's I'm going to go around asking people who their 
favourite band was in the end of the 1990's. Well, okay, it is a silly thing 
to think but I was at a loss for words. And smiling.

I just thought I'd let you know.

Love,
Dimitra
xxx


~~~~~
The huge abstractions I keep from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.

http://www.friendsoftheheroes.co.uk/

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