An Ungrateful Child - 02/03/1986

            I am alone and feel imprisoned in this “luxurious” big house. I am a privileged child in the way of the comforts that money can buy, but wish I wasn’t. From the earliest age I have been told that I am an ungrateful child and I now believe this to be true.

            I consider Daddy to be the most distracted buffoon these days, God love him I know he cares for me, but his head has become so full of stuff and nonsense that the mechanics of everyday life have rendered him a fool.

            Mummy, too, cares for me, but as she sits in the big chair sucking through her teeth, I see her sucking over the bitterness of her own youth and the lack of  love or compassion taught to her through example.

            I. I am an only child. I have no friends to speak of and no relatives visit this pristine empty castle of ours. I understand that it is a certainty that, usually, from the moment we enter this world our bodies grow stronger for the first 20 years or so and then we begin to slowly decay, if we are lucky, and go out like a light. I know nothing of what happens before this time or after it.

            I know I am currently refusing to go to school.

            Mummy and Daddy both utterly detest me now as they are getting into trouble for not getting me to school. I threatened Daddy sufficiently with a painted Dutch wooden clog when he looked though he was going to attempt to physically move me and I am now, officially, a source of great embarrassment to both of them. Still, I will not be moved, either on the matter, or from this room.

            This has to be short entry, Kitty, because Daddy will be home soon and barge in talking of psychologists and responsibilities and shall disturb us in our exchange. I say exchange because, although I am perfectly aware of being the only organism communicating through the medium of words, I believe that you give me something back, Kitty. I confide in you and you repay me in kind.

            I suppose one could say that I started this diary, my Kitty, to order and prioritise my thoughts. One could say I started to reach out in the darkness. One could say my Kitty exists through my desire to be noticed or due to my fear of forgetting my dreams.

            More than this though, I know that it was my Kitty who called out to me in the dark. It was her who entered my life and not me, hers.

            I shall finish now, for the time being as I hear Daddy rattle his keys. Till, tomorrow dear Kitty, I leave you the view from my window: the shining silver birch in the sunshine, the dust thrown up and settling again between the sparrows’ hedgerows and Anthony Esposito ambling carelessly, flopping his coat over his shoulder, kicking stones and either singing or speaking to himself while his head flops from side to side as he turns to climb the messy drive which leads to his family’s home.