Chloe's Newspaper

I was ousted from college into a psych unit in my adolescence. It was dead good, I was getting day leave to visit classes and everything. Plus I was seeing my favourite teacher on visits. Who I had a crush on. She meant the world to me. I saw her last February, after 27 years apart. Nothing had changed. I’m halfway thru her second novel. She inscribed it. She said that I was the person responsible for starting her writing career. There is no higher honour, Your Highness. Feel dead good about it.

After the trauma of the psych ward came a bail hostel. I recall a girl I was playing pool with wiping blue chalk all over her face and asking if I fancied some bareback sex. I shat myself, although I fancied her. She was so fit, I couldn’t almost believe what was happening. I wished I’d taken advantage. One of life’s regrets. I was still a virgin at the time, okay?

One man in there had scars across his belly after a knife wounding. He told me he’d been smuggling diamonds from The Nile. Nothing but a stabbed-up paedophile. Peace beyond him.

Another guy said he was in there for moving objects with his mind. This one had a flair of creativity about him. Psycho kinesis. Probably another paedophile.

They were all older than me, see, feeding me any old bollocks. I fell for their gobbledygook hook line and sinker. I was innocent. All I’d done at that present time is set my family house on fire. TRUTH. I was honest about it.

Then came the YMCA. I met another girl at my doorstep who wanted a jolly good old rodgering. She was both sexy and demurely pretty at the same time (although mostly sexy), but yet again I shat myself. Still a virgin. Instead I bombed my first Dove, which didn’t work, and didn’t even wank. Back then, a packet of choccy biccies dunked in a mug of brew would qualify as a square meal. To compare, I cooked a giant tasty curry at 3am last night.

My point is this. I had to get my first flat to see anything good in life. My mates used to come around. We’d smoke weed and drink beer and watch horror videos. One night I showed them a porno which I’d robbed. My mate said he met his wife on the way home from it! Talk about synchronicity. He was horned up and on the pull so he made it happen.

There was this family, who were my neighbours. Single Mum, Saturday Dad. Emma, Ryan, Chloe, and Lauren. One day I invited Chloe into my communal hall area to read a newspaper together. We sat on the floor and read the newspaper. Nothing to it.

But now, years on, I realise that that was one of the happiest moments of my life. I’ve seized that moment and relived it in my mind. Now she is a Guardian Angel who looks after me, playing with her balloons. I created her in a dark park surrounded by perpetrators. It’s a long story. She is with me though. I see her each and every day. It goes to show. Love is not dead. There is softness in this old dog yet. I love little girls (wink-wink). And I love my Chloe. More about her at another time.