They knocked down the old magistrates a few years back. Nothing there now but a patch of glass-strewn land the gipsies frequent on their travels between towns, along with the ghosts of chavs wearing ill-fitting suits pleading their innocence to crimes they delighted in. Then you’ve got the remains of the library where I did my work experience. That came down three years ago. That too is a patch of land housing a splendid collection of weeds. I happen to find weeds quite beautiful. They’re not much to look at, but it’s their style of beauty that gets me. Most people adore flowers because the beauty of a flower resides only on the surface, the same with most people. A weed makes you think. It gets under your skin. I once fancied a girl who worked in the library. She had a slightly mad smile, like the Cheshire Cat. It’s been a long time since then. It’s been a long time since most things. She’s just a ghost now along with so many others. Almost all the stores in town have changed, although a few relics of the old world remain. These are the places I tend to shop when I’m not busy picking up my pleasures virtually. These relics reach out to me, and when I’m within their walls, the outside world doesn’t feel so threatening. That world is closing in, that’s for sure. It’s a hand around a throat. It’s a length of rope around two prone wrists. The wrists are my own. I don’t believe in time, but time believes in me, and the more it ticks away, the more I retreat to a bygone age. Youth is wasted on the young because by the time you figure out who you are, today is a stranger, and yesterday is too late. And so, my lonely bones roam the streets in the empty hope of finding a place they might call home.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US