Susie says: You have to imagine Susie as a young person of seventeen. Susie prefers no pronouns, so Susie will always be addressed as Susie, please remember that. Susie can be imagined wearing grey overalls lying in bed in some existential dread, indulging in Ann Quinn’s drugged version of life over the drugged version of mine. Susie also wants you to remember that this is a private diary extract from Susie’s diary which means it’s personal and not liable to your judgements whatsoever. Begin.
A year ago when I meet the Man, he is a thin man with shiny black hair in a bun. Screaming for attention. I remember thinking nothing of him but why wasn’t he ogling at me like all the others? A week or so before I saw him again at the famous dance night in town. But nothing of notice, the Man next door. For twelve evenings a common friend gets us together and we are all like oh! let me get to know you now because we’re in close quarters, sixteen point seven square meters to be precise, and of course lets put our best foot forward to impress but carefully, limitedly, and most importantly, not stop boasting about all the things we are not. How he wanted to throw a party for the building and how I ran behind him like a twelve year old is a mystery deeper than the mysteries in all the self-help books. I was entertained, the child not only encouraged but joined in. I thrived like I thrive when I am being taken care of. I gave myself more reasons, later, when I was doing what I did.
Two reasons I thought were enough when it began. I had a backstory and whatever I did should be, hence, justified. Story is of where I come from; a well-read, well-looking actor-in-making, you’ll want to take care of me. Something not known had made me melancholic, a dumped damsel in distress on a mission to find one true love in the land of the new. A flock of hundred. A flock I say because I hear them grunt their ballads like mehhh- you won’t find anyone like me-meh-no one will love you like me-meh-I’ll always wait around coz no one wants me-meh-its not you, could be me-mehhh.
I should get back at the world, no? Crush some balloon hearts under my pointy golden stiletto. But the Man was different, he saw through me, not at me. A couple more nights of get-to-know-yous, touch no more alien. The comfort of habit and the rise of conflict. mind1 and mind2, angel and devil, right and wrong, to do or not to do. I do. The beginning of the end. End.
A year of upheavals later, the Man rings me. On the screen, I see him sitting by the piano eager to recite the new lines he has written to an old tune. Shiny black hair now ending an inch above the ear. Ballad of a thin man ensues while I wonder what is the process for CTRL+Z in life?
Up and about,
Susie
My Colossal Anecdotes 