Finding it hard to write?

Then write about something you know. Or alternatively think of incidents, or moments where you didn’t quite get the gist of the game.

Think of a moment in a bus station, where a girl looking out from a passing bus, catches your eye and for a microsecond you both stare, locked in a two-way mutual paralysed gaze. She is blonde and pretty, her expression is not a smile, but her eyes are warm and welcoming, an almost ethereal light surrounds her, heavenly…then seemingly before the full second has passed… her bus is gone and you feel confused. Now consider, why is that moment still with you almost thirty years on?

Think of your dad, sitting alone in the garden on a late hazy summer evening, looking desolately off into the distance, his demons are obviously loose and riding wild tonight; but you have no sympathy for him, either then or now. You think long and hard for a tender moment, a conversation, a laugh shared or even a fond memory that identified him, that told you he was, that will make you miss him, and although you look deeply … you find nothing, because these moments never did exist. And yet you wonder why it was you and only you howling like a banshee by his deathbed.

Think of a mission given to you by a teacher, a short trip across the hall from one music room to another, from an all boy’s class to an all girl’s class to collect some music stands. Somewhere on that brief journey, memory was lost forever, and in what seems like only a moment to you, you almost wake up crying, running across a field, running away from the school, not caring whether you get caught or not, running away, not turning back from something back there? Running away then… indeed, as you always will do. But on that day, where did those lost moments go?

Think of a beautiful, intelligent woman sitting by a pc, doing things she wouldn’t dream of in real life, elegant and sophisticated she has it all to live for, yet she’s unable to resist the inane temptations of cyber virtuality and the thrill of potentially getting away with it all. And yet does she? All she in fact gets is two alternative lives or rather one life that is split, where she hurts and in turn eventually gets hurt by all she plays. A £30.000 salary, a doting husband, the magnificent family house, the requisite family Labrador and four gorgeous kids… don’t most of us dream of this? And yet having all of this and total security is apparently not enough. And her split life merges into one, and catastrophe enticingly beckons this beautiful black-hearted moth to the flame… and you think why? Is this how the desperately bored become, perhaps reaching out for help… by being silly, bad and almost frantic in a death wishing dance to be caught?

Think of a house of secrets, where you have lived for nearly thirty years, think of family you don’t know, think of contempt and the silence you have for them, think of distance and how it grows each day between them and you. Think of commitments and promises broken; think of escapes that were planned fruitlessly in a tortured mind. Think of apathy, anger and desolation, think of a man languishing and merely playing out time, ruled by dreams and self loathing. Think of bitterness and of non-recognition; think of how cynical and how dark a soul can become.

Think of how moments like these, can become links, hooks and chains, all connecting to other incidents and memories that you thought and wanted left behind for good. Watch helplessly as they all begin to form and flood back. And now you remember why you don’t you think of these things. And so In wide-eyed terror, fight to re-engage control, initiate all the tricks and techniques you’ve developed over the years, then hide and suppress all of these bad thoughts and memories away.

Take a long deep breath; maybe slap your face with a splash of cold water. Then take a long walk?

And today, instead think of something else, a beach, a hill, a castle or a man walking alone in the night rain. Whatever … just don’t think or ponder on moments, that you thought were lost...

Where the gist of the game just escaped your fingertips.
That danced in teasing light and shadow.
Curled away like spiralling blue smoke.
Faded like a white lady in the mist.
And where you lost your way with the game.