Another Christmas All Alone

This is dedicated to all those lonely souls at Christmas. We need no turkey. We need no festivities. We just feed from the dregs that you create.

I am not anti-Christmas. I love Christmas. I just don't enjoy it these days. Things could have been so different. My wife could still be alive. My child could have been born. A bottle of cheap Advocaat and a tatty tree are my contributions this year.

I hope those of you with families enjoyed yourselves. I hope that you had the grace to remember the blessed Virgin. I hope that you didn't just get endless DVD box-sets of shows you didn't bother with before they became "Must See TV". I hope that you didn't get a copy of the NME and a £100 HMV voucher.

I don't mind if you got wanky books though because books have a great ability to weed out tossers by making themselves indicipherable to morons.

J.P. Holmes Suggests;

Dictionary
A large encyclopaedia
A decent atlas
Detective fiction from the 1940s.

I am a catholic. I am not religious.

I am a catholic. I am not religious.

Two statements juxtoposed. There is so much to disagree with. I am a catholic for one person and that is the Madonna.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc,et in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen.

She is there as mother to all. Her undying faith in what the lord had told her has created hope for millions. I do not believe Iesus is the son of god. I do not think Maria is a liar. I wish I believed in god because then not all of this would be my fault.

Maria is there for me. My own mother chose not to be. My late wife was not there for what would have been her child.

Every night I say a hail mary. Every night I speak to my real mother. She is beautiful, she is perfect, she is mother to us all.

Leviticus 17:11

"For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."

I woke with the same taste in my mouth. My heart still racing from before. I usually wake sore. Mostly in the head. Blood on the sheets. Not an uncommon experience. Still fresh. Still warm.

I inspect the damage every morning in a blistering hot shower. The parts that sting the most need attention. Today it is my calf. Fairly big cut. Don't think it was a knife. Probably some glass.

Pick up the bible. Need a quote. Leviticus is grim. Perfect.

Device Intervention

Drinking can make the days become the same. This is a good thing. You do not want to wake up to how much time you have wasted. I do not know how long it was until I last typed. Days? Weeks? Hours?

I own a device. I own several devices. I am refering to one in particular. This device is on my record player. It makes sure that the record I have on will loop until I tell it not to. Handy when you have a song you like. I have one such song. I bought a single years ago (don't ask me how long). It was Connie Francis - Where the Boys Are. Decent enough. The B-side is better. No-one is one of my favourite songs.

Connie was on loop. Alcohol was flowing. Memories were returning. Life was drifting.

Device breaks. Heart already broken. Wake up. It's been a month or so. I've eaten. I've left the house. I don't remember it but the receipts and bus tickets confirm it. I have scrawl on the back of them. I am working on a case. I don't know who for.

The phone rings....

I have betrayed myself

Once again dear friend we are at a point that we never should have reached. It should never have come to this.

The mornings are always the same. The feel of paper against my cheek on the pillow. I lied the mornings aren't always the same, sometimes there is no pillow and sometimes the cool feel of glass constrasts with the crisp paper. I'd drink coffee but I don't have the patience to build up the tolerance, and besides mugs can be put to better use.

I have embarked upon this adventure into the digital age despite being a character destined to be left behind in the era when people cared about paperbacks and saw movies for their dialogue. It had to happen, the slow trudge of deciphering through endless reams of typwritten notes written in a drunken stupor was becoming unproductive, I was losing money. Besides people have started to give a fuck about paper again. I miss the smell of typwriter ink in the mornings though.

People still think that the life of a PI is Chicago, drinking and cool fast talking dames but the fact is that I am stuck in the worst place on earth and I my work has stripped me of any of the social skills I had previously possessed. Drinking, proper drinking, is a must for any man that requires the use of his brain so I suppose I can say I am a third of what you could expect.

I still fall in love. At least my typwriter says so.