Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

Q: I'm delighted to have with us here this evening ___________________. Thank you for being here.
A: (courteous smile) It's my pleasure.


Q: In less than a week's time they're going to sing and smile and say darling, we love you very very much. Is this a significant occasion for you?
A: To be honest I um feel a sense of trepidation somewhat. Like it's this thing looming over me and people are fussing over its importance and it's taking up more thought than it should.


Q: So you're dreading the significance of this particular ritual somewhat?
A: Well, it's not so much that I'm dreading it. I think it's more like there are so many things you think you want to do when you're young, and then as you get older you sort of run out of steam. When I was twelve, I had this romantic idea for a long time of writing a book by the time I was eighteen and now I feel I'm deferring it as the years go by, 19, 20, 21 (slight laughter)


Q: Lets talk about the year for you. Has it been a good one?
A:  (pauses for a bit and then exhales) Yeah, as a whole I think this year's been really good in terms of well, everything. Or at least the most important things. I think the last time I had this great a year was when I was 16, and that feels like a very long time ago now. For the same reasons though, 16 was a very secure time in terms of people and myself and this year really reminded me of that.


Q: So has the year been positive because of the people around you or do you think it's because you're a lot more at ease with yourself?
A: I think it's a bit of both really. This year's been a bit of a soul searching one in fact, re-examining and re-evaluating strands of history that have come to pass but ultimately moving forward. And the people intertwined in the year have been really great, really really comfortable in fact.


Q: You mentioned that you did a bit of soul-searching. Now in the past you've been notorious for having your fair share of depressive funks, do you still go through that?
A: (laughter, embarrassed and sincere) Well I am annoyed at how easily I fall into a rut sometimes but I'm definitely dealing with it better. Well, I hope. (mutual chuckling)


Q: I'm sure we're all very glad to hear that but what prompted this newly formed realization?
A: Um I think it's important that you don't internalize too much. I know this sounds ironic coming from me but you need to have a point at which you say stop, and focus your thought processes on something else. It definitely wasn't easy for me to snap out of certain habits but the people around me help me deal with it all the time. Not actively, it's more like I go home and I realize how patient they've been or how much of an idiot I was being at that time and then I feel really guilty. (sheepish grin)


Q: Now you once disagreed with the saying "No one is an island" and at that time you were very adamant about trashing life out on your own terms. That seems to have changed.
A: Well yes and no. I still think I have an extremely strong sense of self and I definitely know what I want (kittens) and don't want (bebbes) but at the same time I've started to relax a little, I used to think that I knew everything, now I realize how silly that little superiority complex was. I think instead of talking in terms of islands we should be discussing peninsulas instead. Happy and secure on your own terms but with important and affirming ties to other people.


Q: A more intimate friend would suggest that you sound a lot more grown up now. Is this a presumptuous statement on my part?
A: (laughter, sincere again which surprises him) I used to think that the music I listened to really said a lot about the places I was at in that particular point in time and I still do. I mean I love my sad, moodily introverted bands and I always will. But my tastes have branched out as well. Sad has been replaced with wistful and moody introversion has been replaced with this very bittersweet taste on my tongue. It's hard to describe feeling bittersweet isn't it? It's right there in the middle of these two great extremes. There's a lyric from one of my favorite songs which goes "You will miss me when I am gone, but the happy music will carry on". And I'm always left with a very whimsical feeling when that line plays and I loop the song over and over again.


Q: Alright, I think that's all the time we have left. I wish to thank our guest _________________ and we wish you all the best for the year ahead.
A: (smiles) Thank you.

Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story

An excerpt, from the diary of Erik Michael Gan, originally dated 18th December 2010: 

You met her when you were both eighteen and although the discourse of love often takes a familiar and structured form, you were inclined to believe that life privileged the both of you over the multitude of human connections that flit around for space. You walk in silence along the platform toward the train, the warm glow of the sun on both your backs and you tug on the sleeve of her sweater when you realize that her steps are more brisk than yours. She takes pictures of you as you walk and as much as she can see that you are trying to avoid being captured through the lens of her polaroid, she also knows that you are in love with this moment. You walk until you find yourselves at a bridge and by then the day is slowly dissolving into night, streetlights flicker on and you marvel at each other in the gaze of this soft orangey light. It is then that she takes your hand and leads you gently across the bridge, there are stirrings of a metaphorical significance that this subtle gesture elicits but time has frozen for you and you are unable to look past the girl with the curious hair as she guides you across the water. You stop in the middle and look across the rippling tide, you stop as she tiptoes ever so slightly and places a graze of a kiss on your right cheek, you stop as she whispers in your ear and traces a gesture on your neck. The night grows into itself and the silence is comfort, the silence is golden. You walk until you come to a gate and it is then that a farewell is slowly drawn out before she traces another gesture, this time on your mouth before a door closes between two doting smiles and you accept that it is time to go. The contextualization of time begins its workings and the minutes become more apparent as you trudge back across the park, the bridge, and the moment solidifies itself in your mind as you realize that you have lived a thousand nights in one.


-


An excerpt, from the journal of Gillian Leigh, originally dated 18th December 2010: 

I met him when we were both eighteen and the more thought I devote to the discourse of love, the more I think that every love story is a ghost story. A spectrum of light hangs in the sky, pale but unmissable as rain comes down on the both of us, seeping into our clothes and into our skin as we laugh and run for shade. Underneath the cover of a Greyhound station we shiver and huddle together as he takes out a camera from his bag but I tell him to put it away because moments should be lived and not frozen in the hope of some futile permanence. We walk through the puddles in silence until we come to a bridge and he beckons to me before taking off at full speed across the water, only stopping when he realizes that I haven't followed after him. The trace of a hand. The way the water looks as it ripples when the tide comes in. The glare from the streetlights above us which bathe both our faces in a pale white light. There are many things that I remember about this particular moment which will be soon archived in time. The significance is an undertone. And the tone has so suddenly and violently shifted. He calls out for me and I see his mouth open and close without sound. I see the smile leave his face as a sharp tinge of worry colors his features. He walks back towards me and tries to hold my hand but it is limp and lifeless by my side. He bends ever so slightly to whisper in my ear and with the tip of my index finger I trace a word into his neck. There is more silence, but this silence is not the silence of comfort. It is a subtle disquiet that layers upon itself until my eardrums hurt and I'm almost tempted to say something, anything, but I refrain. The park, the gate, the front door. Images that pass in a blur, spaces which are lost in time but gestures which remain forever frozen. The goodbye is quick and affectless for it is only when the door shuts between two faces which kiss but feel nothing that the cost of the day can be properly calculated. What turns have led us here? What roads have been taken to leave us so hopelessly stranded? The thoughts can be deferred but the dread hints only at bleaker beginnings. Even now, what once were whole dreams have almost certainly been rendered completely irredeemable.