Resolutions

I am a creature of ritual and inane symbols. I wallow in the self created importance of little things. 

It is the eve of a new year and I stood covered in coffee grinds and sugar, rubbed vigorously into every inch of skin. Exfoliation is a necessary thing, to walk into a new year with skin that glows and where the dull layer of old is scrubbed away. 2015 was not a good year, heck it wasn't even a "nice"year. So with each sweep of my hand, a little bit of awful was sloughed off. My resolutions ran through my mind as I let the water wash over me. I needed to build a post to stake my soul to for the next 365 days. It is my twentieth year and decisions are needed to begin this decade. 

1) Read hungrily 

I haven't read as voraciously as I used to. Books are the solace we find when the world around us has disintegrated into a chaotic mess of colours and we need to retreat to the black and white again. When I walk into a bookshop I am overcome with a deep sense of serenity. It is what home feels like. So I need to feast.

2) Breathe deeply

Short shallow breathing in moments of panic must be left behind. I need to stop and appreciate life as it happens between deep breaths. 

3) Prune 

Cut away people and things in my life that do not add to my being. I'm weary of feeling like I've put too much into my relationships with people and feeling hollow after. 

4) Stop procrastinating 

I'm busy flying through typing this in the ten minutes before midnight 

5) Try, try and try again 

This is going to be a year of trying hard to make up for the mistakes and failings of this 2015.  I owe it to myself to forgo self pity and to try harder. 

I kept my list of resolutions short, because they are so full of things to be done. God I hope 2016 is a great year for all of us 

App-ocalypse : A short story about the end of the world

 Day 8

It's been a week since it happened. Everything crumbled and now people walk the streets with grey faces and empty hands. The nights are long and quiet, too quiet. The light of day is so unfamiliar, I'm used to a soft blueish glow from my screens and I've only ever gotten a tan from a sunbed  so the warm light unsettles me. Nothing and no one is safe. I feel so alone here, not sure what I should eat and if everyone around me is alive every morning. I wish I could see the sunrises and sunsets again. I feel like I didn't appreciate all the amateur photographers who had blogs full of them. No more I guess. 

There are more stars in the smoggy sky than on my Twitter. 

Day 19

I had to pay with my Marc By Marc Jacob for Marc Jacobs sunglasses to get a full tank of fuel. They don't accept any cards here at this dingy station and everyone knows carrying cash is something I wouldn't do. I've had to leave the city, there was no hotline blinging for me there. My missed calls are sitting at a thousand. The city is good for people who can do manual labour but I have a weak wrists and a deviated septum so I can't make a living there. I need to go somewhere with reception so I can promote weight loss pills on Instagram again, I made the best money then. Now, 27k people don't know what I ate for breakfast, which is just as well because I had carbs. Perish the thought. No one can see the state of my hair because my metallic ombré is washing out and I can't contact Marcel my stylist anymore. She had a child and I don't know if her clients are still giving her a 5 star rating anymore. 

There is more human kindness in this mainstream food outlet than the hearts in my notifications. I don't know where to eat anymore, all the hidden pop up resturants have gone underground and all that's left are McNuggets. I need a McHugget. Darn. That would have been such a good tweet. 

 

Day 20

I lied to myself when I left the city. I need to go back, I need to find a cronut. I need to have artisanal flour on my ciabatta. Someone offered me ice cream from a shop, I screamed because no one seems to hand churn their ice cream here. My parents don't seem affected by the disaster. They're acting like nothing happened so I had to leave and go back. My flatmate could have had a party I didn't know about. My new friend is called Iris, which is so cool because it's like Siri backwards, so I call her Siri for laughs and she thinks it's so funny. She has dementia or Alzheimer's or something I couldn't look up because she's always writing things down in a notebook. It's so vintage I die. But it probably is a medical condition because she keeps shaking and talking about a cold turkey and wanting to see Mary Jane and Milly or Molly again. Anyway I'm giving Iris a lift back to the city .

Iris has this gorgeous retro MacBook that she takes everywhere so she doesn't lose the photos that she has. She was telling me about her job, which she thought I would be able to do but I spaced out because the ocean looked like something out of Tumblr, with some amazing filter that I soon realised was my sunglasses that I ended up getting to replace my bartered Marc By Marc Jacob for Marc Jacobs sunglasses. She blogs or promoted events or something. Couldn't care about it because I just remembered what happened and I'm not sure how to carry on.

Iris wanted to try a diner but we couldn't possibly go near it because what if it had a bad Yelp review? I'm not reckless, I can't take risks like that, you know? 

I wish I had a quote to caption my pain right now

Day 22 

I keep waiting to hear a buzz. It's just my imagination. Iris checks in on me now and again through a landline, which I didn't know I had. I was out getting food from one of the few places I can remember and I saw this guy who was so orange from fake tan and he had some really intense acne, it was like pizza leprosy I die. I could never be seen in public if I got pizza leprosy.  

Imagine if pizza leprosy was a thing though? Could it be a hashtag? I don't know. oMG. I said a whole phrase when I could have been like "idk". I hate how this is right now. I'm in Starbucks and I heard a couple talking about something viral going around and I hope it isn't a cat playing the trombone because that would be so sad. I'd have a Sylvia Plath quote for how I feel about my latte (it's not pumpkin spiced, it's a Courgette Stir Fried latte), because I don't know how to feel about it. I don't know how other people feel about it. 

I keep waiting for someone to come looking for me, I feel so alone, I don't know how to contact anyone. My mother joked that I could have learned my friend's numbers. Jeez, I don't even know if people are getting older. I don't know if there are parties that I could have clicked "Interested" to. 

The world is just this vast empty place. I cannot wait for the end of this pain. I cannot endure more. 

Day 1 

Dear Diary, 

My phone broke. It's a disaster, the store says I have to wait 3- 4 weeks for a replacement. Gonna see if my parents will get me a new one before then. Ugh why is my life like this?  It's the end of the world