The Sharpened Pen

A day of heavy editing, Brain feels like a squeeze box, a bit broken; a wheezy squeeze box. Between the hard bouts of concentration, I've been prying in old notebooks. I wrote diary entries and story ideas on the same pages, amusing and confusing. Unless I was a werewolf, and simply forgot? Some superb character assassinations, I find, including this jabby little summation of an arty London café:

'It's functional, as though tables and chairs could easily be swept away and dance could take place. Overhead pipes give an underground feel- temporary, with the danger of subterfuge and the boredom of a siege. The atmosphere is not unfriendly but the chairs are open backed, to make way for knives.'

But this strikes sharpest: a story note or a real person, I do not recall!

'Weekends she thinks are rainbows, chasing the crock inside which is a man with a small square box in his pocket, containing the magic ring which makes champagne rain and honeymoon sun or would if she were slimmer- sobbing alone in a chocolate box, every week day, work day, she's empty, until she's left, like trashed magazines, stuck with grease, crying to the moon, unable to burn old letters, sadly imploding, lump by painful lump.' 

I do remember thinking that pain was a way of waking people up, which it is, though the older wiser me knows it is only part of the arsenal.