Monologue 2 (bike)
i think i mentioned it before but my bike got stolen – well they caught the guy who stole it – wouldnt you just know it – he was a chav – yeah – they showed me a picture of him – baseball cap and everything – it was this pixellated CCTV still – from like a cash converters or somewhere – cos the police had sent out the description of my bike to all the second-hand shops – silly bastard – he might have known the police would do that – so when they caught him they came round my house – to take a statement – they werent like proper policemen though – i mean they weren’t wearing uniform – just plain suits – and they came in and sat down – and asked me about myself and what i did – it was like in a TV crime drama – and as i answered the questions the guy closest to me was scribbling down a statement on an official looking form – and when he was done he handed it to me and i had to look through it and sign it – i Henry Benjamin Petrie it began – so i signed it – i don’t know why there were two of them – maybe they were partners – but the other one was very quiet – just sat at the far side of the sofa – i was in the arm chair – the one we have with the tie-dye covering – and he was very quiet except he noticed a cartoon we have on the wall – and its this one and its really simply drawn – and it has this guy looking out the window – and he’s saying the mayor is coming quick Helen hide the retard – and then his stick figure wife – who must be Helen – is rushing towards this child – and the child is sadly looking out saying – i have a name – i used to have this real crush on a girl called Helen – thats a long time ago now – i liked her for so long – nothing ever came of it though – but i guess thats how things go – anyway – the other thing about the quiet detective – that made him not so quiet i guess – was that his stomach kept growling – and i wondered if he was hungry – but i didn’t say anything – i just ignored it – but after a particularly loud rumble his partner turned to look at him – and so he blamed it on the tuna sandwich he had had for lunch – i hadnt had my lunch yet by that time – it was only twelve – but i had to be in – in uni – by two – so i had it when they left – what did i have – hmm – no – i cant remember what i had – yeah but before they left they said that the guy was going to court – not just for my bicycle though – hed broken into a house down the road as well – dont know what hed taken – and the detectives said that the court would decide whether he had to pay compensation or not – but they said he probably wouldnt because he wouldnt have the money to pay for it – well what can you expect – i mean you dont break into houses if youve got money to throw around – well – i imagine some people do it just for kicks – but the majority i suppose are driven by desperation – i don’t begrudge him – i mean i dont really mind if he has to pay me compensation or not – cos the bikes insured so ill get a new one – and i know it wont be the same and im kind of sad to see that bike go because ive had it for like five years now – i remember the Christmas i got it – my dad did a pretty good job of surprising me with it – i mean you get a box that size and theres only a handful of things it could be – but i didnt see the box before the twenty fifth – and i hadnt asked for a bike or been told i was getting one – so yeah it was great when i got it – and i remember it snowed that year – so i went out and cycled in the snow – yeah – i loved that bike – maybe it was six years – and when i found it was gone – yeah i was pretty pissed off – it made me late too – i had a lecture – id left enough time to cycle – but not to walk – so i had to take an angry march to the theatre – then i couldnt pay much attention – the bike was too much on my mind – so i ended up missing important information – ended up picking a subject for the next half-year pretty much at random – well i had the subject topics to go on – but i didn’t have a clue what they were about – so i just picked one – actually now ive started it though its exactly what i wanted – so i would have picked it anyway – and its about the representation of real life through literature and art – and i guess thats pretty interesting – i mean – im not lying to you now – it seems kind of like im cheating though – cos im writing this down as a monologue – i mean i have written this down as a monologue – stream-of-consciousness they call it – and just talking about this now – thats being self-referential – its like modernism and post-modernism rolled up into one – thats kind of a preoccupation of mine right now – still – i don’t want to get too deep into this because – yeah – like i say – i was pretty pissed off about my bike at the time – but i couldn’t really stay too mad – i mean – yeah – i hated walking – it seems so slow – but its really just a minor inconvenience – and im getting used to it now – even enjoying it – but its not like i can entirely blame that guy that stole it – cos my dad did tell me to get a lock for that shed door – and i really should have done – before my bike was nicked – but i just never got round to it – yknow – cos theres always those things you need to do – but then you put them off until tomorrow – and then tomorrow again – and again – and they just never get done – but there is just so much always to do – and you forget – and you dont think about it – but its those little things that improve your quality of life – thats what quality of life is in fact – its not just water and food and a house – its the little things – like padlocks – cos you don’t really think about needing a lock for your shed door – its not a pressing concern – but when youve bought a lock – and its a shiny new brass padlock – and then you have that extra peace of mind – like a warm glow – and you know that the stuff you have locked in there is just that bit safer – and its Pears soap as well – i mean – it is for me – cos i love Pears soap – i bought some today – i dont know how other people feel about soap – whether they have a favourite one – or they buy the cheapest – or the one thats best for their skin or what – but i love Pears soap – and so when i get the chance i buy it – and i bought some today – and that smell – i dont know what it is – but theres only the one thing in the world that smells exactly like that – and it reminds me of the adverts – of the old-fashioned paintings with the cherub-faced kid in the metal bath tubs – and its such a warm smell – like christmas – but it reminds me – it reminds me of my mothers house – and being a child – and baths during the day time – when you can hold the soap up to the light and see the sunlight shine through it – still – i put my housemates bike back in shed and locked it with the new padlock – so his is safe – and when i get a new one – ill know better now and that onell be safe as well – oh yeah – and that was something else about my bike getting nicked that – well i suppose it didnt really annoy me – but i guess it did a little – because my housemates bike was right next to my bike – well – underneath my bike because mine was leaning against his – but his was left behind while mine was stolen – but its kind of understandable because his had a wonky wheel at the time – hes fixed it now – he fixed that day in fact – he went to get his bike from the shed to take it to a place to get it fixed – and mine was gone – and he assumed id taken it out – so he didnt come and tell me – but i guess that was what saved his – because maybe that guy that stole mine rode away on it – and i really should have at least put a lock through the spokes – but i had this false sense of security about the shed – so i hadnt been bothering – so again i cant be too angry at the guy who stole it without being angry at myself – i remember that night my dad told me on the phone – and he was very sympathetic which surprised me – because i was expecting him to be pissed off that i hadnt been more careful and bought a lock like hed suggested – he told me that what couriers and people who use bikes a lot often do is get a decent lightweight one and then wrap loads of electrical tape around the frame and maybe scratch it a bit so it looks really old and beat up – then its less likely to get stolen – well that makes sense – and its not like a bike needs to look tip-top for just cycling around the city – i imagine it could look pretty cool as well – all done up in black shiny tape – so if the insurance pays up and i get a new bike – thats what ill probably do – i remember thinking though that id never noticed any bikes like that – but then today i saw this bike – it was outside the puppet theatre – chained up to the bike railing and with all the autumn leaves blowing around it – and it had that black-and-yellow tape – i think its like warning tape – all wrapped around it – and i noticed it – and supposed that that was why that had been done – so it wouldnt get nicked – well we all learn lessons all the time – and if all it cost me was a bike – well thats not too bad – cos yeah i suppose ive learned a few things – i mean not just the tape around the frame thing – like – well i havent learned this – but it finally encouraged me to secure the shed – so now thats all safe – and also i guess ive rediscovered the value of walking – because usually i cycle everywhere – and feel so superior doing it because im going faster than everyone else – and not polluting anything – but then thats not always so great – because youre never with anyone – its so solitary – because everyone else is always walking – and so im always cycling off on my own – and then if you want to walk with someone – then the bike becomes a burden really because you have to push it – and then it gets in the way if the pavements busy or theres railing or posts or signs or anything – so you still end up walking on your own – i was jealous of people on bikes for a while though – because they are going so much faster – theyre so much more time-efficient – and i do enjoy cycling – but ive kind of enjoyed being forced to walk – you notice so much more when you walk – and you can at least listen to music if no ones around – with less danger of pissing off people in cars – so thats another advantage of walking – but then everythings suddenly so much further away as well – like the shops – the shops seem miles away now – and friends houses – before it was just a ten minute bike ride – but now its like an expedition – still – that hasnt really stopped me – not lately – which is nice – nice to be able to go a-visiting unexpectedly – and just sit with friends and talk in their own houses – i like walking when its autumn especially – its such a nice time of year – well – obviously it is – theres so many poems and songs and stories and everything just devoted to the autumn – they kind of reduce it i think – they take away rather than add – and the autumn really is a beautiful time of year – its those leaves – they make me feel – i don’t know – well it all kind of wells up inside me – like you know in American Beauty – and at the end when Kevin Spacey does that voice-over – and he says sometimes theres so much beauty in the world – sometimes it feels like theres too much – and my heart fills up like a balloon thats about to burst – but then i remember to breathe and it all flows through me – it might have been Ricky who says that – i cant remember the actors name – im paraphrasing anyway – but thats the gist of it – and i guess i feel like that sometimes – because it does – it kind of stills my heart when i see leaves falling through the air – or the sun shines in my eyes at just the right angle – you have no idea what im talking about do you – Kevin Spacey says that too – but dont worry you will someday – im probably just being a romantic though – i mean we all want to feel like were special – like we feel things and see things that no one else does – and then we can put them in words and share them and say this is what its like to be me – this is how i feel when i see street-lights or children smiling up from prams – it seemed to work for Virginia Woolf anyhow – and Alan Ball – thats the guy who wrote American Beauty – oh yeah – and this monologue was supposed to be about someone convincing themselves they were right when deep down they know they were wrong – well it kind of ended up being about me – i guess all my writing does eventually – its easier that way – it takes less imagination – and less contrivance – and i suppose i could have written about me being wrong – and im not saying that doesnt happen – of course it does – but ive never had any problem with admitting im wrong – that would have shortened the monologue considerably – and the bike stuff was pretty important – its the only thing of interest thats happened to me lately – well – no – its not the only thing – but ive been noticing more lately – like how many people cycle in Norwich – and – oh yeah – i meant to say this earlier – but for a few days after i kept looking whenever i saw bikes to see if mine was there – i became suspicious of all cyclists until id made sure they werent sitting on that distinctive yellow saddle my bike had had – and i wondered what id do if i did see someone ride past on my bike – i had visions of me chasing them down and grabbing them and throwing them off it – then what – well i suppose i would have had the element of surprise – if i could catch them and knock them off – but what if they fought back – or someone else joined in – and what if i was reported – that would piss me off – if i got done for assault while reclaiming my own property – id probably have tried anyway – so im glad i never saw anyone with my bike – i suppose thats the way most people feel about their ex-girlfriends – but ive never seen any of those with anyone else – not in the flesh anyway – so thats never been an issue for me – still – i think about them from time to time – like the other night – i was walking home from my friends house – it was Thursday – and quite late – so it was dark – and i was walking along – i was probably listening to music – Radiohead maybe – and i was walking along this road – this suburb – the street-lights were white – and really im a fan of the amber ones – i love the way they turn everything monochrome – its like they stylise the whole world – because like – you know when you see a really stylish film – especially if its a sci-fi one – and everything in the world fits together – because its one persons vision of the world – but you dont get that in real life because so many people live in the world and they all change it and shape it – and theres so many colours too – all vying for your attention – all the adverts and the products and the sweet wrappers and the services – but at night it all changes because of the street-lights – and they make everything the same – and its striking and beautiful because youre not used to it – well – you are – because it happens every night – but you dont see things as much as you do in the day – well anyway these street-lights were white – and they ran along this road – alternating with the tall trees that lined the pavements – and they cast these little pools of white light – and in the gutters i saw sweet wrappers in all their colours – mingled in amongst the fallen broken-apart leaves – and i carried on walking – and the air was cool but not cold – so i was slightly too warm in my jacket – and the night was so still – i walked past this street to my left and i looked down it – and it was clear of trees but there were all these street-lights – so many of them – and they were all white and bright – and they went on and on – and bunched together as they disappeared over a hill towards the city – they seemed to stretch into forever – and i imagined i saw at the end of the road – where the street-lights became indistinguishable from the city-lights – a road i had once known – and though this road was many miles and several years away – i could see it clearly – i saw a tree stood on a corner at the top of a hill – and i saw myself and a girl i knew – we sat once once in this tree – thick trunk branches against our backs – and we had talked – we saw a bus drive by – too late for many passengers – all empty squares of electric light – and she said something – she said we could run away and get lost in the night – and she said something else half-crazy – and stared into my eyes in the street-light glow – and then her mother called for us from the house – she wondered where wed gone – so we walked back – but it was late so i didnt go inside – i said goodbye to her and i kissed her – and then i left her – i cycled away and the night swallowed me up.
Tags: bicycles, cycling, Fiction, James Joyce, Monologue, original fiction, stream-of-conciousness
