A night to forget.

by Jack Bridges (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection United Kingdom

The morning after the night before and it seems hard to even summarize my experiences, my usual linear understanding of time was warped and twisted so instead I'll just jump in with what I can remember. As my perception of reality seemed to slip back into focus and amalgamate before my eyes it became apparent I was deep in conversation. I was talking to an older lady, maybe late 50's, who I now know to be a prostitute. We discussed the nuances and the nitty-gritty of human life. Despite being weathered from years of hard life, this lady seemed not downtrodden or woeful, she still had time to stop and entertain my conversation. She had the time to roll me cigarettes and light them too. I desperately wanted a joint but lacked the heart to ask her to sprinkle in some weed and I lacked the dexterity or motor functions to do it myself. So I just smoked up those cigarettes like the polite young man that I am. And maybe it's because I'm an evolved, sentient, spiritual being or maybe it was the chemicals coursing through my veins but at this moment, smoking in the rain, i felt complete embodiment of the word empathy. I wanted to pick up this little old lady and put her in a comfortable chair and tuck a blanket around her knees, I wanted to make her a cup of tea and put university challenge on the t.v. I wanted to ask her of the olden days, when she used to sing in that band, when life wore rose tinted spectacles. My naivety was snatched from me. As she explained the sexual acts she would perform for complete strangers for depressingly small sums of money I realized the dichotomy of worlds this woman lived between in my mind. One an unrealistic ideal and the other the 'unideal' reality. It was enough to dumbfound, to confuse ones morals. It was enough to break my heart. But this woman needed not my pity and before I had time to process all this a car had pulled up and she was back to business and off to meet a new fleeting acquaintance. "I must go, love" she said through a thick Bristolian accent "Will you come back?" I asked her "If they don't want me I will, if they don't want me." The obviously "wanted" her. That was the last I ever saw of her, but I'm sure not the last I shall think of her. Of her past, of her future. And it's a pleasure to be able to aggrandize and immortalize her purity and kindness for she now lives only as a figment of my imagination. A dark figure lurking in the peripheries of my memory. This is just a 10 minute interaction of a 10 hour ordeal and experience that I've lived through, which at times became truly character building and which I shall try to process and document in the coming days. And as I marched the streets throughout the night with blood pooling in my left shoe and a half smile half grimace plastered on my face, I realized I may be lacking in certain comforts but certainly was not lacking in life. So I gorged myself, for it is my nourishment.