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Day 4 of the 300 a day challenge…. I’m getting into a habit, generally, of doing these early in the morning when I seem to be thinking the freshest!

He fell deeper into confusion than ever he had been, permitting his life to escape from any reality and drip slowly into a fantasy he shaped into the thing he thought he wanted. She was his fantasy and he was hers. They engaged one another in talks and thoughts of the maybes, the one days, the what ifs and the if onlys. They lived a perfect pixel life in wooden cabins in snow filled forests, in penthouse apartments in the sky, in beach homes, on their own private island… They lived anywhere they wanted and the world was their own. Each the master of their own success and engineering joint successes that might be the envy of others… were others not too busy engineering their own fantasies.

The wake up was a disjointing jolt from the other side – the real side, as one he loved slipped away into an untimely non-existence.

Death does funny things. One effect – an almost overnight change in his outlook. He no longer desired perfect fantasy homes, what ifs and one days with a perfect stranger and slipped solidly back into a reality that was, without doubt, a little darker than he’d like, but was a place he simply had to be. He had real responsibilities to a real little boy. And though that little boy and he did not live in penthouses in the sky and they didn’t live on their own private island… their joint existence and battle through the storm, was more beautiful than anything he’d experienced in the perfect place.

The withdrawal was not from the perfect place. It was not from the perfect escapism and immersion in a platform he’d come to love. The withdrawal was from a life he thought was really his, but one, it emerged, didn’t even really exist. The jolt turned his perfect pixel place from his ‘life,’ into his ‘hobby’ and restored balance.

Day 3…. slightly later today but here nonetheless. Fancy joining in on the 300 a day challenge?! Email me: josue[@]pixelscoop.net

I’m angry at God for not existing. I should rephrase. I’m angry at myself for being angry at the fact that I seem entirely incapable of allowing myself to believe for a millisecond that God might exist somewhere. Because if I believed it, then I’d be more convincing when I was telling him. I would be more convincing when I am telling him that she’s in Heaven with God. I would be entirely more believable when I tell him that if he closes his eyes and concentrates really hard that he can still speak to her even though she can’t speak back like she used to.

I mean, he believes me. He does. But one day he won’t. One day he will be able to look into my eyes and tell that I don’t believe what I am saying to him. And then what will he think? Will he think I’m the misguided fool for not believing? Or will he follow me into a mindset that all who have passed are just gone and when it’s done, it’s done? Cos life isn’t a video game, is it? You don’t fall down, cue the cheesy music and then spring back to life again. It’s not about second chances, second lives, second opportunities to say the things you didn’t say the first time round.

And if God did exist and if I believed, for a moment, that when my time’s up I’d just move along into the next room and I’d see her again, I wouldn’t have to kick myself every single day of my life for the short sentences I just could not say aloud when I had the chance.

“Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the most beautiful and precious gift that anyone has ever given me. I forgive you its late arrival.”

She was going to be happy. She’d planned that. Alright, it hadn’t really gone to plan to date in many respects but she would have come good. She would have turned her setup around by getting rid of the jackass. And she really would have done.

She missed our boy. She missed him too much to let just another asshole come in between but she knew as long as the asshole was around, the boy would not be. So I know… that’s how I know she would have come good.

In my mind she would have worked her way up in a prestigious company. Amazing business brain. She would have been busy and we would have worked out the childcare arrangements between us. I would have been flexible, I promise.

She would have had him during the week one week, and I the weekend and then we’d switch. But only if that made him happy too. He would have been happy, though. He loved having both of us.

We’d have planned his 18^th birthday party, with the help of our spouses. We’d both be married then, that’s for sure.  Her husband and I would get on really well and laugh and joke as she and my wife rolled their eyes at us in unison. We’d have pulled out embarrassing childhood photos to show his girlfriend and we’d have taken him to University on his first day – together. She would cry as she left him in some halls of residence building with his belongings in a box and an exciting future at his fingertips. I would hug him and try not to cry because Dads can’t get away with it like Mums can. We’d stop for something to eat on the drive back to Manchester and she would still be crying, but more with pride now than concern.

But life is cruel. So I’ll take care of the childcare arrangements. I love having him here all the time anyway and I don’t mind planning his birthday parties. Driving him up to university in 12 years or so alone – that’s not a problem either. But I wish she could have been there. His smile is only half a smile without her.

Day one in my 300 words (or more) a day exercise!! Day 1… hmm, I wonder if I will be this early with said 300 words by day ten…. or twenty….

I lay awake last night with the window open. At first, you were awake too. I could tell because you were breathing in time to the soft murmur of the buildings outside. But then your breathing changed and took on the rhythm of my own, perhaps because your ear was pressed still so firmly to my chest. But the hand that was holding mine loosened its grip and your breaths became deeper.

I wondered what you might be dreaming and wondered more if the closeness we shared might mean I could give you my dreams. Perhaps my conscious mind could transfer thoughts to your subconscious. Because I only want you to have beautiful dreams. So I thought hard about wonderful things, like tropical beaches and wide expansions of ocean, of you and I and my boy and the crazy dogs just running around on the sand laughing. I thought of nights in with chocolate cake and movies that we miss the storyline of because we’re too busy kissing. I thought about Saturday afternoons in the museum explaining to my son what everything is because he’s too impatient to read the signs. I thought hard about Sunday mornings in bed cuddling and playing those silly word games that you always make up on the spot.

And I fell asleep shortly after, my insomnia defeated, succumbing to the happiness of the simple but stunning things I have in my life. I dreamed of those beaches and I dreamed of you.

When you woke me up this morning with a cup of tea, you had the same smile I spent the whole of my sleeping night with. You had the same look of honesty, truth, of happiness that I’d just spent my night indulging in. And as real as pain of hot tea spilt down a bare chest, so too are those dreams.

There’s a new category to the blog: 300 words a day! And it does pretty much what it promises to and delivers (at least) 300 words of creative writing every single day. In theory.

This is something I know is good practice to be in but for months I haven’t done it. So when I have a more public domain to put this stuff into, I suppose it gives me more motivation.

The 300 words can be on anything. Sometimes I’ll just start writing and get to the end and realise I’ve exceeded the 300 and made no sense.

I invite anyone else who wants to take part to do so. If you’re up for it, just drop me an email to josue[@]pixelscoop.net or an IM (Josue Habana) in world and I’ll either post for you or set you up with an account to post them here yourselves.

Let’s get back into practice