Let us Assume, for a moment that all reality is suspended. There are no bills to pay, no responsibilities, no worries about the future. Just imagine your life in a montage of happy pictures playing like a slideshow reel, just like it does in an advertisement. Imagine then, you and I, two perfectly happy, perfectly normal people. No fucked up, self jeopardising self pity, no sir.
Running back in a bit of rain today, I had the most insane idea,nay, a revelation. This did not come from the tear strained romance novel I have been reading(rather intelligent I must say) . It is this. You should be here, with me, in India. Sharing every moment, you know, with a realisation that eventually, you and I, ME and you, will help each other pull through it. I am just a better person when you are arund. Self confident, funny. So here is my proposed plan
1. Leave that job. You never admit it, but you hate it there anyway. It is cold, horribly slow and let us face it, you do get a rather lonely.
2. Come to India, shift, get another job, I don’t know. And then we could you know, even be flatmates. Provided you can overcome your sexual attraction to me that is. Or I could just lock you in your room in case you can’t. Imagine, you and I, together, in the same flat. One endless round of parties and booze and maybe even some drugs. And after a few years we will have life changing epiphainies which will remind us that drugs make us bad people and we will quit altogether.
Isn’t that the greatest plan you’ve ever heard of in your life?
Ah, typical Dexter you say, isn’t he forgetting something? Money! Plane tickets don’t grow on trees and what about social security and the work ethic etc. etc. Well don’t worry, I’m paying. Yes, I’m paying, I’m going to wire the money to you for your plane ticket (I’ve always wanted to wire money) and I’m going to pay for everything when you’re here which sounds swanky but isn’t because it is so DAMN CHEAP here. We can live for months, Em, me and you, heading down to Kerala or across to Thailand. We could go to a full moon party—imagine staying awake all night not because you’re worried about the future but because it’s FUN. (Remember when we stayed up all night after graduation, Em? Anyway. Moving on.)
For three hundred pounds of someone else’s money, you could change your life, and you musn’t worry about it because frankly I have money that I haven’t earned, and you work really hard and yet you don’t have money, so it’s socialism in action isn’t it? And if you really want you can pay me back when you’re a famous playwright, or when the poetry-money kicks in or whatever. Besides it’s only for three months. I’ve got to come back in the autumn anyway. As you know Mum’s not been well. She tells me the operation went fine and maybe it did or maybe she just doesn’t want me to worry. Either way I’ve got to come home eventually. (By the way, my mother has a theory about you and me, and if you meet me at the Taj Mahal I will tell you all about it, but only if you meet me.)
On the wall in front of me is this massive sort of praying mantis thing and he’s looking at me as if to say shut up now so I will. It’s stopped raining, and I’m about to go to a bar and meet up with some new friends for a drink, three female medical students from Amsterdam which tells you all you need to know. But on the way I’m going to find a post box and send this before I change my mind. Not because I think you coming here is a bad idea—it isn’t, it’s a great idea and you must come—but because I think I might have said too much. Sorry if this has annoyed you. The main thing is that I think about you a lot, that’s all. Dex and Em, Em and Dex. Call me sentimental, but there’s no one in the world that I’d like to see get dysentery more than you.
