There he was across the crowded room. There he was sitting on the steps smoking a cigarette outside the ODEON cinema. There he was sat with the cool kids at the back of the bus. There he was smiling on his aunt’s Facebook. There he was in the front row at the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert. There he was in 476 AD at the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. There he was on TV, standing on the border between Russia and Ukraine waving the white flag. There he was waiting behind you in the queue to board the FR9251 RyanAir flight to Barcelona. There he was crushing some old lady at bridge. There he was with his name written two hundred times in this girl called Emily’s pink fluffy notebook. There he was carrying the torch at the Olympic opening ceremony. There he was being knighted by the King for honourable service to the nation. There he was on the cover of TIME magazine. There he was cruising down Route 66 without a driving licence in a 1965 Ford Mustang convertible going ten times the speed of light. There he was at the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, at the dawn of time and on doomsday. There he was riding into the fiery sunset on a miniature Shetland pony, the final horseman of the apocalypse, ushering in Death and Destruction, never to be seen again. He was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He was everything and he was nothing.
He claims to have lived many past lives prior to his current existence you see. He likes to tell people this – that oftentimes he gets this strange, mystical sense of knowing that he has walked this earth hundreds of times over. Sometimes he imagines all his many lives melding into one big transcendental nutribullet smoothie and pictures himself existing as everything everywhere all at once. He loves the idea of living and hates that of dying – his dream is to break through the limits of time and space and live forever.
He believes he has already broken out of the Matrix - he doesn’t read the news and has recently given up gaming on the Xbox. He’s currently fake-reading Foucault and Freud to fill the void. He thinks it’s changing his life. He wants to know the meaning of it all. He has resolved to start by analysing his dreams. Dreams are the window to our true selves and our true selves are the window through which we must see the world. Last night he dreamt he was lying in the operating room; when the surgeon cut him open he found an entire miniscule symphony orchestra playing ‘Carnival of the Animals’ inside of him. Dreams about surgery indicate feelings of powerlessness and a desire for transformation. Dreams about symphony orchestras indicate a need for harmony and balance in life. He often has strange dreams – he thinks he’s communing with God but really it’s just that he watches weird porn before bed and his subconscious is a swampland. He has stupid dreams and stupider phobias, like blood and social media. He’s working through it all with a therapist who tells him he’s doing a really good job. He doesn’t tell his therapist that his biggest fear is death and that he wants to live forever.
He is a boy from North-West London, a teenage Labrador Retriever stuck in the body of a skinny, limp-haired young adult in his very early twenties. He lives with his parents. His parents are rich, top 1% rich, but he’ll tell anyone who’s willing to listen that money isn’t everything. He loves his mother but idolises his dad. He’s an only child and one of divorce. His dad moved to San Francisco, America, for the weather and the vibes. Never mind what his mother did (she became depressed and anorexic). His dad calls San Francisco “Frisco”. He has a new wife and a new life in one of those tall, pointy Victorian houses on top of a hill. The house is cornflower blue with great big bay windows - lots of natural light. The boy visits him twice or maybe even thrice a year. His dad loves 60s rock bands and so does he. Every time he visits his dad says he’ll take him to the Fillmore, but never does. The boy thinks he will start visiting only once instead of twice or thrice a year. He prefers North-West London to Frisco. He loves his dad but gets bored on long plane journeys. He’s already seen all the in-flight movies that are worth the watch plus he gets all claustrophobic in those uncomfortable seats – he hates to feel trapped; he needs to be free.
He is a libertarian/anarchist by nature but self-professed progressive/liberal by name. It’s safer to pretend to have the same politics as good-looking women who “speak out” about things online. He literally doesn’t read the news. He didn’t vote in the general election because he was feeling hungover and depressed that day. He didn’t know who to vote for anyway and still can’t even remember which party goes with which colour. He’s a visual learner. He likes bright colours and pictures. His primary school teacher told his parents he was retarded (this was circa 2007 when people still used the r-word). He’s not r*******, he’s just a visual learner, said his mother. In primary school he drew pictures of red-brick houses with white picket fences and happy families on the moon. He doesn’t draw pictures anymore, he takes pictures, with a Vintage 35mm Canon SLR. He does street photography - he takes black and white photos of the homeless men in Ladbroke Grove with an expensive camera that his dad got him for Christmas. His dad takes pictures and so does he.
Sometimes girls tell him he looks like Timothée Chalamet. He thinks he is handsomer and ever so slightly more built. He likes girls - he likes to look at girls, especially models on Instagram, but thinks that most of them are stupid. Most of them haven’t read Foucault and don’t know enough about 60s rock bands. He has a couple of female friends who aren’t like other girls (who he would definitely sleep with if he got the chance) but for the most part he prefers to hang with the boys – no homo. It’s just that boys get it while girls just don’t. The boys drink beer and have deep and meaningful conversations about what it would have been like to be alive during the Stone Age, or something; most of the time the girls just can’t keep up, with the beer drinking or the conversation. He’s definitely not gay but he thinks he might like to kiss a boy sometime, just to say he’s tried it. If he wanted a girlfriend he could probably get one quite easily (because he looks a bit like Timothée Chalamet), but he doesn’t – he hates to feel trapped; he needs to be free.
He’s not uncomfortable with his sexuality, he’s comfortably metrosexual since he knows that girls like more effeminate men these days. He likes clothes and dresses nice – his mother buys him Paul Smith and gives him money to buy deadstock vintage. He tried and failed to start a vintage clothes business. He blames his failure on the fact that the market became saturated. His is spirit is too freewheeling to be entrepreneurial – he hates to feel trapped; he needs to be free. He wants to be an ambling Romantic poet, not Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. He wants to drink absinthe and tell you about the world, not sell college baseball jumpers, Bathing Ape trainers and Carhartt jeans. Alongside clothing his mother also buys him shampoo and skincare products from Aesop. He still prefers his dad. His dad wears vintage clothes and so does he.
He wants to be Great and change the world, although he doesn’t quite know what to change about it just yet. He literally doesn’t read the news. He wants to be a Great Man and do Great things because who wouldn’t, and if anyone why not him – maybe he could do it if he tried, if started reading the news; he’s not actually stupid, he has had a very good very expensive education after all. He’s zip-lining between aspiration and nihilism. He doesn’t even want to get a job. He wants to make Great Art but his street photography account on Instagram just isn’t taking off – might as well end it all. He tells his therapist that sometimes he wishes he were a girl so he would be spared the pressure of becoming a Great Man. He’s lost and he can feel it in his solar plexus. He wants to live many lives to the fullest but he’s also a bum. All he knows is that he loves the idea of living and hates that of dying – his dream is to break through the limits of time and space and live forever.
Sadly, he is going to die tomorrow. It will be tragic but beautiful, just like him. He hates the idea of dying but soon it will be a reality. He once imagined existing as everything everywhere all at once but soon he will not exist at all. His mother will order a tasteful flower arrangement for the funeral and ensure he is buried in his favourite pair of Carhartt jeans. His casket will be made of mahogany and a choir of small children will sing ‘Amazing Grace’. The boys will attend his funeral, solemn in black blazers and white shirts but still sporting Bathing Ape trainers. His dad will miss his flight from San Francisco and arrive late to the funeral service but just in time for the burial ceremony. His dad is always late and so is he. Cherubim angels will gather in the skies over North-West London and weep pearly tears onto his grave. His death will be chronicled in the Daily Mail because he was so young and it is all so tragic, and because his friend’s mum / mum’s friend is one of the editors and will turn anything into a story. “He was such a bright young thing”, people will say at the mention of his life and death. “The Daily Mail said he read Foucault, loved 60s rock bands, hoped to change the world and wanted to live forever”.
Perfect