Thursday, 30 October 2008
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Monday, 27 October 2008
As empty as a hard drive.
My mother and I were sitting on the floor by the front door where my dog always pisses when someone exciting visits. We were listening to the messages on the answering machine.
Message one was Leonie going 'Rachel this is an emergency. I need R****** M*****'s number. Oh my god. I don't know what to do. Oh my god. Can you facebook Nina and ask for it.' Message two was my great aunt Anne going 'Please leave your message after the tone.' She's a bit confused but she's still my hero. Message three was from Comet saying our item was ready for collection.
So we got our matching Macgregor tartan scarves and we got in the car and put on the old tape of Stelios Kazantzidis, as we do every day. And we drove down into town and it was all October 2003 car doors and mittens or October 2006 stalking 5pm hairdresser lights and we drove to the edge of the abyss with the lonely crane tower drivers and the ghost buildings and the comet car park was still there on the edge of this ground zero known as Southgate. We almost got taken out by a metal dinosaur. We parked the car.
I have a good eye for CCTV cameras these days. We walked up the metal stairs at the back and all of a sudden it was suddenly there beneath us like the Mariana Trench... The new Southgate spread out before us like a twister mat ripped out from under our feet. Except it was living and breathing like cold grey clockwork. Like the bullring after it exploded. Or the eiffel tower after they demolished it. And it was like looking at a dead animals when it shocks you at first so you look closer and there are maggots crawling all over it in hard hats and day-glo.
We stood there for half an hour. We said nothing and afterwards we said it was like a race of superhumans had created this. It was too big for us to fathom. We ourselves wash dishes and drink coffee. How do we stand a chance against this?
SO then we got the computer and drove home and unpacked the box that had come home all the way from Germany and switched it on. And and and. There was nothing on it. The entire hard disk had been wiped.
I didn't really realise that the hard disk of this laptop was that important. Not like Luke or Matt who have computers like one of their internal organs. But maybe to me it was something like a kidney that you wouldn't appreciate until it had gone. Like who ever appreciates their kidneys? You never think about your kidneys until you're hooked up to a dialysis machine. I always relied on paper. It's safer and you can make planes from it. But there was so much on that computer which I shall never see again.
17000 yearbook photos.
Plus all my photos from 2006 till now.
Plus all my photos from my interrail trip with Claire.
All the text messages I ever received. Including really important ones.
All my music.
9 hours of Leonard Cohen I just downloaded.
A long list of everything I ever talked about with Pat.
All my school files since 2001.
Everything I wrote since 2001.
Including the originals of all the issues of NEM ever made. (Ha.)
AND THE FUCKING NOVEL I WAS WRITING.
If you think about it this is all quite a lot to lose. So much of my life has no substance. It was all written in binary and I can't read binary. Not any more.
I would have liked to cry, despite the relative insignificance of this. But I haven't cried since June. I don't really feel very much these days. Just the same sadness like a neon arrow in Las Vegas, stripes flashing intermittently in a mexican wave, going down somewhere deeper, a hard kernel like an avocado stone inside me.
That is where I store things these days. It's safer than a hard drive.
Message one was Leonie going 'Rachel this is an emergency. I need R****** M*****'s number. Oh my god. I don't know what to do. Oh my god. Can you facebook Nina and ask for it.' Message two was my great aunt Anne going 'Please leave your message after the tone.' She's a bit confused but she's still my hero. Message three was from Comet saying our item was ready for collection.
So we got our matching Macgregor tartan scarves and we got in the car and put on the old tape of Stelios Kazantzidis, as we do every day. And we drove down into town and it was all October 2003 car doors and mittens or October 2006 stalking 5pm hairdresser lights and we drove to the edge of the abyss with the lonely crane tower drivers and the ghost buildings and the comet car park was still there on the edge of this ground zero known as Southgate. We almost got taken out by a metal dinosaur. We parked the car.
I have a good eye for CCTV cameras these days. We walked up the metal stairs at the back and all of a sudden it was suddenly there beneath us like the Mariana Trench... The new Southgate spread out before us like a twister mat ripped out from under our feet. Except it was living and breathing like cold grey clockwork. Like the bullring after it exploded. Or the eiffel tower after they demolished it. And it was like looking at a dead animals when it shocks you at first so you look closer and there are maggots crawling all over it in hard hats and day-glo.
We stood there for half an hour. We said nothing and afterwards we said it was like a race of superhumans had created this. It was too big for us to fathom. We ourselves wash dishes and drink coffee. How do we stand a chance against this?
SO then we got the computer and drove home and unpacked the box that had come home all the way from Germany and switched it on. And and and. There was nothing on it. The entire hard disk had been wiped.
I didn't really realise that the hard disk of this laptop was that important. Not like Luke or Matt who have computers like one of their internal organs. But maybe to me it was something like a kidney that you wouldn't appreciate until it had gone. Like who ever appreciates their kidneys? You never think about your kidneys until you're hooked up to a dialysis machine. I always relied on paper. It's safer and you can make planes from it. But there was so much on that computer which I shall never see again.
17000 yearbook photos.
Plus all my photos from 2006 till now.
Plus all my photos from my interrail trip with Claire.
All the text messages I ever received. Including really important ones.
All my music.
9 hours of Leonard Cohen I just downloaded.
A long list of everything I ever talked about with Pat.
All my school files since 2001.
Everything I wrote since 2001.
Including the originals of all the issues of NEM ever made. (Ha.)
AND THE FUCKING NOVEL I WAS WRITING.
If you think about it this is all quite a lot to lose. So much of my life has no substance. It was all written in binary and I can't read binary. Not any more.
I would have liked to cry, despite the relative insignificance of this. But I haven't cried since June. I don't really feel very much these days. Just the same sadness like a neon arrow in Las Vegas, stripes flashing intermittently in a mexican wave, going down somewhere deeper, a hard kernel like an avocado stone inside me.
That is where I store things these days. It's safer than a hard drive.
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