Checking Out

by Nick Spalding

People from other cultures may have ways of dealing with such a trauma that I am not aware of.

am British, however, so I do the only thing I possibly can at a moment such as this. I go home and put the kettle on.

Kitchens always seem to be the place where both good and bad news are generally imparted, have you ever noticed that? Must be something to do with being in such close proximity to the teabags.

This is something I have to get some kind of control over before it consumes me.

most of whom have got their mobile phones out and are recording proceedings, because that’s what we now all do in the twenty-first century.

That’s what this kind of disease does to you – it takes any small ailment you may be suffering from and blows it out of all proportion.

I’m being molested by a hairy orange creature with a personality disorder. Now I know what it feels like to be a woman locked in a room with Donald Trump.

Being different may sound like a great thing when you’re a fully grown adult who wants to be interesting at dinner parties, but it’s an awful thing when you’re small.

very old-school Catholic. If you weren’t feeling guilty about something, then you weren’t trying hard enough.’

Who needs the love of a god when you have the love of a mother, eh?

I’ve stopped worrying so much about what’s going to happen or what has already happened and I’m thinking more and more about what is. Right now. In front of me. And what’s in front of me is life.

Because that’s all I have. That’s all any of us have. Moments. Moments captured between a void.