Cut Energy Use
Entry by: MediaOcracy
15th October 2022
Sectioned
This is what happened before then.
-------
The white stuff fell and muffled the streets for a while before it turned to grey slush.
And then the big freeze happened, in the coldest winter I could remember.
There were seven of us burning with potential in that frigid three tier house across the river.
Surviving usually by congregating in the poverty kitchen with the ancient open oven, providing heat of sorts.
Bubble wrap on the windows and frost on the walls.
We all got on OK though, the rent was low and no-one marked the milk in this student garret.
There was a fair degree of bed swapping too but on those nights alone, I slept in my clothes with a bonus layer of coats.
On the coldest weekend in January, we all decided to decamp to our respective parents, for the warmth of it.
Except for Nick, the would-be genius art student whose mission had been to stay stoned for three years of studentship. It was year two now and he was doing pretty well so far, nodding out in the attic skunk room of this Victorian pile.
So we decided to go and left Nick behind as guardian.
I went too on the Friday night, reluctant but hoping relationships would thaw with the folks back home perhaps.
It turned out that things were still frosty - the dad still not forgiving me for quitting the building trade in the name of art. His world view was that the sole life path was to leave school, get a job and work until it was time to keel over.
Which would be exactly his own journey ending with a heart attack some years later at the age of 63.
Before that and not for the last time, the mother asked, ‘What is it exactly that you are doing now?’
At least the house was warm but after an awkward couple of days, I left early on the Sunday with some hard feelings but without regret. And thinking rightly, that it would be the last time I would visit the place I grew up in, which was no longer my home.
And some hours later, arriving back at the cold house to find that those drugs had taken the toll that drugs do, that Nick had finally crashed, smashed up our ice palace and all the furniture. Which was now piled up in the middle of that oven ready kitchen.
I said, ‘What the fuck have you done Nick?’
‘I got cold’, he said. ‘Got a match to light my bonfire?’
This is what happened before then.
-------
The white stuff fell and muffled the streets for a while before it turned to grey slush.
And then the big freeze happened, in the coldest winter I could remember.
There were seven of us burning with potential in that frigid three tier house across the river.
Surviving usually by congregating in the poverty kitchen with the ancient open oven, providing heat of sorts.
Bubble wrap on the windows and frost on the walls.
We all got on OK though, the rent was low and no-one marked the milk in this student garret.
There was a fair degree of bed swapping too but on those nights alone, I slept in my clothes with a bonus layer of coats.
On the coldest weekend in January, we all decided to decamp to our respective parents, for the warmth of it.
Except for Nick, the would-be genius art student whose mission had been to stay stoned for three years of studentship. It was year two now and he was doing pretty well so far, nodding out in the attic skunk room of this Victorian pile.
So we decided to go and left Nick behind as guardian.
I went too on the Friday night, reluctant but hoping relationships would thaw with the folks back home perhaps.
It turned out that things were still frosty - the dad still not forgiving me for quitting the building trade in the name of art. His world view was that the sole life path was to leave school, get a job and work until it was time to keel over.
Which would be exactly his own journey ending with a heart attack some years later at the age of 63.
Before that and not for the last time, the mother asked, ‘What is it exactly that you are doing now?’
At least the house was warm but after an awkward couple of days, I left early on the Sunday with some hard feelings but without regret. And thinking rightly, that it would be the last time I would visit the place I grew up in, which was no longer my home.
And some hours later, arriving back at the cold house to find that those drugs had taken the toll that drugs do, that Nick had finally crashed, smashed up our ice palace and all the furniture. Which was now piled up in the middle of that oven ready kitchen.
I said, ‘What the fuck have you done Nick?’
‘I got cold’, he said. ‘Got a match to light my bonfire?’
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