Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

All the Thoughts CHAPTER 1 OF NOVEL: THE MEMOIRS OF DAMIEN DELL

An unsettling thought: I have to talk about the things that get to me. Like, being depicted in a certain way. As if you are that thing, whatever it is, that people say you are. Especially friends. And yet if the truth be told, they make you up for their own purpose, constructing you the way they want you. That’s what friendship is all about and that’s why I hate it. So, then, you may well ask, why have I been living in a houseshare with a bunch of so-called friends for the past two years at the very least. I ask myself the same question and the answer I’ve come up with is that it seemed to me I could be better hidden mixed

in with a group of other people than standing out alone on the edge of the crowd, or set far away from the human race altogether. And what’s more, to start off, I had a real belief in the power of my smile, trusting to my ability to be able to turn it on when needed, like at night, say. I could chat amiably just before disappearing through my bedroom door last thing, smile a convincing good night and be gone. Everybody else in the house disappeared through their own doors in just the same style, and that’s why it was an acceptable way of carrying on. It made me one of the crowd.

But the smiley life I’d

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