Literally having an existential crisis MP3
Read by Nicholas Delvalle
I won’t take you back to the beginning. I don’t have the time. However, I will begin with some background – some insight into how things used to be, during what I, and others around me, considered my artistic apex.
I essentially found myself in the centre of things. A fundamental component. Not like AND or OR, though. I was different. I had spark. Edge. I frequented dinner parties in Chelsea, rooftop bars in Manhattan. I spent time backstage at fashion shows in Tokyo. You’d find me nestled snugly between sharp punchlines and popping up in fierce intellectual debate. I had it all.
I’d previously been relatively content in the background, just pottering about for a few hundred years. I’d watch from afar as every now and then colleagues would experience a surge in popularity and burst into the limelight. I never dreamt it would happen to me.
My downfall was swift. Appearances at the exclusive parties declined – younger colleagues took my place. Meanwhile, my occurrences in the comment sections of Buzzfeed Listicles skyrocketed. I fucking monopolised the place. The whole thing actually started to become embarrassing. I stopped seeing my friends. I began to spiral.
I’d seen it happen to others. It didn’t end well for them, so I knew I needed help. I decided to go and see my wise old friend GAY for advice. He’s been through a lot. And it’s not often you get an audience with GAY, he’s usually busy pinging around primary school playgrounds, on the trading floor of the London Stock Exchange, or doing the rounds at Pride.
“We all change and evolve” mused GAY, “we are not able to define ourselves, that is for Them – Them who we exist to serve.”
“I know, GAY. I know.” I said, not finding his advice comforting, “I’m fully aware that we all evolve – it’s one of the key tenets in the Handbook, after all. You know, alongside the guarantee that the middle class will inevitably adopt the vernacular of the working class, approximately six to eight years after it has fallen out of fashion,” I said. “And below the Handbook’s curious axiom that every single white girl from the Home Counties will know all the words to The Notorious B.I.G.’s Juicy – the 1994 breakout single detailing his improbable rise to fame and fortune against the gritty backdrop of the US crack cocaine epidemic. Right, GAY?” I continued. “And then there’s the Handbook’s assurance that…”
“…So, GAY,” I eventually continued, several hours later, “I’m fully aware that we all evolve, it’s just that I don’t feel like I’m evolving. Rather, I feel like I’m being thrown around pointlessly. I’m being used to fill gaps when there aren’t any gaps. I’m becoming an increasingly hollow form of emphasis for the dim-witted and superficial who find themselves bereft of vocabulary as a result of their lack of intellectual curiosity. I guess…” I persisted, the words rapidly shooting from my mouth, “I guess I’m losing my definition, my purpose.”
My confession to GAY left me breathless. I’d finally expressed everything I’d been feeling for the last few years. It was cathartic. And, I also thought I’d made some good points about the nature of evolution and change to rebut GAY’s earlier point. But then GAY went and got his old friends QUEER and SICK involved and I ended up losing the argument.
*
Last week my friend AMAZEBALLS took her own life. An unprecedented tragedy, I know, and it’s actually what prompted me to write this piece. AMAZEBALLS was young. So young. And she hadn’t yet had the chance to establish the necessary resilience that comes with life experience.
AMAZEBALLS was never happy. Yes, she put on an excitable, carefree and oftentimes painfully edgy performance, but there was an underlying ennui to it all, which morphed into an enduring depression after AMAZEBALLS found herself plastered across a sequined tie-dye jumper in Primark, stitched in crass sans-serif.
The final straw for poor AMAZEBALLS came a few weeks later though: A fifty-something sales manager in a tailored suit was addressing a new crop of unpaid graduate interns. After remarking positively on the diversity in the room, (six different Oxbridge Colleges were represented between the eight interns), the balding sales manager referred to the potential for progression, salary and bonuses at the organisation as, “literally, amazeballs.”
Reader, I was there when it happened.
(We often worked together).
*
My friend and colleague’s passing put things in perspective for me. It made me realise that I needed to look after myself, to be kinder to myself, and to tell others when I’m not feeling okay.
The thing is, I don’t have the best support structure in place, my old friends are gone and I’m surrounded by a different group now. You’ll likely know them as the social media crowd. To put it simply, you won’t find these guys anywhere in an Arthur Miller masterpiece, or in the Paris Review, or The New Yorker.
I mean, they’re okay. I suppose VIBES is nice enough. And OHMYGOD does have some interesting stories to tell. Though, SERENITY does get on my nerves sometimes. Not as much as HUMBLE, mind you. And don’t get me started on IMSOBROKE. While SOURDOUGH is so up her own ass you wouldn’t believe it. And as for WELLNESS, well, WELLNESS just won’t shut the fuck up.
It’s all a bit exhausting, really.
Right now I’m in an okay place. I’m actually seeing a Brand Consultant and he’s doing great things for me. With his help, I’ve realised that I need to tell my own Brand story. Like, what does LITERALLY mean to me? So I guess I’m trying to define myself, rather than have others define me. It’s about time.
It’s a long road ahead, but I feel like I’ve taken the first step in a lengthy healing process. I feel optimistic.
Still, my roommate LITERARY never has to deal with any of this shit.
(c) Rushiv Nayee, 2018
Rushiv Nayee is a writer from Crawley, West Sussex. In 2017 he was shortlisted for the Penguin Random House WriteNow mentoring programme. He is a winner of City, University of London’s City Writes competition. Rushiv writes short comic fiction and is currently working on his first short story collection. @Rushiv17
Nicholas Delvallé trained at Bristol Old Vic. Since leaving he’s toured Austria with Vienna’s English Theatre; performed in All’s Well that
Well & Anne Boleyn at Shakespeare’s Globe; played Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet by Theatre Sotto Voce, understudied in the National Theatre’s production of A Small Family Business & most recently played Ferdinand/Antonio in The Tempest at the Southwark Playhouse.
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