an abundance of memories

[riz-i]

This is Riz: I just woke up from one of those crazy dreams where you relive a series of moments in life. I'm not the emotional type but I woke up crying. The thing is, the moments I relived weren't even sad. They were some of the happiest times of my life. Small, almost insignificant events that together have accumulated to make me who I am today. I don't blog and it's not really fanfiction and I can't tell the people who were IN the dream because I'd have to text them ALL and that'd be too much fuss and bother and also a LOT of my phone credit would be spent and I only have £10 to start with. You guys don't actually have to read this, but I kind of wanted to get it out. Maybe just the first few. The rest can come later. 

EM AND INGRID

"Well hey there strangers. You know our stupid, tiny, borrowed-from-school tent? Yeah well... it's about to collapse and there's an actual hole in it and Roz and Ellie are being bitches (what's new) and not letting us in their five man tent even though they've let Leon, Adam and Kyle in and... we heard one of you was the source for a certain Lucozade bottle full of 'strictly-forbidden-on-The-Duke-of-Edinburgh-Expedition-and-if-found-in-possession-of-it-,- you-will-be-immediately-disqualified' substances?"

"Er- do you guys want to come in? We're just about to start a game of 'I Have Never'."

"Would you like us to beg...?"

"Don't be ridiculous! But er, I guess you could sing for entry?"

"Riz... you're insane. Okay then. AHEM!! SILENCE PLEASE, MASTER...ESS INGRID IS ABOUT TO BEGIN! Soooft kitty, waaaarm kitty, little ball of fur..." She took a deep exaggerated breath in as the other six occupants of the tent stared at her, dumbfounded. "Haaappy kitty, sleeeeepy kitty, puuuurr puuuurr puuuurrrrr. Now can we come in? I think it's going to rain."

"Sure. But- What the hell even was that song?"

"It's from The Big Bang Theory. If you haven't seen it... I don't think we can be friends. Also, what is this outrageous unMuslimish behaviour?! I thought you weren't allowed to drink."

"I'm not. I'm on Monica Watch."

"OHHH THAT WOMAN AND HER BUSHY MOUSTACHE MAKE ME WANT TO KICK A THISTLE!!"

"Err. Alright then. I'll just make sure she doesn't come round for Inspection while the tent reeks like a brothel."

"You mean a brewery."

"Shut up Hannah. Look, I've even bandaged my foot over a fake injury so I can dash out and distract her by asking if I've done it right while you all sneak out through there." I pointed at the zip up door on the other side of the tent.

"You're seriously insane... Even if you haven't seen TBBT, I think we may just get on after all. EW WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"

"It's just rabbit poo, jeez Ingrid CALM YOURSELF!"

She picked it up and looked at it, then passed it to the other girl who she had brought with her, grinning; "Hey Em... eat this." And without so much as a second of consideration- Em did.

I knew then that these two weren't the bitchy, catty, horrible gossips that the rumour mill had me thinking they were- they were my kind of people.

And I knew we'd be friends.

I just had no idea that after that one small meeting, they'd become people so important to me that they would completely change my life and my entire perspective on the world and everyone in it.

ANDY AND JORDAN

"You look like shit. Like a battered Scottish housewife. Except less ginger. And foreign. And also, you don't have a beard. And nor are you wearing a kilt with no underwear... Basically, what's wrong?"

I blinked. "Ingrid, have I ever told you how unbelievably brilliant you are at ALWAYS making me feel better?"

"Sorry what? I stopped listening after 'how unbelievably brilliant you are'." She laughed but then her face suddenly became more serious. "Honestly though, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah of course! I just stayed up all night watching the Election. It was 4am before Obama actually won and then I was too excited to go to sleep. So I pretty much passed out at 6 and my alarm went off at 6:45."

At this point, my shoulders were grabbed by a tall, lanky boy in my year who I didn't really speak to but who was amazing at maths and looked a little bit like a chicken. I'm not exactly a big fan of personal contact and am especially adverse to contact from tall, lanky boys in my year who I didn't really speak to who were amazing at maths and looked a little bit like a chicken...

"RIZ YOU WATCHED THAT TOO!!! SO DID I!!! But I never sleep anyway because I have Asperger's and it keeps me up, but WHO CARES. I WAS SO HAPPY OBAMA WON. It's the first non-stupid thing the Americans have ever done."

"Actually electing Obama was possibly the wors-"

"SHUT UP TOM AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS COMMON ROOM! Go be a British Republican elsewhere. You sicken me."

"Andy, ignore him. I know!! I went round the house shouting and waking everyone up to let them know the news. My brother kicked me."

"This is great. I like you! I'm going to add you to my list of people I like."

At this point, Jordan appeared and smiled. "Oh heeeyy there RizzyRiz. Haven't spoken to you since I stopped getting the bus. Why have we never had any lessons together before? But we have all our Options together for GCSEs don't we? Oh except History; I've got Croft. I'm SO PLEASED. He's my favourite. Who do you have? Etty? If you have Hale, I feel really really sorry for you. Oh and also, being liked  by Andy is a rare and beautiful thing. Own it." And then he casually walked away.

"Jordan's so weird. ANYWAY, I WAS SO HAPPY!! I started screaming until my mum came downstairs and told me if I didn't go to bed, she'd take away my History books. I told her she was being a racist."

I burst out laughing. I'd rarely spoken to Andy before, maybe once or twice in maths when one of my best friend's, Rhian, was going out with Jordan and me and Andy would awkwardly make awkward conversation while those two were 'romantic' with each other- or as 'romantic' as two twelve year old prepubescents can possibly be. "Andy! I'm so glad we're friends. Let us continue to have Liberal political conversations for the next however many years."

Andy smiled.

Two years later; Andy, Ingrid, Em, Jordan and I would be all sprawled across various sofas, seats and footstools in Andy's house- each wearing a pair of clunky 3D glasses- laughing at the absolute moron who is Glenn Beck calling Barack Obama and Martin Luther King fairies- "all pretty and COLOURFUL but not really as significant as they're made out to be in the grand scheme of things." On Andy's brand new 3D TV.

And it would be one of those moments in life.

One of those inexplicable moments where you're glad to just... exist.

You look around you and you just feel like you're exactly where you're supposed to be and you're with the people you're supposed to be with.

I finally understood a quote from one of my favourite books of all time. A quote I had loved, but up until that moment, had never truly felt: "And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."


I'm all typed out. More some other time. Maybe. 

[litoxpinky]

Firstly, I must say I greatly admire your writing style. The sentences are clean-cut and visual; I love it! I've never had a dream such as this before and know I can not relate, but I was smiling from ear to ear as I read.

[riz-i]

@litoxpinky: thank you incredibly :) hahh they're crazy. literally just scenes from life all mashed up together. lmao, i hope you continue to enjoy the insane memories from my life.

CRUIZE

Oh where to even begin. Basically, my life ran along its normal path with it's Cartesian (x,y) coordinates. But then every so often, Cruize (obviously not his real name, but I Googled his actual-extremely unusual- name just to check for this and he is the first ten search results) would appear and a z-axis would SPRING FORTH from the pits of God only knows where.

Now, my z-axis wasn't linked to any sort of attraction and nor was it down to any form of intimidation or fear; for all intents and purposes, me and Cruize got on alright (aside from the time he hit me over the head with the Guinness Book of World Records). But some sort of inexplicable, uncontrollable physiological or maybe even psychological reaction used to overcome me every time he walked past that would turn me into a lunatic.

That's not an exaggeration. If anything, referring to my actions as those of a lunatic is probably a bit of an understatement...

Let me explain:

SITUATION ONE: When you'd come out from the Girls' Changing Rooms at my old school, you'd walk straight down a little indoor walkway and then turn right onto the main PE Corridor which was a glaring canary yellow with one wall lined with Alumni photos of the school football teams since the early 1900s and the other decorated with the current Wall-of-Fame as well as general Sports Department Notices.

Once, when I got out from PE, Cruize and his friends were just casually hanging around in the middle of the Corridor waiting to talk to one of the PE teachers. Basically- the corridor was blocked by them and I needed to get through. The standard way to do this would've been: "Hi, sorry guys, can I just get through?" and walk through calmly and get on my way. But of course, the z-axis couldn't possibly bear such normality.

What I did was calmly approach and then, unexpectedly GROWL LIKE A RABID DOG, barge through and run- full pelt- down the rest of the corridor.

Later that night on MSN (does anybody even remember the days when people used to legit use MSN?) he asked me "Wtf did u growl lyk a rabid dog 4? Iz u mental or sumfin?". Having browsed through my ancient chatlogs just now; apparently I responded with the following gem of literate, coherent, Pulitzer-standard prose: "u iz well batty. nah i jst neeyyded 2 get fru n u gyz wernt mooovin LOLCOPTER".

Have I ever mentioned that seeing my internet writing style from the past makes me want to go back in time and PUNCH my younger self and tell myself to stop speaking like an immature asstard?

SITUATION TWO

I was really good friends with one of Cruize's best friends, Orren. So when me and my friends were celebrating my birthday on the Terraces with a sack of chocolate one of them had brought and Orren called over from his group of friends to bring him some Maltesers, I laughingly went over. Obviously, it'd be just plain rude to only give some to Orren so I offered them round to all of the guys sitting there and the last person in the circle was Cruize.

As he reached into the large red cardboard box- I yanked it away and shouted "NO! I DON'T LIKE YOU!"
His jaw dropped.
My jaw dropped.
"I'M SO SO SORRY! I DON'T KNOW WHY I SAID THAT. PLEASE TAKE ONE. I'M SO SO SORRY!"
And everyone in the vicinity burst out laughing.

As I'm getting too bored to outline everything in detail, let me just summarise;

1- Once I threw an iceball at the back of his head while he was literally a metre in front of me. He yelped in pain and spun round to find me standing with my hand up, covered in snow- clearly the guilty party.

2- Once he came up behind me and whispered something in my ear. As if on a reflex, I turned around and punched him in the face.

3- One time, he was running down the corridor and before my brain could catch up with what my leg was doing, I had stuck it out and tripped him up.

4- My class and his had PE at the same time and in order to get to our school field- which was about a mile away from the actual school grounds- we had to cross through this little park with a stream running through it. It was a ridiculously hot summer day so me and my friends decided it'd be a brilliant idea to jump in the stream. Me being the hilarious joker that I am, thought it'd be a TOTAL HOOT if I pretended to be a squid.

So while I was going around pretending to be a squid... who should appear but Cruize. Once again looking at me as though I had COMPLETELY lost it. See- he didn't even have to be VISIBLE for me to go insane.

5- On the French Trip, I was beasting one of those zombie shootout games at a Service Station when he suddenly appeared and took the gun next to me. Suddenly, my money ran out but when I put more in- Nothing happened. I kept shooting but still- No response. Frustrated, I was just about to put the gun back when Cruize reached over me, causing me to screech "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" in his face.

He hit the start button and said "It should work now."

6- One time, I was sitting on a bench swinging my feet when my shoe flew off. This wasn't preempted and even if it were, I'm not sure anybody can claim to be an expert in aiming where a rogue shoe will fly to. Mine, as it happens, flew straight over the heads of a group of Year Seven kids on the first Terrace down and landed -SPLAT!- on the head of... if I really need to say it; you haven't been paying attention.

Now, I'd just like to reiterate here that there was no emotional explanation for my erratic behaviour and I am generally a calm, cool, level-headed person. But something. Just something about him would set off my z-axis and there really is no controlling the earthly dimensions... All I can say is; we no longer go to the same school and my z-axis appears to have finally retreated to the dark, deserted hole from whence it came.

[Furgeson]

Having browsed through my ancient chatlogs just now; apparently I responded with the following gem of literate, coherent, Pulitzer-standard prose: "u iz well batty. nah i jst neeyyded 2 get fru n u gyz wernt mooovin LOLCOPTER".

Have I ever mentioned that seeing my internet writing style from the past makes me want to go back in time and PUNCH my younger self and tell myself to stop speaking like an immature asstard?

Riz, I understand your pain. So, so, so fully.  You say my internet chat style couldn't get worse than it is now, but wrong you are. Wrong you are.