I feel like running away but instead I'm just rooted here in my bed, going over the details of yet another drama in my mind, feeling the fallout & wondering how things might proceed from here in due course. Will I ever encounter again the old lady with the walking frame to whom, when she requested that she have my seat, I retorted “No”! That I was disabled too & will the bus passengers present recall, if they see me again, that I was the woman who had just told her boyfriend that leaving the pub for the pre-agreed bus, was better than staying & glassing somebody. Which doesn't look good on paper, I agree.
And if this sounds like outright flippancy it is because I could write reams about schemes which were troubling me before we even went out that day, my boyfriend & me but the bottom line is that; I felt – feel - trust was broken after I went along with the day's loose timetable on an understanding that we were coming home on a specific bus at a specific time & even before we had left to catch this bus, he was saying “O, looks like the place is only just starting to warm up” which I decode as the start of a shifting of the parameters agreed beforehand & that un-nerves me already & by the time we are at the door saying farewell, I turn to one of the women amongst the half dozen people sat in the garden – who is also an ex-girlfriend of my boyfriend - & raise my eyebrows in intended comic effect & say “honestly...you give them an inch & they take Poland” which is some comment I once read in an MMOG skype chat sometime & refers to people going beyond boundaries, I think.
We were only there at all because of a misunderstanding about a televised sport fixture; it was not beaming @ 16:00 that day but @ 04:00, some 36 hours hence we discovered, after we took seats near one of the in-house televisions. His mistake, not mine. We make a lot of similar-type errors although he is unassessed, unlike me. So we sat in the garden instead, talking to a couple of other patrons & then a couple more people sat at the table & more were anticipated; we had been there the agreed hour or so & now our drinks were finished & it was time to go, at which point his comment was made.
I say: we agreed before, can we still keep with that please & we make our way indoors & back out, crossing the main road to the bus stop where a group pf others are waiting too. I register my bus pass on the ticket machine, he pays & sits beside me. He is still berating my inability to change plans; I am saying calmly but nonetheless publicly that my autism makes me want to work within parameters but inside I am starting to seeth & slide; it seems to me that an argument is being manipulated & continued so that he can leave me on the bus & return & that's when I say “better to leave than to stay & to glass somebody” which totally slays him dead; palpable shock & then the woman bent over with the walking frame looms over me requesting my seat & then I make my second throwaway comment, at which point he gets up to leave. I sigh & cross over to a seat opposite, switching off my moby before any of his texts arrive.
As I ring the bus bell to disembark & thank the bus driver, he is courteous enough & I have sat quietly for the few minutes duration of the bus ride. None of the previous discourse was loud either but as the bus departs & I stand on the road, I am aware of some bus passengers looking at me & mindful of what they may be thinking. I feel resigned to the sitution: it is what it is.
Reaching home, I roll a smoke & sit on my couch in silence, looking at the green of the meadow & the trees which lie beyond the back yard wall, allowing my gaze to travel further, across the low wire fence which marks a field where sheep sometimes are, up to another wire fence which partitions the low valley, which is shrouded on one side in woodland. There are sometimes horses grazing here. The land rises again, beyond & the green stops flat, to be met by a sky horizon which obscures the unseen sea.
I'm sighing audibly & an intense monologue is starting to play out in my head; I feel overwhelmingly duped by circumstance including my boyfriend & I feel bad about my non-handling of the situation. For a few moments, I am seized by an urge to escape; disappear for a few days & I do an instant online search for flight prices to Holland & a hotel, before remembering I have pending obligations at home & that manic frivolity anyways, rarely brings long-standing contentment.
Feeling exhausted, I go to bed, having switched on the electric blanket when I first arrived. The muscles & tendons in my right shoulder are throbbing badly: an old injury & I'm heat-seeking to help alleviate the discomfort. I'm trying not to think of anything, to rest & meditate & chill & I'm almost drifting into sleep & remembering that I need to turn off the electric blanket when I'm aware of a persistent two-tone noise which is barely audible above the generic electrical hum in my home. I at first think it's a neighbors phone but the seeming proximity of it leads me back into my living room & I realize it's my home phone land line. It ceases soon after & the number recall lists my boyfriend. Returning to bed, I switch on my moby & a stream of piercing whistle notifications is released: eleven text messages land. This is the repeated pattern of our five month relationship. I am sure that he is AS also but non-assessed.
And if this sounds like outright flippancy it is because I could write reams about schemes which were troubling me before we even went out that day, my boyfriend & me but the bottom line is that; I felt – feel - trust was broken after I went along with the day's loose timetable on an understanding that we were coming home on a specific bus at a specific time & even before we had left to catch this bus, he was saying “O, looks like the place is only just starting to warm up” which I decode as the start of a shifting of the parameters agreed beforehand & that un-nerves me already & by the time we are at the door saying farewell, I turn to one of the women amongst the half dozen people sat in the garden – who is also an ex-girlfriend of my boyfriend - & raise my eyebrows in intended comic effect & say “honestly...you give them an inch & they take Poland” which is some comment I once read in an MMOG skype chat sometime & refers to people going beyond boundaries, I think.
We were only there at all because of a misunderstanding about a televised sport fixture; it was not beaming @ 16:00 that day but @ 04:00, some 36 hours hence we discovered, after we took seats near one of the in-house televisions. His mistake, not mine. We make a lot of similar-type errors although he is unassessed, unlike me. So we sat in the garden instead, talking to a couple of other patrons & then a couple more people sat at the table & more were anticipated; we had been there the agreed hour or so & now our drinks were finished & it was time to go, at which point his comment was made.
I say: we agreed before, can we still keep with that please & we make our way indoors & back out, crossing the main road to the bus stop where a group pf others are waiting too. I register my bus pass on the ticket machine, he pays & sits beside me. He is still berating my inability to change plans; I am saying calmly but nonetheless publicly that my autism makes me want to work within parameters but inside I am starting to seeth & slide; it seems to me that an argument is being manipulated & continued so that he can leave me on the bus & return & that's when I say “better to leave than to stay & to glass somebody” which totally slays him dead; palpable shock & then the woman bent over with the walking frame looms over me requesting my seat & then I make my second throwaway comment, at which point he gets up to leave. I sigh & cross over to a seat opposite, switching off my moby before any of his texts arrive.
As I ring the bus bell to disembark & thank the bus driver, he is courteous enough & I have sat quietly for the few minutes duration of the bus ride. None of the previous discourse was loud either but as the bus departs & I stand on the road, I am aware of some bus passengers looking at me & mindful of what they may be thinking. I feel resigned to the sitution: it is what it is.
Reaching home, I roll a smoke & sit on my couch in silence, looking at the green of the meadow & the trees which lie beyond the back yard wall, allowing my gaze to travel further, across the low wire fence which marks a field where sheep sometimes are, up to another wire fence which partitions the low valley, which is shrouded on one side in woodland. There are sometimes horses grazing here. The land rises again, beyond & the green stops flat, to be met by a sky horizon which obscures the unseen sea.
I'm sighing audibly & an intense monologue is starting to play out in my head; I feel overwhelmingly duped by circumstance including my boyfriend & I feel bad about my non-handling of the situation. For a few moments, I am seized by an urge to escape; disappear for a few days & I do an instant online search for flight prices to Holland & a hotel, before remembering I have pending obligations at home & that manic frivolity anyways, rarely brings long-standing contentment.
Feeling exhausted, I go to bed, having switched on the electric blanket when I first arrived. The muscles & tendons in my right shoulder are throbbing badly: an old injury & I'm heat-seeking to help alleviate the discomfort. I'm trying not to think of anything, to rest & meditate & chill & I'm almost drifting into sleep & remembering that I need to turn off the electric blanket when I'm aware of a persistent two-tone noise which is barely audible above the generic electrical hum in my home. I at first think it's a neighbors phone but the seeming proximity of it leads me back into my living room & I realize it's my home phone land line. It ceases soon after & the number recall lists my boyfriend. Returning to bed, I switch on my moby & a stream of piercing whistle notifications is released: eleven text messages land. This is the repeated pattern of our five month relationship. I am sure that he is AS also but non-assessed.
