COMMENDED
Diary of an Introvert
Una Gordon, Chorlton High School
I’m walking down a busy street. I can hear everyone’s footsteps pattering along the damp floor. The smell of wet pavement is
overpowered momentarily by a group of office workers desperately inhaling cigarette smoke. I can see a man with blonde hair
and a red blazer standing outside a bar. He is waiting for someone, something. His brow is creased and the tips of his eyes are
slanted downwards. His lips are pressed firmly together and he keeps glancing at his watch, then left and right. He keeps
sighing.
I imagine what has happened to him. Maybe he went on a dating website and has been stood up. He is in debt to a drug dealer
and is awaiting his fate. His father, who has always been disappointed with him, is coming to offer him another job at his big
business firm that his son will no doubt refuse. Perhaps it is his incredibly organised sister who is never late, and she is causing
him to worry.
I hear a clack of pointed heels and before I can go into any more detail with my stories I am interrupted by“Tilly!”
Oh.
“Carol, hey.” Carol is one of my friends from university. She’s lovely, but she talks. A lot.
“Wow, Tilly, the last time I saw you! It must’ve been... 3 years ago? Oh my gosh I’ve missed you! How are you doing?” She leans
in to hug me.
“Oh, great. Yeah, Fine. How about you?” I mumble, mid-embrace.
“Really good, actually!” She flashes me a big cheesy grin. “I’ve just come back from shopping and there was this amazing dress,
you should have seen it! Anyway, it was black lace, with these lovely pearls sewn along...” I let Carol prattle on about the pure
beauty of this dress. She was a fashion student and loved to talk about these things. I kept eye contact and gave the accessional
nod and smile to show I was listening. And I was, I just wasn’t paying attention.
Just behind Carol, there was a thirty-year-old-looking woman holding a little girl’s hand; she was swinging on it. They were
waiting to cross the road and the woman looked tired, but happy. She had the air of comfortable experience about her, which
only ever comes with mothering. She was smiling as she looked down at her daughter.
Her daughter was dressed in yellow. A yellow duffle coat and rain hat. She reminded me of Paddington Bear in the way that she
was simply exploring. She was naively curious, but confident none the less.
Carol was now describing, in detail, the way the layers to her turquoise silk dress flowed. Above her right shoulder was an old
man sitting on a bench. The creases in his face reduced him to resemble a pale-pink walnut. His eyes were covered by inches of
stretched and wrinkled skin from below his eyebrows. The corners of his mouth are hung down bitterly. He looks out across the
road and taps his fingers on his knee. He is passing the time in any way he can.
I start to think about how much I would dislike retirement; there would be nothing to do. Retirement is the point in life, I
suppose, when one finally rests in peace, awaiting death.
I frown and stop thinking about it and shake those grim thoughts from my head as I answer Carol’s question: Yes, that scarf
definitely matches those shoes, and is it a skater dress? That will look great!
“Really? I’m so glad you’ve said that, Matilda, see I’ve been trying to get as many opinions as I can because it is important to
look good when you’re selling what you’re wearing, you know? And...”
I struggle to see how she spends so long on one topic without getting distracted.
There is a slim girl with sharp cheek bones and a lanky figure on the other end of the bench. She has short fair hair and glasses;
she’s hunched over a sandwich and is staring intently at it.
Eat it, I urge her. I hope that, by using sheer mind power, I can force her to stomach this minor mountain of food.
You can do it. Come on.
“What?”
“Oh, did I say that out loud?”
“Yes, you said ‘come on’”
“Oh...I am, er, I must be getting carried away with my thoughts. Erm...sorry...”
“Well if I was boring you, you could have just said”
“No, that’s not what I meant at all, I just...”
And then it started to rain.
36
Diary of an Introvert
I shut my eyes and breathed in. I need to escape. Now.
“...you just what?”
“I have to go.”
I hug a confused and disgruntled Carol and make a bee line for an already green crossing.
One last time I scan the area with my eyes. I see Carol’s coat fluttering out of sight, the girl throwing her sandwich away and
crossing her arms as she strides off, the old man heaving himself up and plodding away; the woman with her daughter now
crosses the road with me, but when I glance at the bar the man in the red blazer is gone.
I bite my lip, frown and reach the other side. I pass a letterbox and blink. Red.
A little boy with red wellingtons on.
A woman wearing red lipstick.
A house with a red front door.
An old lady with a red umbrella.
I stop and grab a lamp post. I take a few deep breaths. What’s happening to me? It is as if the rest of the world has gone black
and white and all I can see is Red. Red. Red.
Now the rain is thudding down on me and I know I need to move on. I’m just setting off when I see him. The man in the red
blazer standing on the street corner, staring out across an ocean of puddles. He starts running, the water splashing up his legs.
And I’m following him, running, knowing the sound of my footsteps will be masked by the rain slapping the grey stone beneath
my feet.
He turns a corner into a vast open car park. He walks determinedly across the stretch of near empty spaces, constantly checking
over his shoulder. I stick to the shadows, afraid that he might see me. I wonder what he’s running from, what’s caused this
anxiety.
He could be a murderer. Maybe he did it as a spur of the moment thing; he thought it the right thing to do at the time, but in
the split second after he pulled the trigger...he knew it couldn’t be undone.
Now he can’t shake the feeling that someone’s ghost is watching him. Every corner he turns, he sees the face of shock and pain
in his victim’s eyes.
He’s slowed to a brisk walk and he looks more confident as he strides. He stops checking over his shoulder so much and there is
more of a spring in his step.
Maybe he is on his way to a restaurant, he’s going to propose to his girlfriend of three years. She was supposed to meet him at
the bar but she couldn’t make it.
He walks through the train station doors.
Even though they both live in central Manchester, her work is in Liverpool. He is about to whisk her away to a 5-star boutique
hotel restaurant and when he kneels down, her heart will start beating fast. She can’t think. She can’t breathe. She can only
focus on his lips as he utters the words: Will you marrHe is waving at someone. Victoria is quite crowded as no one wants to go outside in the rain. I can’t see who he has locked eyes
with.
He is making his way over to someone, pushing his way through the sea of suitcases.
When he reaches them, I smile.
The man in the red blazer plants a kiss firmly on his partner’s mouth. His partner is tall with brown hair; he has broad shoulders,
and is carrying a travel bag and a guitar. He grabs Red Blazer’s hand and they walk towards the station door.
When they walk past me, I hear a snippet of their conversation.
“No, Dave I swear I was waiting out there for at least half an hour! I was getting worried; I thought the train had crashed or
something.”
“Well I did text you.”
“I know, I know, I’m just glad to see you’re...”
I take my phone out of my pocket and check the time. 3:15pm. I saunter over to a coffee shop and order a hot drink. I sit in a
window seat and look out across the station floor.
I spot a teenage girl sitting on her own on a bench. She looks like she is trying to read a book but she keeps glancing up as if she
is looking for someone. I wonder why she is here...
37