The Ancient Shark Of Despair's blog

"I can't stay here with you." The landlord said to me. "I've been taking care of you for too long." He stood in the doorway and even though he wasn't shaking you could feel it. He had absolute determination in what he said, yet he looked like he could be persuaded at any moment to throw away all his charge and hold on for another day. I asked him if he wanted to come in for some tea. He nodded avoidingly and shuffled in, giving each object in my room a thought before moving on to the next. I got him to follow me into the kitchen and told him about what was going on.

"I've got into a bit of trouble. With money." I said. "I need some more money. It's really important."

His mouth reacted violently and shrunk up and expanded resting on open scorn. He said "Sharky" to me but his voice nearly cracked so he stopped. He moved his head about the kitchen and quickly came back to me. "I can't believe..." he said to me. He said he couldn't believe that I could ask him. I told him that it was my money. I told him that he worked for me and I could ask for more of the rent money, but I wasn't just telling him what to do. I was his friend and I really needed his help.

He cleared up for a second, he asked me what it was for. I stopped him there. I didn't want to be rude and this mattered so much to me. I couldn't tell him. "What do you mean you can't tell me?" He asked and his voice rose. I shook my body around and tried to not get him hung out about this. I needed him to just understand that this was really important to me.

"It's those damn kids! Isn't it? Isn't it, Shark?" He moved closer and above me and his hand was almost grabbing me. Later I realised that I could have chomped him half right there, but at the time I actually didn't know what to do. I tried not to go quiet, but that's all that I could do. "I can't believe it!" He shouted. His face grew red and bits of spit left his mouth as he glared at me, every couple of words slipping as they flew at me. "I can't believe you could do this now! Do you have any idea how serious this is right now? You don't! You don't care!"

I tried to touch him to stop but his hand flew at me, knocking me in a way that hurt immediately. I ripped myself back. He kept hitting with his body but without actually touching me. He shook his arms as he locked onto me. "I can't live here anymore! Me and Celene are leaving! After this there is no-one here to look after you. My brother is coming with me. We're all leaving! Do you not get this?" He kept shaking at me and it wasn't fair that I couldn't respond. He would hit me again if I did.

"Mr Roberts saw you! You talked to him. You are a monster to them, that's all you are to them! What do you think he was supposed to think he was seeing when he saw you? Jesus, Shark! I don't fucking believe you!" He was crying.

Yeah, I don't really know how best to talk about change. I'm not really sure if I can sum up these sorts of things that well anymore. There are things in real life that you can use to check change over time. I think probably the first example that pops into mind is the things that I'm never going to have happen again. I keep thinking back to when David and Moe and Monopoly and everyone was just at my house for what seemed like it would never end. We would just sit on my bed playing TV games. Yeah, sometimes it didn't work out for the best. Sometimes people would fight and you'd think that oh no this will never get worked out, but none of that really mattered though. All that matters now is that we probably never going to have this again.

I got Sarah round. I got Moe to bring her here. This is on that night back the other day. When Moe didn't deliver and I had to ask him and tell him everything about how I felt. I told him that I had feelings for her. I paid him a thousand rand to bring her here.

He stood in the corner and waited. I kept looking at him and smiling, thinking about how he was being so responsible and standing up there for here, making sure nothing went wrong. Over all of his concern and his standing tough and uncompromising I couldn't help but smile at his uniform. All of it silly in this context, but all of us ignoring that because of how serious our feelings are. Oh man.

The landlord didn't leave. I didn't think he would, I know him too well. I asked Moe to leave the room for a minute so that I could speak to Sarah. He asked why and I felt silly about to tell him that it was secrets that I had for her that could change everything. Just before I had to Sarah started up and nodded to him that it was okay. I thought about him standing guard in his uniform and laughed under my breath about it. I didn't mean it badly, but he shot me a look to remind me how serious this was, but come on, I think we were all getting a bit too worked up about it.

She was sitting on my bed. I sat on it too, but half looking at my computer the whole time. I stopped now that Moe had left. I stood up and looked at her. Right at her. I just want to tell you that you mean so much to me. I know you couldn't possibly know how much. I haven't told you, I haven't been able to. I stood silently above her. “Give me your phone number.” I asked her. “I want to be able to phone you.”

She looked at me guiltily. I realised almost immediately that she wasn't going to. “Do you want some tea?” I asked. “I've got tea in the kitchen.” She looked up from her shoes and looked at me. Her shook softly and she waited for me. I nodded. “Hey! How about your matric dance, hey? That's going to be great. Oh man, I can't wait. I've been thinking about it so much.”

She nodded. I waited for her and then walked into the kitchen. I put on the kettle and moved a few cups around. “Are you taking him?” I asked. “I wouldn't mind or anything. I just want to know.”

She didn't reply. I walked back in and tried to ask her again. I tried to ask her but I could hear the landlord. He was calling at Moe. I told you that the landlord wouldn't leave. I know him too well.

I told Moe that I thought it was funny how we both ended up falling in love with the same girl and how she ended up ditching both of us as soon as she found out. I'd gotten her round to my room. It's a funny story in retrospect. I paid Moe to get her round here, quite a lot of money actually. I had to ask the landlord for extra cash, which is never fun.

So I got her round here and we were having this really intense serious "let's all sit a circle and tell each other how we feel" session. Man, whatever. Anyway, it didn't go that well and she left. Actually, right before she left that pesky landlord walks in (I'm just joking, he isn't pesky). He's got Moe by the arm. He's really gripping him with all that Irish strength. And says a little curse in Irish and pulls Moe in through the door along with him.

"What is this, Shark?" he says loud. Really loud, I think. He was shouting. I don't know how to get across how hard he said this. It made us forget about how we felt pretty quickly. "How does this make sense to you at a time like this? How can you possibly make sense of this?" He was talking and there were no breaks for me to speak in, but he didn't really seem to know what to say, he just wanted to be talking at me.

I smiled at him cheekily. I mean, come on. You can't just burst in and just rant off with Moe and Sarah in the room not at all knowing what's going on. Moe definitely did not know what was going on. I thought he would just unleash himself and destroy the landlord. You would think he would have ripped the landlord's arm off and just simply pushed him hard against the wall, not even showing any anger. Because you just don't do that to him. No, Moe just stood there looking at me. He looked so angry he was going to cry. I think he was trying not to because of Sarah. Sarah was crying from before.

"Come on, let them go, they've got nothing to do with it." I told the landlord. He let go of Moe immediately and looked at me with this complete disbelief.

"Nothing to do with it? Nothing!" He looked like he was trying to laugh for effect. It was actually pretty lame, but he was so angry at the time no one mocked him about it. "These kids are going to get you burned at the stake." His voice had calmed remarkably. He looked like he'd never held Moe, not a thing about him was out of his control. "Shark. They've seen you. The neighbours. They know what you are. [Sarah ran out of the room] They're organizing a mob. They're on their way up here right now and they're going to burn you to death. Not me though. I'm on their side. I've won their trust. All week I've been talking. Talking about things that don't matter. Talking about their jobs. Talking about their children. They trust me. You're the one they're going to burn."

He smiled in a way. And he nodded to end it off. And blinked. His whole body had been hunched over but now he straightened it. He sniggered. He had lost his control again. You could see he was trying to laugh. Again we didn't mock him for it because we didn't want him to freak out.