The living and the dead

Sebastian,

I trust this note finds you - it’s difficult to track you down at the best of times. Still, if you’ve been trying to get in touch with me, you won’t have managed it and I’ve sadly missed out on your fine words.
What must be must be, though, Sebastian. I was thrown from my digs a few months back and had to find whatever shelter I could. The church saved me.
Now, some people say it’s hard to be dead but I just don’t agree. I’ve been living in the grounds of this church for a while now and not noticed their hardship. The dead sleep better than the living and, when they wake, they have little to worry them. The dead do not disturb me.
Sometimes I’ve heard them whispering or moving rocks and leaves about, but they’re not interested in me. I’m as dead as they are.
It’s not been all fine here, but the priest is an understanding fellow and turns a blind eye to us, as often as he can. We stay out of the churchyard in the day, when people might be visiting. It’s a large cemetery and crypt here at St Theresa’s and it’s been easy to hide our existence from others. Fr Mead has warned us that if a needle is found in the churchyard he will be forced to call the police. I regard that as only fair.
I’m staying here with some friends – Millie, who I’m very fond of, also Gregor and his brother Tony. There was an incident a few months back, a group of guys throwing rocks and insults at us. We managed to get away from them, but they trashed our stuff.
The next day, we were drinking and Millie went back early because she felt ill and needed to sleep. They were waiting; she said it was the same guys. They were merciless with her. It brings me such pain to recall the sight of her when we found her there.
She said she’d be alright, that it wasn’t the first time it had happened. She didn’t want to go to hospital because they’d involve the police and then we’d all be moved on. So we looked after her as best we could. The men never came back.
I’m sorry I don’t have brighter news for you, Sebastian. Maybe I’ll see you, friend, next time you’re near the old church? Know that I think of you, often.

Your friend,

Robert.

At the bottom of a bag of crisps

After coming home wasted from the pub for the third night in a row, Robert Young thought that he saw the meaning of his life in the bottom of a half-eaten packet of crisps.
Through dribbling fits of coughing and raving he had dropped his packet of crinkle-cut cheese and onion at the foot of the couch.
Getting down with a wobble, onto his hands and knees, he was able to peer inside the value ‘snack pack’ of fatty fried potato sustenance before him.
The large plastic packet seemed to expand before him, opening up like some magical portal into a strange land of salt and grease.
The more he stared, the more he was aware of strange lights and images floating within and upon this vista.
He wanted so very much to crawl inside, to climb the mountains of crisps, and dig beneath the crinkly caverns. An Aurora Borealis seemed to flicker like a neon sign across the white ‘stay-fresh’ lining of the inner bag, and so he climbed head first into the remnants of these snacks, crunching as he went…
The next day, his flatmate, Lizzy Prescott, found Robert passed out in a large bag of Walkers.
She removed the bag and brought him round. His entire body was covered in salt and grease.
As he opened his eyes and smiled, he told her of a strange journey he’d just taken, into a great cave of crisps. The cave seemed to go on forever, but, just as he finally made it to the end of this vast lair, in the slag heaps of salt there lay the answer to his poor life.
She asked many times just what it was, what had he found there beneath those white crystals. He never answered.
He just hauled himself onto the grotty couch, cracked opened a warm can of beer and rummaged under the gas bills and magazines until he found a fresh pack of salt and vinegar crisps beneath the TV Guide.
He opened the packet with a smile and then began to beam when his hand came to rest on the television remote.
“This, is the life,” he said, and with that Lizzy slowly rose from the carpet and joined him.