The Surrounding Area

I'm currently residing at my father's flat since my mother's house is too far away from my place of employment, my University accommodation is inaccessible and my childhood home has other people living in it, meaning that I innately perceive them to be constructed of nay but pure evil. But I've gotten over the loss of that house; being a human, I'm able to adapt despite my lack of liking for the concept of 'change'.

Near to my dad's flat - mentioning something I've already mentioned previously in this blog so that the newfound swathes of people flocking thick and fast to see this can see it, obviously - are situated several landmarks or points of interest. They're not really that interesting or at all landmarkish except for on this little portion of internet, in which every tiny little thing that crosses my brain is a whole mountain of significant. It's quite odd to think, really, that I've stumbled upon several pseudo-landmarks in the surrounding area considering this place (yes, I'm currently at the flat whilst typing this, I'm not floating around inside the computer right now, fun as that may sound) feels so far detached from everything, it takes at least a half-hour walk before one sees some kind of civilisation.

Let's start with the furthest away shall we. Some weeks ago, I erroeously informed any innocent passer-by on this place that a youngster had been violently attacked in a nearby alleyway, leading to me pondering the fragility of life and other philosophical musings that would make Aristotle want to smack me over the head with a bust of Aristotle. Of course, brutal stabbing was a mere local rumour and the true reason for the alleyway's blue and white police tape has since been linked to an occurrence of unwanted sexual acts, i.e. rape. It's unclear whether this particular speculation holds any kind of truth or not and because of this, I wouldn't like to comment further on it. I'd just like to retract my last bundle of paragraphs about a potentially murdered teenager and conclude that bad things do, indeed, happen in life. Besides, the main point of that previous ramble was that I couldn't get through the alleyway to make it to work on time. As it turns out, I did get to work on time and no bad things have happened in the alley since.

Getting slowly closer to the flat exists a cemetery, a graveyard, or as I referred to it last week, an "underground retirement home". Not much actually happens there; as you might expect, the residents aren't as active as they once used to be. Again, going back to last week, I noticed the smell of a barbeque when walking past the place but that's about as exciting as things get near a burial ground. As far as I'm aware, hauntings are not commonplace. Either that or everybody's too busy with being alive to care about what's going on within other spiritual planes.

On the topic of hauntings and the creepy and mysterious, part of the last week has played host to me annoying everyone I know on Facebook with a local story I invented. Of course, everyone I know on Facebook involves everyone I know in real life plus a few thousand others whom I've probably met once, said a jolly friendly "hello" to and now know every aspect of their lives courtesy of social media. This I suddenly realised when my new smartphone (yeah, I also got a new phone this week, it doesn't warrant an entire blog post on the subject though, just accept the fact and we can all get on with our lives) connected to my Facebook profile and proceeded to include every single person into my contact list. What followed was an evening-long bout of sorting people out, filtering them and essentially making it so they don't show up on my phone since I have no need for all those contacts yet keeping them all on Facebook because I like having a bit of a read in the morning, like a personalised newspaper in which nothing at all special happens. Anyway, I started this paragraph promising something creepy and mysterious.

My dad's flat is situated in a small complex of flats all sharing the same dustbin enclosure, which is still not enough information for dad to become paranoid that I'm putting his personal life on the internet for anyone to steal. The dustbin enclosure, called so because I can't think of any other way to describe it other than a dustbin enclosure, sits directly outside the living room window. The binmen come first thing on Friday morning; this I know because the room I'm spending this summer's sleep time in also faces the bins and admittedly, the monotone rumbling of a truck, the steady bleeping of a 'backing-up' warning siren and thunderous claging are a better wake-up call than a tinkling tune coming from a five-year-old Samsung mobile. In their working routine and in my wavering state of consciousness, I vaguely remember hearing the voices of the unseen workers stating they were going to leave something since they weren't sure if it was rubbish or not. Some time later, I managed to make it from the bed to the living room to be greeted by the aforementioned creepy and mysterious sight I've spent two whole paragraphs setting up.

A child's toy - a plastic-headed, blonde-haired doll - had been placed free-standing, arms spread wide against the backing of the dustbin enclosure crucifixion-style, like a cross between Jesus Christ and the Bride of Chucky stared directly ahead with dead eyes through the living room window. Call me old-fashioned but it's a little unnerving when you've just sat down with a cup of tea trying to watch Cash In The Attic. It took two-and-a-half days for an overnight rainstorm to knock her off her perch and a further two days for her to disappear completely. Presumably, she was reclaimed by a young child, given a bath and made to have pretty tea parties in bright pink wallpapered rooms with an abundance of teddy bears and miniature plastic horses. Either that or someone threw her corpse into one of the giant bins along with their weekly rubbish, thus making the area in which I'm staying slightly less creepy once more.

There's also a Chinese takeaway nearby so it's not all that bad.