Lost Diary

To the woman who sat in the window yesterday using a knife and fork to eat her Portuguese tart, you are meant to pick it up. Also, we would like to get your diary back to you. You left behind a navy notebook which I read. Our entire team at the bakery were entertained, it’s hilarious. Inside the cover is written: If found please return to Christina. However, this name is written without any way to contact you, Christina. In efforts to find you we have decided to publish excerpts of your writing in PULP. Could the relevant Christina please return to collect their notebook…

I

I can’t believe Isaac already has a new girlfriend. It’s irritating for someone so pretentious, shallow and off-putting to replace me before I replace him(!) when I am comparably insufferable in compatible ways. He has an advantage being a straight(?) man, maybe potential partners are willing to put up with more. I won’t compare our levels of physical beauty, that would be in poor taste. I am taller, so take that as you like.

II

Something I hate to acknowledge is how annoying I find my colleagues. It’s difficult to admit but I do find in myself an incessant superiority. I don’t like to think I am better than them. That I am smarter, more interesting, more conceptual, more egalitarian. Although, there is still a chance left for me. If my beliefs were fixed beyond hope, if I was a true believer, I wouldn’t be trying so hard to prove it. But there has to be an explanation I can find. Why, why am I now so bored by other people? Is it this city? I miss Copenhagen. I can’t remember why I wanted to leave.

III

Maybe it’s actually wanting what you can’t have. Maybe it’s actually being so far away and hoping there is a point to the weight of this aloneness. I have to keep in mind the reasons I left Denmark. That I was unhappy. That Isaac is a bitch. I only miss him because he isn’t here. If I was around him again I would only be exhausted like before. I have to drive to Mona Vale this weekend. I have to make myself enjoy Sydney. 

IIII

I love to get drunk and scribble. It makes me feel like Hemingway. I just wish I had a wife I could go home to who could recognise my genius. Who I would only occasionally verbally abuse (unlike Ernest!) I am grateful for the gimlet on my lips and the cold stem on my fingertips. I called Max today. In our conversations I am always trying to provoke him. It used to be easy, when he would be jealous of me. It's been harder since I moved away. For my own stability I am trying to stop. 

I asked him about Isaac and Alice. He said she’s prettier than me. Brotherly love. I am hopeless. It won’t ever work. Do I enjoy torturing myself? I can’t help myself. I never could. 

IIII

A man I met at a poetry reading would like me to attend his band’s next/first performance. He sent me their spotify page on instagram. His band is a trio making “hardcore” hiphop. They have one song released. It is hardcore “bad”. 

IIII  I

It was not what I expected when my shallow, self-serving idiot roommate said she was writing a letter to the Bureau of the Environment, advocating for environmental justice on behalf of people living in Sydney. I will find a way to reconcile these facts. I expect it will hinge on the idea that she is American and importing her American exceptionalist, imperialist, arrogance to Australia. I expect she is telling others to do something while contributing nothing except the emissions of the dirty noisy jet that flew her and her Americanisms here. So much rage has leaked from my pen. 

IIII  II

Dear Journal,

Swear to hold my secrets tightly and to never let them go. Promise what I give you will be protected forever. I am a criminal. I feel like I’m in exile. This evening I realise how guilty I am. Because I didn’t say I wanted to leave until I said goodbye. What sort of person does that? I don’t know. I should be happy for Isaac. That he’s happy. I didn’t want to hurt him, and I guess I didn’t. I suppose I got everything I wanted. Desire is never what I want it to be. It’s strange. Now I want to be with him again. 

IIII  III

Why do I spend so much time imagining the lies I will tell other people? Why do I want to lie to friendly people? It’s because I am a natural storyteller, what is a performance without rehearsal. I am a storyteller and I enjoy telling stories to myself.

IIII  IIII

At that moment Christina imagined herself walking down a very steep hill. So steep it would be more reasonable to call it a cliff. Except ‘hill’ would be less anxiety-inducing and isn’t the point to calm down? It felt like walking down a cliff/hill in the wilderness with no one to catch you slip/fall off the sheer drop, probably into the ocean, to drown, and never be seen, ever again, not by whales or even scuba divers. It was that particular feeling of a tensioned core which was unusual given Christina wasn’t precariously balanced on a cliff face. She was only sitting in a cafe. Sitting quite solidly on a cushioned bench. But still she felt herself slipping. 

Why don’t you face yourself and speak in the first person? Take some ownership. Take some direction. Take control of your own thoughts. 

IIIIiii

I couldn’t have stayed with him. Maybe until my forties. By then my life would be over and I would be desperately unhappy. Then I’d have to shoot myself from boredom. Then it's too late to start over again. I hate that he knew me so well. Isaac said I’d be depressed here. He said I’d want to come back. I hate that he’s right. I hate that the buses only come every twenty minutes. I hate that I am someone who drives everyday. I hate that the pastries have a bite to them. I hate how no one cares to let a cyclist pass through. I hate that no one thinks. I hate how no one reads. I hate that I only have English to speak in.

Christina, who bought a pastry last week, has not yet claimed her journal. Human nature dictates an attachment to our own creations, whatever their quality. We suspect this local woman does want her diary back, but may be embarrassed. Being the owner of a local business, I am naturally solution-orientated. Therefore, I have organised a small print run of the lost journal—full copies will be available at our bakery counter from next week. The writer is welcome to buy a copy, as any customer is, and has the opportunity to remain entirely anonymous. My team and I are delighted to continue serving the local community like we have since 2019.