Living on my own ...

Angela Maria De Nobrega Freitas, BSc Hons., Social Sciences, Open University, DipGeog., Open University Masters, MA, MLit., Literature, studied, Open University, Masters, MA, MSc., MPhil., and playwriting, studied, Birmingham University I wish to point out the commentary written at the end of this page actually relates to the next piece of writing, entitled, Watching a Film ... When I first moved to my flat I had to get used to living on my own, I not only drew lots of drawings, through drawing, i learned placement and distance, re-affirmed my hand to eye co-ordination, drawing freestyle for me has been a good education in drawing, however, not only freestyle, the subjects, landscaping and architectural drawing are what I draw mostly and are disciplines I would have learned in art class; I cut patterns for skirts and tops, and I crocheted a lot. I crocheted bed covers, skirts, hats, scarves, shoulder bags, lots of different things, I even crocheted to frame and I have a mounted and framed crochet piece which should be on the wall but isn't because it's leaning against the wall instead. I purchased fabric material and made a pair of denim boots. I wrote plays and wrote poetry. I fell in love and forgot for a while I had been in a seventeen year relationship. There were things to do in the flat, and I personally removed the extractor hood from above the hob, cleaned it, bought a new filter and replaced it, i cleaned the tops of cupboards and inside cupboards, I filled in holes and gaps with mortar mix, removed two wall lamps, and disengaged the wires and asked an electrician to cauterize the ends of the wires then I plastered over the gaps, and did a good job, i painted two sides of the walls in the living room in a very soft blue, and i removed the paint from one side of the door frame that's between the kitchen and the living room, other jobs have been completed by crafts or service people, I have lived here since 2006, I've become used to it. I had my cats-re-homed because the flat is small, I miss them, and I hope they're okay. I sold my car, a Saab 900turbo, which I had bought brand new and almost gave it away, the return was very poor due to being cheated by a friend. I then walked everywhere, and my poor legs and feet hurt unbelievably. I discovered public transport nearby and that helped. My family visited and I noticed their respect and reverence for me in organizing and getting on with my life, like when you meet people you barely know in Church, but like, I guess it was a big deal to do, to move away and settle down somewhere where I found myself, in New Mills. My friend, when he talks of New Mills makes it sound as though it's a mafia hideout, like its really crook, when I first met him, he was grieving for his mum, and he talked of shootings, regular fights in the streets, police, his diabolical Iranian landlord, his neighbours round about, as though everyone were on the run from something. I didn't see any of that, but I too was coping with stresses. My life was so unbelievably unreal, magical things happened, because I was in touch with my spiritual side; I had a smoking habit, and cigarette packets and boxes of matches would vanish from my hands. I would walk to the car park in front of my flat, and my grief and sadness were such when it rained and I walked down for a cigarette I noticed rain drops so heavy they would burden the branches on the trees, they were so heavy with water, i grieved because I knew smoking was stopping me from living a healthy life, the thought of my family, that I was letting them down by smoking, and i would see heavy drops of water like tear drops fall, the branches on the trees were heavy with tearful moisture and I was having to cope with a girl neighbour upstairs above my flat who partied every night, sometimes all night, all weekend, I was also coping with two hideously behaved idiots, with terrible behaviour, like monsters from the flat across from mine. I began to see clouds separate suddenly, like curtains opening to show a sky laden with stars then close again. Sadness and grief are very difficult things to have to deal with and to come to terms with. I didn't have a tv set and I was having to live on a very small income, things were very tight. I barely managed, my mum helped, she arrived on my doorstep one day when I had been feeling particularly bereft and she was like an apparition, I said, what on earth are you doing here, and she said she had received from me in the post two little pieces of linen with crochet lace around the edges that were gifts to me as a baby, and a photograph of vj, my little nephew, and mum took this to mean a cry for help, I asked her in, Keith had given her a lift, and he left and mum stayed for three days. I drove mum home in a lexus i had bought with money left to me by my auntie, my mum's sister, in hindsight I should perhaps have saved it for rainy days, I tried to invest it, but that would have meant leaving the investment in an account I would not be able to spend from, so with half the amount I bought a car, from the same so-called friend and the other half I had spent on living expenses, which had now run its course. I sold my car, again, I had to, and relied on public transport, again. In my flat I listened to music, I was always singing, trying to keep happy, talking with my cats, who were my sages, i loved them, they loved me and i was always crying. I would sit on the toilet having a pee, Kitty would follow me, she would sit looking at me, very seriously, caring, that i didn't fall over, i cried, a lot, thoughts of the man who had caused this collosus in my life would come into my mind, he made appearances in my dreams, a lot, i don't know why, i no longer thought of him, in one dream he was sitting at the foot of my bed with an elephant sized trunk between his legs, like it was his penis, i thought that it wasn't right, i still hurt and if i thought of him, even for a moment i crumbled and cried, there were moments that he insistently invaded my thoughts, one strange thing was, one day i was lying in my bed, it was cold outside, but i was grieving, he was making me grieve, with his continual harrassment, he found out where I live, and i sensed and heard very clearly his voice like a baby in my belly make a very sad wah-wah, sound, it shocked me out of my sadness and i stopped crying, for a little while, I was still suffering stress, i thought of him a little more kindly, I don't know why he has always been very hurtful, he doesn't in any way deserve to be with me, as a person, the reality is, he is extremely evil, and i actually wish him death, he is that evil, and shortly afterwards i saw him, on a local bus, that was, 23rd of December, 2009, it had been snowing, heavily, i had gone to collect some washing from Johnsons, in another little town called Marple, not far from New Mills, that day, before i left the flat, someone walked past my window and laughed, not unkindly, a little girl looked at me meaningfully at the bus stop and smiled, but then again children like me and they always smile, i felt there were angels about, then i saw him, I sat quite near him across the isle, when I got on the bus and walked up the isle, i looked at him and he looked at me, he recognized me, and he looked like he was about to pass out, afterwards, I thought how can you see me, see me, a person, a human being and keep on with your horrible nasty, evil games, but I didn't say anything and I should have, I think there was someone with him, sitting next to him, I didn't speak and neither did he, I should have said, why have you kept my plays, all five of them, or six, that I had sent him, he is a Playwright, why have you been worrying me, stalking me, sending people to my door, why are you jealous of me and my abilities, but i said nothing, he did seem to me sitting there like an archangel, for a moment, I saw very clearly when I looked at him all his scratches, on his face and behind the scratches a twenty year old person, no more than that in years, i looked at him from my seat and he seemed then very much as an older person, somewhat abashed and embarrassed, however, that soon passed and then finally someone i saw as quite hard and mean and not really someone i knew, he seemed then to be laughing at me, for having fallen in love with him once, he needn't have worried, i did my best to forget him and to move on, which i have, he is too mean for me, does things out of meaness, he would rather cut off his own nose and spite his face, literally, than do the right thing by me, however, undoubtedly, he has died on many occasions, I have this theory about life and death, and whether it's our turn to go or not and just to keep going which is how life seems when sadness and anxiety enter your life, big time, but, any way i felt this way about him, because of what he had done, that he had to live during my time, my lifetime, to settle accounts with heaven and earth and those who look out for each and every one of us, we have business to attend to, we are on a mission, or so it seems when your life changes quite suddenly and those are the only answers i have for what happened, some time before; the bus moved on, and I remember thinking when I got on the bus the bus driver was rather nice, a really nice, very nice looking sweet person, and that made me happy, so i was contented when i turned and saw ... him, he was okay, but, really, behaviour profoundly out of order because this immortal situation happened to me because of him, between, 2003 and 2005, which is when i left my beau of many years, our beautiful home just around the corner from the centre of Market Bosworth, in Warwickshire, our lives that we had planned to be together, daft me, summed things up a little silly, my play, Surface Talk which fell into his, that man's hands at University, Birmingham ... as i was saying, a woman got on the bus a few stops further on, she sat down, a woman I have never seen in my life or since turned around almost full circle in her seat and looked at me, for about ten seconds, quite a long time, as though to say, how can you sit there and say nothing, to me, i looked at her and i wondered briefly whether she knew him and they were complicit, I turned and looked at him briefly, to see, but he adopted passive looking ahead of him, i then attended to my own life, my own thoughts, at that moment i remember, about books i had given away to Oxfam, he cleared his throat, and, the thought came to me, i couldnt help but think, here is the man who cut a path through my life, i told him i loved him, sometime before and all he could do was sit there, no doubt thinking of sexual matters he was probably involved in and that seems to be his life, very irresponsible of him to elude me in matters of the heart when all he was concerned with is matters of his private parts, and that really is that, i didn't want any dramatics or sceneries or anything that departed from my life, my home, everthing the way i lived and its no different now, only that i have moved on, yet a little bit more, and anyway, to continue .... i looked at the woman and after looking at me she turned to face the front again, i glanced at him to see his reaction, but there was none, he has that ability, to appear to be there and not there, at the same time, seemingly ... later on, I thought, he returned to life, that's it, that's why he was there, me too, its happened to me, i have felt myself breath my last, because of anxiety, and return to life again, i don't smoke, it's a crime to God and ourselves, i don't drink, i've never really drank much at all, occasionally, but nothing to write about, but however, on a one off, he came into a dream i had shortly after i bought a bottle of white wine, perhaps over a year ago, and he seemed to strike me and i blanked out, in my sleep, i remembered the dream the following day, he was speaking, saying something, next moment he struck me, obviously i didn't feel a thing, but i no longer bought the occasional, rare bottle of wine. I can't raise him too much, on account of the fact he is so bad, criminally, careless towards me, he couldn't care less about me, he is always displaying his sexual exploits, apparently he loves me, i find that very difficult to see, harrassment to me you would not believe, and there are hard knocks he goes around with faces that are self satisfying, hard, they do hard and piss-takey on the outside and in, it's that inner ugliness that passes for horrible, they pass me and they are absolutely horrible and mean faced, its how he lives his life, he's used to them, probably doesn't see it, doesn't see them and the way they really are, anymore, they no doubt put up a front, convincingly enough to buy him, i'm certain of that, he may have the odd one, ofs, but, he doesn't notice anymore, fortunately i don't have that vantage point, and i find it difficult to see what it is he wants from me, i'm nothing like them, i don't have that self interest or that self regard which is what all of them are all about, always taking expensive lollipops, they don't like him or care, they just agree with everything he says and its all around my home, they're stalkers, its what they do, in-between seeing to clients, that's what they're into and so long as they do as they're told, they go on and are used for, stalking and controlling him, making sure he always returns to them, everytime, he is a prostitute himself, he's accustomed to habits, that's what they work on, can you imagine, keeping and enforcing someone whose interests are not best served by those situations, and neither are their's, however, he is used to it, that's how he lives, apparently, and so are they, I can't be like that, I don't want that in my life, he is blind, by choice, and so are they, they cheer on, I would not be writing about this if it wasn't for the fact he persists in making an entrance that's not wanted, persistently pushes all kinds of situations at me I'm not interested in, he manages to mask himself enough to convince those he is involved with, i'm not interested either in him or what he pushes towards me, otherwise i do my best to ignore him, and to ignore them, they're evil, like him, and he keeps pushing for my attention, unwanted, what he is and what they are is obvious and as sure as the road is long i can't stand them for those and other reasons as I have said, they're stalkers, I cannot stand them, and obviously they have no regard for me, absolutely none, they look at me down their noses, really, most of the ones i've seen as though i was a piece of poo, with they're turned up noses, that they've wiped off their feet, they have no regard for me, i see it in their faces, its in their manners, the way they behave, in their actions, their looks of disinterested boredom, their sulleness, some manage to obfuscate, that, their interest is numero uno, themselves, and then him, second class inferior person, they have to have some regard for him because he feeds them and buys them and pays them, i'm someone they see as in the way, ridiculously, they keep him turned in their finger, and everyone else has to pay for that, and that's what i see mostly, his frustration turned harrassment, against me, i kind of care a little he's in that situation, being taken for a ride and a mug, or maybe he just ignores it and thinks he's in control, but the only ones in control are whoever he's taken out on the town, again, at his expense, i cannot imagine for one moment any of them regard him or pay him for anything unless its a covert operation in turning him around again, but because of the harrassment its advisable not to feel sympathy, and Police have warned me not to allow myself any feelings for him, because they say that's what stalkers do, manipulate you so that the victim becomes sorry for them, but he is far from that, he is old enough to make his own decisions, he makes them, problems overall i keep the Police informed. As I was saying ... he is always busy with people to qualify those kinds of feelings for me, which makes me uncomfortable, because i wish to get on with my life and he is clearly stopping me doing that because he is stalking me, with all kinds of horrors he is involved with, he says he has various marriages, the 'marriages' are mad, and say the same thing, he is married to one person, legitimately, she loves him, I think, I don't know, she doesn't know him, not really, however, i can't, i cannot begin to contemplate a serious or passing involvement with him, he does'nt appear to be able to understand, I have said, no, to an involvement with him, its not right, but he should speak with me to settle this situation, I will do my best to allow him that. To continue, slowly i got better and i no longer cried. I experienced an indian summer of love, with a person i met and became friends with, then we stopped because our relationship was going nowhere, that's what he said, i quietly agreed, after that we didn't see each other for a year, our different realities came between us and now we are just friends. As I was saying earlier, and in reference to the above, my life would be fine if it wasn't for the fact I am burdened with matters from my past that won't let me be, which is ridiculous, I am a nice, intelligent person having to cope with crazy idiots in one form or another who have taken up room in my life, they won't leave, they keep on invading my privacy because of a man who doesn't know how to behave and creates trouble, strangers, people who think because they're involved with him that they have some kind of connection to me, they don't, I have reported them to the Police, they are complete strangers who cause a nuisance. A lot of my sadness came about because of an ill-fated meeting with the man in question. He has moved to the area where I live, he has literally hundreds of sexual involvements going on, he has been spoken to by the Police, he doesn't think to stop the involvements he is engaged in then approach me from a respectful distance to try to talk with me so I can say to him to stop harassing me and to say what it is that he wants, I believe he may want a romantic involvement, the reality is i am not interested, he is married, and i cannot be coerced by someone who is dangerously loose, he is also an evil terrorist, no nice person becomes involved with evil, he is not nice, and neither are they, because of those realities, and they are equally evil to carry out twelve months of the year their lives in prostitution, he uses school kids and all sorts of others, as i have said, and he carries other sexual involvements around at the same time, he seems to think his behaviour and those he behaves with is attractive and they are procurable they are far from attractive, its prostitution bar none, to me they are hideously, monstrously, ugly, that's what I see, he thinks he knows me when he does not, he is a complete stranger, i have never personally spoken with him, I barely recognize him, he has tried to approach me which I see as soliciting, he doesn't know how to introduce himself, otherwise, that's all he knows its what he's used to, that's what i see, so he can't introduce himself properly, he doesn't know how or how to bring a respectful validity to a potential meeting with me, he has strangers hanging around where i live and wherever i go, people who make it obvious they are having sex with him, or just know him about, they duck and dive, the reality is, life is not that great for them, they have nothing going on in their heads, nothing else in their lives, he knows kids through so-called parents who are loose and kids grow up expecting to go into the same game, they see it as easy money the way their mums and dads make easy money from him and acquire goods unrealistic jobs in one thing or another they are in no way qualified for, they mimic and learn by rote they don't learn academically and kids are sold to him on the basis he introduces them to prostitution through him first, he is not good, they are in the life they have been primed and sold for, that's how he knows so many kids, through their loose relations who put them up to no good, they walk around the streets half naked, he puts them up to that, he says it's street theatre, it's that alright, he puts them up to that to try to say life is loose, but they look hideously out of place amidst the normal populace, the County of Cheshire is rife with prostitutes, and life is loose for him its what they all become used to, its how he does business, its ilegal him contemplating even talking to me, he's crazy, mad, evil, i only made his unwelcome acquaintance because of University, Playwriting Course, to my life's detriment, i met there in his department a collection of highly undesirable individuals, and those local to me are individuals who i see very much as nuisance stalkers, in the same vein. Myself and the Police who see him as grose and loose have asked him to leave. They collect evidence and I see him and those he is involved with as the underworld community, of the kind that my friend talked about, and they come crawling out of the woodwork wherever he is or he has told them to be, to me they are inhuman, proven by their behaviour, some kids he is involved with look like blow up dolls, because he uses them for sex, and that won't change, he is habitual in his habits, he lives under illusions, he doesn't appear to accept what he is doing is wrong, I don't see his or any of his involvements in any way other than as neurotic pastimes he is forever procuring then bringing to my door, like cats who take their catch to the back door., and he does the same thing to his wife, as though saying to her, that's what you got into, and she knows he is no good. His behaviour towards me is completely immoral and unacceptable, he is in prostitution and I find him disgusting for those reasons and all others, and I have let him know that it's immoral and unacceptable and do not want any part of it. He needs to pay me for over ten years of terrible aggravation, taking written work from me, but he keeps not sending the cheque in the post that he and all his affiliates owe me. I don't want any involvements with him, only that he should pay me what he owes me. I'm not interested in his obsessions for me, they are ridiculous when you consider he is always having sex non-stop with those i have alreday described, he spends all his time whoring, then fornicating with spaced out kids, and taking heavy drugs, like heroin, none of his so-called involvements keep him from stalking me, they don't stop him taking drugs, none of the society he keeps stop him being a criminal towards me, they encourage it, they don't stop him for long trailing to my door, and I cannot stand them, their grosse stupidity, they also push him with their stupidity into committing more and more crimes against me, he is an arsonist and has set off arson attacks in my country, Madeira, the Police are onto him, they are working on him, its my belief they will put him out, they won't go the route of procuring hard evidence against him, that's what gangsters want, they won't take that kind of time over something they see as criminal negligence bar none, that's the light route, heavy stuff takes time and they just won't spend that kind of time, they wi'll deal, as and when, where someone like he is in evidence, they will put him out, and to be honest, the way he lives, he probably doesn't care, and he keeps on burdening me, creating a nuisance which I don't want, he and the kind of people he is involved with seem to make a lot of comments about scheming, about people who scheme, obviously those kind of people are jealous, ignorant and small-minded kinds of people and i'm happy to leave them where they are, scheming away in how to keep a hold of big banana. What I think he should do is return to his wife, to leave prostitution, to stop deluding himself about the numerous and quantities of affairs he's in and be with his wife, she should return to her marriage, it's her responsibility to reign him in, she needs to do that rather than carrying an affair of her own elsewhere, and creating problems for other women with loose canon husband, and so it goes on. Reference is made to the same person, the same man that I write of above. I do my best to regard him as a human being, it's important not to lose sight of that, although he treats me inhumanely, has the most ridiculous expectations of me through his actions and i have appealed to his better nature in the past, i don't think he has one, by pointing out any behaviour that is unacceptable to me, he would feel the same way about and that he should stop. If he can't appreciate what he is doing is wrong, i will have to keep bringing the matter to his attention, which can be expensive, he left a telephone number on my mobile telephone, a number he procured by nefarious means and i have texted him, over and over to stop what he is doing against me and leave, if your are reading this, Edgar, take note, and obviously i will bring the situation as is to the attention of the Police. Angela Maria De Nobrega Freitas