Matt Kendrick
Writer | Editor | Teacher
Fifty-five Responses to an Everyday Question, One of Which is a Lie
Fifty-five responses to an everyday question, one of which is a lie
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Today I am a teddy bear with its stuffing bundling out from a sharp point in its belly
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Today I am a topiarist’s yew, wondering why I must be continuously reshaped into a pelican, a wombat, a dodo or an iguanodon
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Today I am like an old steam train, I am chugging along with an irritating whistle in my pistons, a squeal of displeasure in my creaking joints
Today I am like an albatross hatchling, I am feeling vulnerable, I am exposed on a crag in the high winds of winter, huddling inside the fluff of my fleecy coat
Today I am a contemplation of age, I am feeling too green, I am feeling too haggard, I am thinking I have no concept of how old I am
Today I am a contemplation of time, I am thinking how sometimes it is slow, sometimes it is glacial, how it passes by regardless, how the tundra of time since I was a well person stretches behind me in a desolate waste
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Today I am number seventy-eight in the queue at the doctor’s surgery, my call is important to them, Olly Murs just wants to Dance With Me Tonight
Today I am an inspiration of patience towards the doctor’s receptionist who tells me I should ring up earlier in future, I should try again tomorrow
Today I am a pot on the stove trying not to boil, I am on the phone again, I am number seventy-nine in the queue
Today I am a six out of ten on the pain scale, I have been higher, I have been lower, the scale has changed, my perception of pain is more nuanced now, I know that stubbing a toe is a two, stepping on a piece of Lego is a one and a half at best
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Today I am a repetition of semiquavers, a rapid tremolo in G sharp
Today I am a sadness of sound sitting at the piano staring at the keys and wondering whether it was true, if my fingers really used to scamper through Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu, through Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique or whether my teenage years were just a dream
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Today I am a flustering
Today I am an anxiety although I don’t know why
Today I am a swamp of melancholy thoughts
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Today I am the colour red, I am the precise shade of red you would get if you mixed three squirts of tomato ketchup with one teaspoon of a vampire’s blood​​
Today I am a mist
Today I am the sort of fog where you can’t see an inch in front of your face
Today I am an icicle, I am often an icicle, I am cold, I am shivering, I am wondering if icicles shiver, I am frightened of falling, I am wanting to fall
Today I am a hailstorm hammering down upon the concrete earth
Today I am a ray of sunshine from a black hole, I am impossible, I am projecting a smile that doesn’t belong to me—does a smile really take less effort
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Today I am a volcano, I am a volcano inside my intestines, I am a volcano inside my lungs, I am a volcano inside my mouth, everything is on fire, everything is raging, I am a volcano inside my eyeballs, I am a volcano inside my ears, my nostrils are filled with so much smoke I am breathless, I am down on the ground, heaving and hacking and wondering if this is bad enough, today, to go to the hospital or whether it will pass, it always passes in the end, at least it always has
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Today I am a boulder, my feet are boulders, my legs are boulders, my chest is too big for my legs, my head is too big for my chest
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Today I am a succession of seconds, I am counting them, one second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, I am counting the minutes, the hours, I am folding them off on my fingers
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Today I am an unsolvable equation
Today I am a science experiment again, I am measuring my weight, I am taking my temperature, I am squeezing blood from my finger into a small vial, I am breathing into a breathalyser, I am swallowing tablets which might help, or might do me harm, I am experimenting with antimicrobials, I am testing aloe vera extract and elemental shakes, I am conjuring hypotheses, I am analysing results, I am wondering why a doctor isn’t doing this for me
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Today I am a steam train again, I am a yew again, I am a boulder again, I am a volcano again, everything repeats like this, sometimes I am many different things in a single day
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Today I am a battlefield, something is dying inside me, I am a catacomb, I am a burial of corpses, I am a mire of microbes, I am haunted by their nauseous ghosts
Today I am the voice of an imaginary sidekick telling me all these dead microbes are a good thing, it is a necessary step…
Today I am an ellipsis—
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Today I am em-dash‽
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Today I am an interrobang, I am a snark mark, I am an asterism, my knowledge of unusual punctuation is unnaturally large
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Today I am a roundabout
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Today I am the wheel of fortune
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Today I am a see-saw tipping one way then another then another way entirely, I exist in seven-dimensions, sometimes my tipping is temporal, sometimes my tipping propels me to Mars
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Today I am a skinless balloon in the vacuum of space, I am in the maelstrom of the asteroids, the rocks here are pointy
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Today I am an invisible lake whose invisible water is full of invisible salt
Today I am a saltiness of anchovies
Today I am a lemon inside an onion inside a Hallowe’en pumpkin
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Today I am an accomplishment of impossible tasks, I am cleaning the fridge, I am emptying the bin, I am driving to the supermarket all by myself
Today I am the consequence of yesterday’s endeavours
Today I am a tortoise changing the bed, this is the sixth day in a row I have been changing the bed, Monday was the first pillowcase, Tuesday was the second, Wednesday was the third, Thursday was the fourth, yesterday was the sheet, today was the duvet, I am like God creating the world, tomorrow I will rest
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Today I am an aerosol-less aerosol can
Today I am a paperclip bent out of shape
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Today I am an acceptance of daffodils, I am telling myself there is no getting better, I have tried, and I have tried, and now is the time for acceptance, nothing has worked, maybe nothing will work, can work, could have worked, all I can do is embrace the life I’ve been given
Today I am a wish upon a moonbow
Today I am a lapsed worshipper of an ancient god, drawn in by the small hope I had before, to the dreams where I am well enough to go to the park for a picnic, where I am well enough to stay up late and gaze at the stars
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Today I am a wounded lion
Today I am a wilting sunflower
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Today I am a repetition
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Today I am fine, thanks for asking