felt him arrive almost seven years ago now, pushing me gently out of the side of my body.
It was subtle at first; he'd want to do a few things - buy a pair of shoes because they were sensible, occasionally getting a different paper than the usual - and I indulged him a little. It was still my body though, and I'd go out and party, drink, and behave as recklessly as I wanted to. I made my body look young and exciting.
As the years passed he started getting a little more control of the body. - He began saving money to buy a house or "just in case" and he made me avoid friends I'd previously been close to. He started to make the body look less young, less handsome. The hair began to fall off my body's head. He made it flabby and paunchier. It began to ache in its joints.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to move out of my body as he slid in.
Occasionally I wrestled control back. Some weekends I'd just sit back and play computer games until Monday. If I wanted to I'd eat M and M's for breakfast.
He was humouring me. The tide had turned. He'd got a gym membership.
He started buying "good wine" and crossing the road when teenagers were near by. He threw out my band t shirts and bought sensible shirts for the office. He voted Tory at a general election. It was his body far more than mine, I gave in, and we drifted along.
Now I've almost completely left. I've fallen out of the side of my body like so many grains of sand, ready to join the desert of the ones who came before. I'll join the one I replaced in the body; the one who changed my body from from a child into a man. The one that changed my body into a teenager; the one that took my body from a baby to a child.
And one day he'll join us.
