MONOPOLY: Novel excerpt 1.

Did you die today? 18 months, 9 days and 8 hours to crawl one step forward and with one tiny unselfish loving flicker of thought, I tumble backwards three spaces. London. New York and back to London. It’s still my go.

Four bombs. 52 dead. 3000 reported missing. And one name that isn’t listed, one face that isn’t printed and one life story that stays untold does not comfort me. I picture you a hero, I could be wrong. My heart would never believe it. Its funny how soulless facts can be. They should be comforting. They are not. To talk of you is a failure on my part to move on. To think of you is an unwillingness to let go. To care for - about- you is to have acknowledged the facts- and disregarded them as soulless. Surely evidence can only truly be incriminating if you locate the soul within it? People always say I’m too serious. Jamie said I was serious. I am serious. How can I not be serious. That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to laugh, it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to have a good time - it means I am not good at relaxing. Well how can you relax when the exact “seriousness” that seems to scare the shit out of every man on planet Earth, is caused and multiplied by the very recognition of how special and unique a true smile and round of laughter is. Should everything be life and death? No. It shouldn’t. that’s why I wish I was seven. When you’re seven, no-one can bomb your world. At least - when you’re seven, you don’t know they can. I wonder what you were like when you were seven. Probably as suave and charming as when you were 28. You’re 29 now. I wonder if you’re grandmother remembered her little blue eyed boy this year? I hope she did. Idiot. You do realize how much I piss myself off by allowing such unhelpful, stupid dumb ass, kind and caring thoughts to filter through my head. You do not deserve me. Funny, I guess you figured that too. Is it wrong to make jokes at your own expense or ingenious? Did you die today? Chances are you didn’t. I wish I could skip a go. I’d like it to be your turn, but whether you died today or not, it makes no difference. You remain stationary in time.

Serious people are never free enough to be vulnerable enough to be played. I only started throwing the dice when you left the board. Did I play you? Did I? I’ve never been very good at games. Then again neither are you. The arrest warrant issued at 8:56am proves that. You never fitted where you wanted to. Do you still think life should be easy? Is it easy now I’m gone? That voicemail nearly killed me. You called me Nikki. My co-star calls me Nikki. He thinks I’m annoying because I sometimes talk like a seven year old. I think he calls me Nikki because it makes me safe. He can take care of a Nikki. Nikki isn’t emotional. Nikki doesn’t have serious life and death chords tugging at her existence. Nikki is just a big girl playing at being seven. God I wish I was seven. You always wanted to be Hugh Grant or Frank Sinatra. I loved you for that. You were always bending over backwards to be the debonair, charming aristocrat your birth would never allow you to be. Is that why you did it? I like Hugh Grant. He’s a bit like Hamlet - Jesus Christ - scrap that and definitely don't quote me on it - What an idiot. Hugh Grant is a Chinese sex symbol and no matter how tough it gets, he faces the music and does it his way. He never hid. He never ran. Whilst you were quick to call yourself a coward, the Hugh Grant's of this world, have always proven they are not. You're nothing like Hugh Grant. Or Frank Sinatra. And yet I am by far the bigger idiot, because right now at this moment I am closing my eyes and imagining me. And what do I see? A huge monopoly board with a talking boot stuck at Mayfair wishing desperately that the dodgy scratched car at Liverpool street would take his turn and let the worn out shoe, tired of running rest for a while. Pathetic. Anyway I wouldn’t be seen dead in flat boots I get far too much self certified power from four inch heels.

Wait a minute - I should definitely be the car. I have more drive. And speed. My brain ticks a million miles a minute faster than your heartbeat ever will. Fraud. Is it possible that the only man I believed in more than life itself, is in reality a nasty fiddling little fraudster? No, I do not think so. Soulless unsubstantiated facts. Worthless to me.

Time to switch boards. Good morning New York.