Christmas in jail

This has been a sad Christmas. For personal and for global reasons.

The personal reason is that my ex is, apparently, in jail. I have only mentioned him very briefly in my posts, once to say he got knifed and in the last post to say I count him as one of my real friends. I haven't said much about him here for the same reason I don't say much about him anywhere: he's not really presentable. There are quite a few sides to my life that I have to keep discreet, because jumping on unsuspecting acquaintances with the knowledge would risk breaking to bits their views of the world. And there's nothing people are more protective about than their views of the world. They'd rather break all contact with me than discover of the things lurking in dark corners...

Now that I've said my ex a) is in jail and b) got knifed, I know he's fallen neatly into the category of criminal in the minds of my dear readers. Which is, technically, correct. Problem is, criminals aren't what people think they are. As a rule, they aren't pure evil, or fundamentally deranged, or obviously dangerous, or even that much different from everybody else. Chances are, you've met a few criminals in your life and thought they looked like fairly nice people. People don't normally discuss if they've ever been arrested. 

It appears that my ex got in prison just for being a pain in the ass while drunk. Hey, that can't be true, we all know where to draw the line between criminal and not, don't we? Stupid things done while drunk are just that, stupid. Acceptable and justifiable. Aren't they? AREN'T THEY?

The charges are harassment and intimidation of witness. 

Before you imagine a sweet young lady as the victim, delete that picture from your mind and think of a big black man that always seems to hang around his door with nothing to do, but has a rather nice car from unknown sources of income. And has no scruples to do some harassment himself, slapping people on the face and sending anonymous letters with threats of "really hurting" and "putting all your stuff on the street".

The world just refuses to fall into neat and tidy categories, doesn't it?

At the beginning of the year, I told my ex that this was the year he'd end up dead or in prison, if he continued as he was going. He almost died and he's ended in prison. But he never saw that coming. Things just never looked black and white enough, never were so obvious that he couldn't tell himself I was blowing things out of proportion. 

Is he that much different, that much blinder than the majority of people?

I once wrote this poem about him:

Cheap happiness

says: "Everything's fine."

Cheap happiness

switched off the alarms.

Nothing can go wrong

and I know it's true

because sweet happiness

is telling me so.

Cheap happiness

is the secret of life.

Cheap happiness

at a high interest rate.

There will be hell to pay,

but I never care

because I never

can imagine the price.

One day 

I will hit the wall.

The credit's gone,

no happiness left.

But I don't know it,

and I don't care,

all I need is

the next happiness round.

And the day

I hit the wall

I'll still be young,

I'll have the secret of life.

I'll know the answers then

to everything to know:

happiness is cheap

until the credit's gone.

Then you pay with your life.

Is an alcoholic that much different from a highly-paid banker? It looks like both may end up in prison for things that looked oh so very minor at the time.

The day after Christmas, Boxing Day for the English, I went to the mall. This was the first time that I saw a clear sign, not something coming from the news but something on the streets that told me in unmistakable terms that something has gone terribly wrong somewhere. All the shops had sales, and at levels never seen before this close to Christmas. Nobody advertised less than 50% discounts, some went up to 75%. Normally you didn't see the half price discounts till February.

As a sign of the times, look at this photo. The chain at the top is going into administration. The shop at the bottom opened just for Christmas, and is already offering a 75% sale. How long will it take to close? I suspect in a couple of months I will be able to post another photo with the vacant spaces.

We live in a world where "sustainability" is just a fashionably word with no meaning. We tell ourselves and everybody that short-term results are all that matters, and it doesn't matter at all whether what we are doing is something we could continue doing for ever and ever without hitting any limits, if what we are doing is sustainable. The world changes so quickly, something else will come up in the future, quick fixes are just fine, just what you need.

Or maybe quick fixes will get you dead or in jail.