Sam Peeps’ Diary

Work continues apace on my new novel, No, the story of a man who mishears a message from God and sets sail in a gigantic boat filled with one male from every animal species. There are disastrous but heartwarming consequences.

Sandringham is the drug dealer who lives upstairs, though I see him so little that I sometimes suspect that he’s just another figment of my troubled imagination.  I am almost constantly answering the door to his 15 year old clients, nonchalant yet terrified, and directing them up the darkened stairwell. I myself must stick to purely legal highs, to ensure that my work speaks to both halves of the criminal divide, but I neither condemn nor condone Sandringham’s endeavours. I am however vaguely uncomfortable with the idea of him testing his ‘product’ on local cats; I saw one repeatedly running head-first into the side of a skip yesterday, such a heartbreaking metaphor for modern life that I had to go back to bed for 6 hours and missed my housing benefit appointment. The war on drugs has many hidden costs.

I was sat outside a Brick Lane bar when it occurred to me that the truth, if there is one, may be far beyond the comprehension of a man drinking the remnants of a pint of cider with a cigarette butt floating in it.

I’d been in that bar once before, when I was young and charming and my haircuts still had narrative; an already borderline attempt to woo a lady of my acquaintance had faltered after I managed to spill the majority of 2 pints of lager over her. My suggestion of wringing out her clothes over the plastic cups may have, in retrospect, been the conclusion of the matter. I was bloody-mindedly frugal, even then.

Thankfully my anti-nostalgic reverie was interrupted at this point by Greg pressing a tin of curry into my hands and screaming “RUN!” at the top of his voice. Perhaps these are my truths.

I missed my calling. I was disassembling the sofa-bed, attempting to rescue a stray Quaver, when I heard it passing my flat. I was so startled that I jumped and became entangled in the bed release mechanism. The sound of my calling started to fade as I tried to wrestle free, the springs jabbing into my arm.

I’d always resented this sofa-bed, and the excuse it offered people to avoid my bedroom; now it was taking my future as well. I snapped and hurled myself away, leaving bits of skin and taking bits of sofa-bed with me.

Liberty! I ran down the street after my calling, but it was too late. All I could make out was a faint echo. At least I know I’m not supposed to be a duck.

I never did find that Quaver.

The last time I saw her, she was leaning out of her window and wailing at me. I told her that everything would be fine, and that I still believed in us.

She said that she didn’t know who I was, and begged me to leave.

I told her I knew that we’d grown apart over the last year as our lives had taken us to very different places, but that I was prepared to put in the work to save the relationship.

She said that she literally didn’t know who I was and threatened to call the police if I didn’t get off her balcony. I left quickly, dropping my balaclava into a nearby recycling bin.

I am starting to suspect the last blow to the head that I received may have been more serious than initially believed.

I found God again. In my dream, he was sitting underneath an empty market stall in Ladbroke Grove, trying to peel a pear with his fingernails. When I asked him what he was doing there he shrugged and said that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. For once, I believed him.

Spent the evening in Gordon’s squat, blowing up balloons and drawing Richard Dean Anderson’s face onto them. Gordon is going to send them to America to encourage them to make new episodes of Stargate.

I am excited because they are making a brand new series with all new characters, which is good because it gives more actors a chance to dip their quills into the thorough canvas that is Stargate, but I shouldn’t have mentioned this to Gordon. He is firmly convinced that only episodes with the original cast count and has even written his own versions of all the other episodes to better fit what he believes Stargate to be about. My real mistake was suggesting that the episode where General O’Neill has to seek the assistance of the Top Gear team couldn’t possibly fit into the continuity of the series as it has been well established that Teal’c is actually very good at driving.

Gordon got quite upset and started screaming and bursting the Richard Dean Anderson balloons. I made my escape through the window. Never discuss politics.

"Of course I’ll never regenerate into a woman," laughed the Doctor, raising his fist, "I fucking hate women!"

My astonishing gift of prophecy is slightly tainted by the fact that all my premonitions are a) about the plots of television programmes and b) untrue.

Dante is so full of shit. I was sitting on a bench on Tooting Bec Common, softly weeping, and a man claiming to be the greek poet Virgil urged me to follow him behind a hedge. He proceeded to try and entice me into joining an obvious pyramid scheme involving the sale of collapsible spoons.

The most poetic thing that has ever happened to me is when the woman I loved caught consumption from a moldy copy of Keats’ Hyperion. I know this isn’t actually possible, but that’s what makes it so poetic.

They say there are only two real routes to immortality, your children or your art. I’m going to have my children framed.

Greg invited me to see him performing at an open mic comedy night. I should have known this would be a bad idea; you should never mix friendship and art, that’s how Art Garfunkel lost a leg.

It started when the act on before Greg, an Irish gentleman named Brian Fisher, asked me what I did for a living. As though he’d be able to understand any answer I could give him. I lost it.

“I am capable of nothing now, but I used to be a promising young comedian named Brian Fisher. But you would know that. You stole my life, you stole my wife & you stole my trainers. No more!”

I launched myself at the stage and attempt to wrestle his trainers off his feet. I don’t know what happened next but Greg says I was hit in the head with a microphone stand. There’s no food left in my flat; according to Greg, carrying me home was so tiring that he had no choice but to eat it all.

Such persecution is the sign of a truly great man. I wonder when Brian Fisher’s next gig is.