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Boredom, boredom, ba dum, ba dum.
As a child, I could never stand being bored
My grandfather drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. It’s all my father ever told me about him (he died when my father was only twelve). I don’t know if he was bored, but it always stuck with me as an image of that sad state, the moustachioed Edwardian sitting in an armchair in a small, dimly lit room, listening to the clock and idly drumming his fingers.
Those were days of little stimulation, apart from the obvious (they had seven children!). I imagine their life was one of constant drudgery, at work and at home. I may be wrong, but my grandparents were bone-crackingly poor and lived in a tiny few rooms with their children. There were very few books, my young father only owned two or three, and I doubt they could have afforded a radio. My mind fills in these details, they are not my father’s reportage. But that’s what minds do when there is not much to go on, they strive to fill in the blanks of what may have been, I hope, a rather richer tapestry.
I would have made up the details to embellish my father’s meagre vignette during bouts of my own boredom, that occured fairly regularly in my lonely, only childhood. I spent far too long with my nose pressed flatly against a steamed up-window, running with inner condensation to mirror the rivulets of rain outside. My breath increased the…
