Very recently I lost a very old friend, his name was David and he used to work with my mother. He would visit once a year, every year, watching my brother and I grow, from small children that actually thought he was an uncle, to adults who just got to know him.
David wasn’t old, he had plans, a lot to do and by God was he passionate to do it.
Though he was also passionate in other ways too, he had a weird relationship with death. The last time I saw him a couple months ago, he told me that he’d happily greet the Grim reaper if he was allowed one more marmite sandwich.
At the time I laughed, thought it was funny, admirable about him. But now that he’s actually passed I can’t help but overthink about it, was the sentence a warning? A little clue to plant in our brains and prepare us all for his inevitable departure from our lives.
Maybe… because he was smart like that, smart and funny and I thought I had more time to enjoy that.
It makes me feel guilty, he was always there every year and I didn’t know him, still too young to talk. It was only the last time when we connected so well, even my parents were impressed with me at how much I conversed with him.
And I enjoyed it, I imagined coming to see him myself, without my parents when I was up at uni. Make sure to laugh with him, after all he was all alone in that house… well minus the mice.
You see, he would battle the mice, it was kind of a game, though all games come to an end, I see no winners here. Both parties have passed and both parties were alone, and probably, both parties wanted a marmite sandwich.
After his passing I became obsessed with him, not totally, but he would always be sat at the back of my brain and I knew I’d have to do a piece of work on him.
So, I took inspiration from the artist called Luc Tuymans from one of my seminars. This artist always painted very small paintings that were often grouped together to tell a kind of a story. These would often reflect emotions revolving dread, despite and fear, however these paintings were not exactly detailed, more vague enough that you had to question if what you were looking at was in fact a toy.
I got inspired by his work and wanted to recreate his style, but with my own story, one about David, including the marmite sandwich and the mice.
I then decided to add a poem, as my head had been speaking in riddles for these few months past.
It took a few weeks, but I finally completed it.
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