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March 2001. Kentish Town. Rule 7: take the news like a man
I’m evasive. I don’t like hearing about things I don’t understand. I screen out anything that’s connected with Science and Technology. It confuses and frightens me. If someone discusses it, I’ll disappear to my Safe Place for a moment. I’ll hide away in the darkness, like a scared woodland animal, and I’ll read about football until I feel safe. I do have knowledge, and I have expertise, but only on three different subjects: football, fairy stories, and the Electric Light Orchestra. People say knowledge is power. But that’s not true, if that knowledge is about the Electric Light Orchestra. One thing I really don’t understand is pregnancy. I don’t understand how you can have two cells which become four cells which become someone who wipes jam on your CDs.
I’m in the kitchen. It’s a Tuesday evening. Liv comes towards me brandishing a plastic thing.
“Look” she says, smiling “I’ve just peed on this.”
I’m thinking: if this is important, why have you peed on it?
“There’s a blue mark,” she says.
“Great,” I say.
“I’m pregnant.”
“OK,” I say. But I’m not there any more. I’m hiding away in my hole. I’m clutching little pieces of leaf, and I’m sniffing them.
Topics
What is knowledge?
What do you do when you need to go to your Safe Place for a while?
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