Years ago, I observed a young man with what I assumed was his son. So nice. This was in Victoria Road South. I said something to him, I don’t remember what. I was on my way to the seafront, or back.

It turned out that it wasn’t his son but his little brother. His parents ran an enterprise in Palmerston Road; I’d been there once. Keeping the business afloat was challenging at the time, he said. He was a student, in Birmingham, or in Manchester. Economics, I think.

At some point, he asked me what I did. I said that I hadn’t worked in years and left it at that. (That’s what it felt like anyway. 😁) That was maybe ten years ago. Just about everything I undertook in Portsmouth was thwarted systematically, no matter what, from the get-go. (Reality was more complicated.) As a result, I spent far too much of my time there as if I was chained to a basement wall. Well, almost. I found it very hard.

So now, if someone suggests that I should live my life as if I am chained to a basement wall, I dismiss them as a nincompoop who either is biased or hasn’t been around.

Why do so many bright and inspiring people die young?

(I need entrepreneurial inspiration. I’ll have to become my own.)

I will soon be meeting with someone who I used to know, though, and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s not exactly a run-off-the-mill, a-dime-a-dozen person and I like that. I like the person. We may be very different in many ways – probably, but I don’t even know for sure – but we also certainly like a few of the same inspiring and enjoyable things.

I’ll need to leave soon. I really have to.

You are the only expert on you. I’m the only expert on me. Don’t chain me to a basement wall.

Read some of my flash fiction.