'A cautionary tale'
Photograph by Sam Taylor, Story by Kerri Sandell
“This was always the way it was going to end.”
He had known that when he first met her. Of course, back then he had another. A wife. A family. A car. A house. A pension scheme. A holiday home in Devon. A golf club membership. A definition. A reputation. That was all he’d ever strived for. Maybe that explains his desire to destroy it all.He met her not in any extraordinary circumstances, simply in a situation that, without the will of fate, could have continued to keep them apart. She unsettled his existence straight away. Younger than himself he assumed, although it mattered little. Anyone who didn’t lie awake at night contemplating the price of lino for the kitchen re-fit had a younger demeanour than him, those un-concerned with the banalities of everyday life. It began with him taking longer lunch breaks, starting work later and leaving earlier. Once, calling in sick, to spend the whole day in his car in the car park, getting stoned and attempting Morse code with his headlights as she laughed on, kissing his neck and falling asleep on his shoulder. Naturally, this routine disrupted the domestic environment to which he returned at the end of every day. Red eyes, the smell of marijuana and giggling during a story of a parking ticket do not sit too kindly at the dinner table. Supposedly the children found it amusing although mildly frightening to see their father try to lasso their mother with his work tie over the roast potatoes. The wife did not see the funny side however.
So they left and he sat there alone. Had he been left any longer he may have reconsidered, cut her out of his life and run to his wife’s mother’s, begging for forgiveness. Fortunately for his sanity, the doorbell rang. She was there, holding an eighth and a look in her eyes that made him forget about everything else. They stayed in bed for days, he wasn’t sure of how many. The hours seem to disintegrate when you’re high having sex. Still, the Inland Revenue waits for no man and so he returned to work, attempting to maintain the life he wanted and the one forced upon him. Inevitably however, she got bored, sitting at home watching endless repeats of Newlyweds on MTV.
Sometimes life isn’t as much fun without a playmate. She would not resign herself to the life of an unmarried housewife, not now, not ever. And she went out. He missed her often; the lifestyle of the young and irresponsible doesn’t correlate with that of a 9 to 5 drone. She partied all night, slept all day, smoked more than she ate and drank more than that. Their relationship was rooted in self-destruction. They would ruin each other; he had no doubt of that. Arguments ensued as they often do, out of jealousy on his part and a reluctance to be controlled on hers.
On this occasion, she was drunk on Jagermeister, on her way out to lose her head and ready to befriend any wannabe brooding guitarist who stumbled her way. They fought. In a moment of blind fury she set light to what used to define him. The golf clubs. The wedding photos in the Marks and Spencer photo albums. The midnight blue tie from Tie Rack. Then she left as quickly as she had once appeared. He escaped from the burning shell without a scratch; unable to salvage anything but a pack of Sovereign she had left on the side near the front door.
So he sat on the curb and watched his house, his status symbol, himself, smoulder and ember. What else was there to do? “This was the way it was always going to end.” He had known that all along. "But," he thought as he took one last drag on her cigarette, “we had a hell of a lot of fun along the way.” He smiled.
Thousand is an experiment in narrative. Ten photographers provided two photographs a piece. These twenty photographs were then handed over to ten writers who took two each and illustrated the photographs with short stories.
Thousand is the culmination of the twenty photographs and short stories.
The project is ongoing with work on volumes two and three currently underway.