New Best Friends

This latest bout of hermitage has brought me closer with a new set of virtual friends. While I edit furiously and re-write and imagine some distant utopia where I’m a published author, I get into deeper more complex friendships and relationships with people like Peter Petrilli, Liz Lemon, Dwight Schrute, Hank Moody, Admiral William Adama and Dexter Morgan. These are my friends, my social group: a superheroic male nurse who wants his mummy and daddy to see he’s special; a neurotic comedy writer with no social skills; a neurotic office worker with no social skills and martial arts training; a misanthropic beat writer with a large libido and drinking problem; a stoic military man trying to save humanity; and a sociopathic serial killer with mummy/daddy issues. Are these versions of me? Is that why I relate to them? Or are they reflections of who I aspire to be? Out of all of these, I probably feel most like Peter Petrilli and want to be like Hank Moody, when in reality, I’m most like Liz Lemon and want to be Admiral Adama. Stoicism vs neuroses. That’s the battle I’m fighting.

This got me thinking about my life and who I aspire to be. I seem to essentially want to be a character from a television programme; somehow this is my ultimate goal. I have my own theme tune (‘Deceptacon’ by Le Tigre); imagine moments where I’m either in a detective thriller or an intense drama (somehow never comedy), and make incessant notes on daily life occurrences in case they can be recycled later on in the filmed version of my life. When all is stacked up though, I lead an inherently boring existence, mundane and austere. I watch television, I work at my semi-important publishing job. I read a lot, listen to a lot, watch a lot- and I fill in the gaps by writing my own versions of my own potted histories. Would this be worth watching on screen? Probably not. The cliché that we must write what we know is a lie. We must exaggerate what we know for comic effect, for dramatic effect, for explosive effect. The realms of imagination.

So the point of all this, if I am to be in my own television show, I might as well have some wish-fulfilment about my character. So, what follows is my character brief for TV show-me. Feel free to add your own. Who knows, we may gather enough supporting cast to create a kick-ass sitcom.

Name: Kish Keshla
Age: 25
Job: mattress tester

Kish is a lethargic mattress tester with a fine line in sarcasm and an infinite knowledge of most pop culture items. He reads comic books, listens to bad-ass garage punk and watches oodles of television. He has been mattress-testing for years now but recently, he’s become an insomniac. He doesn’t know where the insomnia’s coming from, what’s causing it and why it keeps him up at night. Is he having an existential crisis? He can’t do his job properly anymore and mattresses are being left by the way-side. His problems stem from his parents. They’ve just gone out of business. They used to be biscuit architects, ergonomically designing the look and feel of biscuits. However, the biscuit-designing world is a young person’s game and they’ve been driven out of business by a hot-headed rival with a new product set to take the world by storm: salty hob-nobs. Kish has had to move his parents in with him, which ruins the gentle fabric of his life. He can’t watch telly or read in peace, nor pump the music up cos dad’s always watching cricket and mum is always cooking for him. He can’t entertain ladies and he certainly can’t sleep at home with all that geriatric snoring. How is he going to support two loving retired parents with large outgoings and sweet teeth if he can’t sleep and get those mattresses tested.

Characteristics: geeky, sarcastic, petulant, easily riled by parents,
Height: 5”11
Weight: 12 stone
Race: Asian
Eye Color: brown
Hair Color: black
Glasses or contact lenses? Thick black clark kents
Skin color: caramel-skinned
Shape of Face: chiselled
How does he/she dress? Geek chic
Style (Elegant, shabby etc.): Slightly awkward
Greatest flaw: Never saying the right thing
Best quality: Always being right

There are pages and pages of details to add, but let’s keep it simple and leave it there.

Add your own!