I lied to my parents so I could meet Richey Edwards.

I can't remember if I have ever written about this occasion in any such form as a blog or on a social networking site. I told a couple of people who just happened to be there when I got back. But even then, there was a mutual agreement that the story wouldn't particularly affect their lives at all. For months I've shot down any particular reference to the Manic Street Preachers that may bind in my head and trigger some useless contraption of crazed, obsessive thoughts. I remember sitting in my bedroom as a dumbfounded sixteen year old, happily chapping at my keyboard with a glint in my eye and a knot in my belly. Oh God, and the waking up the next morning! I shot out of bed and switched on my computer as though it held the answers to life itself. It was June, and the sun always woke me by glinting through the top window and lighting the room yellow. I was part way through my exams actually. But the beginning is far too exciting for me to continue to write about and not possibly get upset over.

It was only September when I first met her, it was really that quick. She was in Blackpool for a day staying with a student friend. My own friend had opted out at the very last minute, in true form. I had the most nervous disposition, I still don't really know what was going on with me in those minutes between getting myself ready and leaving my home. Ah! I can hear him right now. But it has soon vanished. A dull buzz in the left of my ear, coming and going, and then fading.

I told mother I was out to meet my friend for the day. She said okay, and so I left the house and stalked my way down Blackpool promenade on a relatively pleasant afternoon. There was nothing strange about the tide, it rolled like it always has done. There was nothing strange about the tourists, they didn't know what magic could and ought to happen today. But I did. I must interrupt to note a peculiar vibrating sound setting off against one of my bedroom walls. Like using your finger to peel back a ruler and then letting go and hearing the sound it makes as it struggles to stay up or down, and paces itself between the two. Besides.

I came to Central Pier, Blackpool, with an excruciatingly uncomfortable thing inside my stomach. I only lived less than a few kilometres down the golden mile, in a peach-coloured hotel, in a very smelly street. I crossed the lights at McDonalds and, configuring a place to stand and wait, chose a corner that stood almost out-of-sight- an unfit reflection of my anticipation at the time. And I stood there forever. It must have been forever. I scoured my invisible watch with my eyes, straightened my white denim jacket (Yes! Can you believe it?) and ruffled my hair with my fingers. And then two figures looking exceptionally lost came bobbing around the corner.

A lady, petite in almost every way, with dark crimson hair, army pants and decorated in tattoos. And with her, a taller middle-aged man, who had no finer details that I can recall accordingly. I still stood there. I still looked at my invisible watch and dusted off my jacket. And then I pulled myself together, took what I was afraid might be my last breath, and turned to greet my acquaintances. It surprised me to note that she seemed in a bit of a hurry, and we almost instantly began swimming (or drowning) in the persistance of retched Blackpool tourists who would give you their arm on the spot to let them through for the summer sales. We made it through alive.

We had very brief chats whilst skimming the bustle of people. I am ashamed to say I don't remember many. Infact I am ashamed to say I don't remember enough about the evening at all. For it to be a most spectacular night, I wish I had fine-tuned my memory to do all that it could and help me reminisce in years to come. They do say that the best nights are the ones that you don't remember, though. Come to think of it, that could have been just me. Aside from that, we came to a pub which had clearly been strategically planned. We sat on high stools at a perfectly square, dark wooden table, and ordered drinks. I looked the menu up and down, then up and down again. I knew since nine o'clock that very morning that I would be too nervous to eat. "If you don't mind, I'll just have a drink."

I must interrupt once more. I have a slight nervousness in my stomach as I speak. Something I haven't done in a long time is simply think about Richey. Just think. It agitates my breast bone at the worst of times. At the best of times, it can be so euphoric that I can barely walk straight. That was too many years ago. Now.

We hadn't had our dinner served yet, and this lady, (I have decided to be less ambiguous and her name is Angie) was sure fine at rattling on! She talked more and more, until you couldn't possibly find anything else for her to say. But she was damn lovely, so lively, so cheerful, and so polite. Her student, whom we shall call Tony, sat opposite us in a calm, collected little bubble of his own. He was clearly nervous, but not surely as nervous as I sounded when I muttered a few sentences in sheer dumbness. I said alot of "Um's" and "Ah's" and alot of nodding was involved, and smiling, and laughing. And then we came to the reason why we were really there, in this posh little hangout, in this seaside town. He proceeded to tell me that as I had been walking down Blackpool promenade with the two of them, there was a lady wearing a necklace of inverted colours. (This was later politely shrugged off by Angie who admitted that he sometimes likes to make little things up as a way of either impressing or overcoming instant anxiety with strangers.) Thhe lady's name has been Margaret, or Michelle, or something like that, and she was keeping her eye out for me.

He had not long finished talking when it was now Angie's turn. I look back in sheer embarrassment at my muteness and couldn't possibly ever live it down now. She began to talk about four fellows, Richey, Sean, James and Nicky. Mid-way through doing so she momentaarily paused, flinched her eyes upwards, and stuck out her hands. "Ah, he's here now." She must have been unsure because she began to speak but then paused again, and finally confirmed that he was infact here. Which was just as well because I had a sudden rush of wind blow by my left ear. It swirled inside it and back out again. The truth is that I'm not writing some fantasy fairytale book, nor a fact-or-fiction "Do Ghosts Really Exist?" hoard of endless facts and figures. I am simply detailing what happened to me. Thus is the reason I planned an early bedtime and have found myself brazing my keyboard at 2:15 on a friday morning.

We than left off to find a ladies house (The real reason the two of them were here, aswell as in utmost kindness to me) to give her a private reading. It was a street that I had surely forgotten about since we visited, but have since found it again- i'm pretty sure- the day I collected my younger sister from her friend's house. I'm sure it must have been that same street. We approached the house and knocked, and waited, and were welcomed, etcetera. Not much is to tell of this particular event. Angie left to go upstairs and give the lady the private reading she desired, while Tony gave me a private reading of my own. I have a collection of the things he said written in a document on my other computer, which I cannot publish right here, right now. Take it from me that it was, on the whole, blindingly correct. Apart from the future, of course, which nobody can dictate. Yet. Things happened, which involved an unhappy husband thinking Angie was infact a male and had come over as this ladys fancy man, and we soon had to scurry. (She had accidentally called her "Andy" over the phone.)

We left and searched for the car. They were both very down-to-earth, joking about doing the karaoke in pubs and about the lady we had just met. It was almost dark and Angie had informed me that Richey wanted to find a quiet place to do a quick exchange of bodies so that he could speak to me like a normal human being in a normal body. He had suggested the small hut-type structures dotted along the top of the promenade at North Pier which held a couple of benches each and the smell of stale urine, because they were dark and quiet. I had to laugh at this most inappropriate decision. I knew that since we had been in Blackpool together, Angie had never walked past any of these structures as they were too far ahead of the surroundings we were walking and so couldn't have possibly known they were there or what they looked like. I don't remember if I ever told the two of them that they were often used as urinals for pissed-up tourists or not, but the decision did not go ahead, and we drove south.

It was now in the midst of night. It wasn't too late, maybe about nine o'clock, and the Blackpool illuminations effortlessly guided our way down the golden mile. We got out the car at around the same place as South Pier is located, and walked up the almost brand-spanking-new steps they had built in place. Almost directly above us, the Pepsi Max, one of the most famous rollercoasters in Great Britain, came towering down, and around, and up, and at nauseating speeds, making me feel nervous merely staring from down below. I thought it fitting to post a picture now to show you just where we were, but I can't find one exactly. The next trail of events however, happened in a place where I can show you. Right here:



We sat down on a sculpture, which I have only just discovered has a name. "Swivelling Wind Shelters." Although the sculpture was swivelled to face the sea at the time. I was positioned on the left hand side of the bench, Angie in the middle, and Tony to the right. Whilst walking past the sea barrier, I could recall walking with two friends one dreary day, quietly and within my own thoughts, when I looked into the long winding, dark, damp sea and I cursed my mind for knowing where Richey must be but not telling me. And I thought hard, long and fast, but nothing gave me any answers I so desired. The sea merely spat in my face and so I turned to walk home. I told Angie that this was the same spot where I had been wondering all these kinds of thoughts, and she told me that this was quite funny because this is the same place where Richey, James, Nicky and Sean used to come all the time as kids. And a certain song came to mind.

I shuddered and took my place on the bench. I didn't know what was happening before it did. She had told me that she was going to leave her own body for a few moments and let Richey talk through it instead. I wasn't prepared in the slightest, and was terribly anxious, and at a complete loss of intelligible things to say. It was too cramped for my liking. I had Angie's body sitting next to mine, and Tony merely a meter in front of me. There was no spectacular, magical bang or pop or whizz, it just happened like anything naturally would. Angie's body movements began to change all at once. She had crossed her leg over (To face away from me), propped her elbow on her knee and hid the side of her face with the same hand. And I don't remember much except ongoing Welsh babble. And I thought this must be it. This must be what I came out to see, and here I am in bewilderment, with all chances loosely slipping away as I struggle to find words of any kind. I shall now call Angie "He" for the forthcoming tale of events. Among his Welsh lingo was constant, profuse apologising for being so shy. He could not finish a sentence without "I'm so sorry, I find it hard to even look at you." I assumed he had not done it quite like this before in such an intimate place with a fan. Apology after apology came pouring out, and I am genuinely pained to say I can't remember much of what he said, but he spoke for a long time. Please understand my euphoric state and desperation to control my shuddering and disbelief.

And then he mentioned my grandad. And had he passed away a short time ago, and I said yes. He was, infact, the only member of my family that I had lost and really known. And I was then assured that he was looking over me. I promised myself to tell my dad about this but the chance has never arrived. He said to me I can ask anything I like. "Anything you like, you can be nosy, it's ok, I don't mind."

I couldn't possibly have thought of anything sensible while I had others watching me. If I were ever to do it again it would have to be solitary and confined, and absolutely personal. And for my lack of interest, I absolutely loathe myself. I can only recall a wiping of my brow, shaking of my head, and a sincere apology for being too dumbfounded to have anything to ask. And he responded, with his new mouth and his new voice, and new body, but with his same mother tongue. And almost as soon as he came, he was gone. He lifted up his arm and notified the now bodiless Angie that he was done talking, and with a cute slip of the tongue he nervously mumbled, "Andy! Oh, Angie... I just called you Andy like that woman did." And then he was really gone.

I tried for a few minutes to voice my utter excitement and disbelief for what had just gone on, but I still really couldn't. As we raised ourselves from the bench on the sculpture, Angie perked up and concluded, "He's walking behind me now, he's going "Did I do alright?! Did I do okay?!" Needless to say I wanted to reassure him that it had gone perfectly well. Greater than I could ever have imagined. It was not long after this moment that it began to get late and I had to get home, and so I asked politely not to drop me off right outside of my hotel because my mother might ask who I've been with. She still gets angry with me to this day knowing that I lied, and has somehow managed to manifest the thought that the probability of having possibly been murdered/kidnapped/raped/abducted is worse than the fact that I almost certainly wasn't.

I walked down the now darkened promenade for the last time, heading from South to Central, alight with that peculiar buzz that happens every so often just above the breast bone. And I somehow had an inkling that he may be watching me to make sure I got home safely. I know there is a way of doing it again, except he doesn't leave, i'm the one who has to. The art of lying in bed, staying still, looking sheepish, and eventually leaving my own body to pay a visit to his fantasy world instead. Alas, I have tried for long periods of nights, for two whole years, and I am not getting any closer, and it has driven me mad, and upset me, and triggered hours of talking to the ghost of myself aimlessly during the nights, and asking him to knock, and come visit, and weeping into my pillows. And I can only conclude that either I am the very sick one, or everybody else is very sick.