Get What You Needed? By Holly Searle

Last night, before I went to bed, I wrote the following line in an email.

Sometimes what we need and what we want are separate matters.

In bed I read a little before deciding that it was getting far too late to carry on with this nightly indulgence. So I turned the light off and fell asleep.

And then I woke-up.

Eyes opened and wide awake assuming it was, as it usually is, around 6am. I check the time and discover that it is actually just after 1:30am.

Being a self confessed opportunist, I check the news feed to see what's happening in the US Presidential Elections, to discover that it's still early days with Hilary trailing to Trump.

Oh! Oh No, Oh No, Oh No, Oh No I think.

Hang on I tell myself, just calm down and try and go back to sleep. You have an interview tomorrow and you need to be rested.

So I attempt to go back to sleep.

This is proving difficult as I am starting to stress about the state of mutanity and the prospect of Trump actually, ACTUALLY, winning and how that will pan out for all of us.

Then I try to dismiss this notion and trick myself into going back to sleep by thinking about needs and wants.

What do I need? And What do I want? I ponder in the hope that a little narrative will unfold, that will eventually lead to a sounder sleep.

A new job is a definite priority Need having just been made redundant for the second time in three years. Without work I cannot earn enough money to pay for the life I have and am responsible for providing for my son.

I Need to that to happen and soon.

I lay there scrunched-up in the duvet and decide that Needs are different from Wants: as Wants are sometimes unobtainable desires like Wanting to win the lottery. In reality, I won't win the lottery, as it is more realistic to find a job and to earn money rather that fantasizing about all the things I could do (to quote ABBA) if I had a little money.

I also surmise that Needs like family, friendship, shelter, warmth, health, food and water are all givens that I have in my life. I am therefore rich. A millionaire in fact.

To Want these and to never have them, must be a lonely predicament.

I fall asleep.

Then I wake again.

Eyes open, wide awake!

It's now 4 something and I wonder if there will be a woman or a man in the White House. So I check the news feed again. It's looking grim but as yet undecided.

I tell myself that I Want a woman in the White House. I am not a religious bod, but I say a little prayer that Trump isn't the people's choice. I also decide that the global herd's woes, worries and wishes are what's interrupting my sleep.

I doze off.

When I next wake-up, I immediately check the latest. I think it must be all over and it is now, as Trump is now a Top Trump and Hilary is fast becoming yesterday's fish and chip paper.

I get up and it's dark and rainy outside. It looks like what I envisage Armageddon might look like, although really it's just after 6am on a Wednesday morning in November in 2016.

To accompany this nihilistic scene Morrissey begins singing November Spawned A Monster in my mind palace. I close the curtains and I go and make a cup of tea as I Need one.

The day unfolds. My son gets up and I just say to him 'I don't want to talk about it.' We watch the news on the black mirror in silence and he hugs me before he goes off to school.

I return to the telly. Trump, Trump, Trump.

Dess my Step dad always called farts Trumps.

I get ready for my interview whilst watching Trump making his speech. He exits to the Rolling Stones song You can't always get what you want and for a brief moment I wonder if one of his aids has forgotten to change the record in view of the result, as this sounds like a losers song. But then I realise that it is very apt, I suppose and ironic all in the same instance.You can't always get what you want.But if you try sometime you find you get what you need.

I worry that my initial speculation about that line I wrote in the email. It's somewhat eerie that I wrote it in consideration of what has transpired.

I think about my restless night's sleep and how I Wanted Hilary to be the victor of the spoils. I sigh and go off to my interview knowing I didn't Need Trump, but that others did and that the spoils maybe spoilt.