Autobiographical Musings (Chapter the First) – My mother used to say that my birth was the stuff of mythical tales. One night while camping in the wild, an angel descended from the heaven and telling her that her womb would soon hold the son of God, made sweet passionate love to her. 9 months later I was born. I grew up believing this story; of an enigmatic, divine Angel and that I was some part of a heavenly plan, created to fulfil an unknown destiny. I later found out this story to be lies. The truth, as my grandmother related, was far simpler: One night, while tripping balls on LSD, my mother stumbled into a forest. Three days she was lost there. When she reappeared, her virginity was gone and it transpired she had slept with a mysterious forester known only as Toby. Toby, not wearing any protection that night, decided that he really didn’t “want things to be weird” and promptly disappeared. My grandmother told me this when I was seven. I pledged my life there and then to finding my father and extracting 7 years’ worth of birthday presents from him. I ran away countless times to find him. Of course a seven year old can only get so far before he’s returned home by the authorities, but the fire in my belly never went out. Once I reached the age of manhood, which in my village was 8 years, I set out on my journey. It was some time before I found my God, DylanYoung and I have been a loyal follower ever since.
The Early Years (Part 1) – An eight year old boy walked up a hill and turned around. Below him was his village. The village of his birth. Everything the boy had known and loved was down there; his mother, his beloved grandparents, his unicycle. He was a man now and determined to find his father, a mysterious forester who had slept with his mother and fearing commitment, promptly committed to disappearing. Casting his eyes over the village; the thatched houses, the winding streets, the unexplained smog which plagued the air, he steeled his resolve. He was a man now. A man with a destiny: to find his father. He knew deep down he would miss the village but the world was a big place and he would return and see his family again (He did years later only to find the houses empty, the streets weeded and deserted, the smog gone. He discovered from a squatter that the village had been abandoned quickly after a “a bo’ who did went find ‘is old man” left and the villagers had had a party of some sort.) But now as the wind blew down the valley and at his back, the boy knew the journey ahead of him was long and dangerous, he was determined and though he was but little, he was fierce. From his chic leather man bag he removed a hip flask and bringing it to his lips, whispered “Fuck you Toby”, before slugging hard. Screwing back on the cap and replacing in his bag he coolly flicked opened his sunshades, and stylishly whipped them onto his face; “Hasta la vista, baby” he said full of gusto, and taking one last look at his home town, turned to leave, stepping in horse shit as he did so.
Autobiographical Musings (Chapter the Second) I wish I could recall how perfect my family life was, but I would be lying, not only to you noble reader but to myself. I loved my grandparents dearly; my grandmother doting on me every day while my grandfather thought me how to read. I’ll never forget his most sterling advice “They say you don’t need alcohol to have fun. They also say you don’t need shoes to run but it fucking helps”. It was him would gave me my first drink when I was six. By seven I was able to hold my own. He thought me how to fight and always told me that when faced with uncertainty, running is always an option, a mantra I have lived by to this day. I briefly stopped drinking when I accidently lit the fire in their hut that consumed them both, but then coincidently resumed drinking to forget the fact that I had inadvertently murdered them both. My mother worked in the sex industry and she worked hard to provide for me. The owner of “The Back Door”, the local whore house, Mr. Pimp was a tough task master. Short, fat and diabetic, his balding head constantly dripped with perspiration as he forced and harried my mother to work to extremity of her physical ability. There was never ending dishonour to having a mother like mine. She knew the worst of the worst and on her days off she would contemplate moving somewhere new. Fanciful, but deluded that there was a better life out there for her. Some nights she wouldn’t come home till all hours, often emotionally bruised and battered from the nights work. Embarrassingly she wasn’t even a prostitute! No, she worked in Accounts; what shame she brought on me! All of my friends mothers where highly respected whores; valued and sought after members of society, whereas mine fumbled though ledger after ledger of figures and processed payments and cash reconciliations, each number adding to her own disgrace. I’ve never told anyone this dear reader, I hope you won’t think any less of me for I am merely creature of circumstance.
The Early Years (Part 2) -After cleaning his feet in a nearby pond, the boy vowed to get a good pair of boots as soon as he could and never wear sandals going on long journeys ever again. He walked for what seemed like an eternity that first day. By sunset he had walked without seeing another stranger or sign post, his only guide, a beaten track which stretched out unending in front of him. He passed no signs of life or posts which might indicate even a vague location. That night he rested down in a grove and started a fire using dried branches and Bear Grills flint start kit he had gotten for his birthday. Wrapping up in a poncho he gazed at the stars above, as a lonely cloud cut through the sky and blocked out the moon. The fire was a comfort at first but it attracted rodents and small creatures. The boy, realising that three packs of beef jerky probably wouldn’t sustain him on his journey, offered a strip to a rabbit who seemed friendly and inquisitive. As it gratefully nibbled on the jerky and looked up though its doe eyes, the boy felt content and smiled briefly before suddenly smashing it with a large rock right between its eyes. Instead of killing the creature with one blow however, a translucent blue smoke rose from its body in the shape of what looked like “-7XP”. The boy in horror, realised as the creature dazedly stumbled backwards that he regretted trying to kill it. Tears filled his eyes and he raised the rock once more, and brought it down again and again. In the between the rabbits shrieks of immeasurable pain and the boys pitiful, embarrassing and almost comically high pitched crying, the creature eventually died. That first night was his toughest. As he sat there next to the fire roasting the rabbit, he reflected on what he had left behind and what he might face in the tomorrow. He wept solemnly as he chewed tender rabbit thigh, wishing he had brought some sauce.