The Problems With Fantasy

Now, for all those that know me, will know that I like to delve into the world of fantasy when it comes to writing. There are less rules and such that I need to follow in order to do what I want to do… Tell a good story.

However, upon embarking on this degree, I have found that there is a wealth of factors that my story telling seems to have overlooked and then I came upon a book that wasn’t really ‘coming upon’ at all… as it has been sat on my bookshelf for well over 8 years. maybe a decade now, without being read.

It is David Edding’s “The Rivan Codex”. David Eddings has long been my favourite author. It is possible that he will remain so until my own death as it was his writing that made me realise that this was the life for me. That I wanted to tell stories that gave future generations as much escapism as his gave me. I had thought that this book was another story from the world of Belgarion, Begarath and Polgara. That I was going to be reveled by one final, one of adventure. I completely overlooked the subtitle at the bottom of the front cover which said “Ancient Texts of the Belgariad and the Mallorean”. I would hate to think that had I seen this subtitle that I would not have bought the book, and that is probably true measuring the amount of disappointment I felt when I read the introduction back then and realised that I had been wrong. I wish more than ever that I had persevered because I found more answers to the questions I had been asking that anywhere else, and I valued them greatly due to the fact that it was in the words of my literary idol…

The book itself is all the notes he made when creating the world in which the two series are set, as well as the races and main characters and such. I re-picked this book up a few days after realising that in order to flesh out my story properly and give it a degree of realism. I was going to have to create a world that was almost tangible, rather than winging it like I normally do.

And the thing that spoke to me most, which would have been handy in my darkest times?

“I was in my mid-teens when I discovered that I was a writer. Notice that I didn’t say “wanted to be a writer” – ‘want’ has almost nothing to do with it. Either it’s there or it isn’t. If you happen to be one, you’re stuck with it.”

Learning Café

Being back at university is oddly soothing after the last four months of inertia. I would like to put that down as the reason why my writing has been so erratic, however laziness and the need of a break from being creative were needed. For those who have been following the series… Yes it would seem that the institution had knocked me down for a while. For those who didn’t know that was the underlying theme with it, apologies for the spoiler.

Sitting here with such peace, however, is bizarre to me. I should be bricking myself shouldn’t I? Dissertation year. Conclusion to this massive gamble I took a couple of years ago in order to shove the boulder into the river and divert the course of my life. So I should be panicking, wondering whether I’m up to the challenge. I mean, the penalisations are seriously heavy this year. Ten mark loss if I don’t use enough sources in the critical peace on one of the modules as well as a further 10 if I don’t accompany it with an analysis of each of the primary texts.

But I’m not. Instead, I’m trying to do the reading for the lecture in a couple of hours and the soft fabric-covered sofas are being abused by Ranger hurling a slime covered demon through its back and shattering the glass of the vending machine behind it. It slumps down the shelving showering itself in Fairtrade crisps that were used as a makeshift airbag. Gabriel is standing above a large beast that he had just countered and driven through a table.

The silver wolf darts around the outskirts of the room, looking for the right angle into the fray while Paul tries to avoid the conflict, bearing the wounds of Waya’s most recent scrapes. The waitress blindly pours a coffee for another student that has just arrived to the battlefield and unbeknownst to them another monster of darkness lunges through the pair of them to be parried away by the Elf King Juan (need to think of a better name for the poor guy, eighteen year old me did not do him justice) and had its head severed by the mighty swing of his two handed sword, a great feat in such a cramped area as he managed to miss the waitress completely.

So it’s fairly safe to say that any hold the institution of life may have had over my writing has now been loosed by the freeing sensation of sitting on Uni campus and I am ready to take on the task of becoming a graduate.

(Now who honestly saw that coming? I sure as hell didnt…)

Music (Part 2)

There are other times though when the music has influenced the scene that has then become logged as a memory. The first one of these examples is this:

It was shortly after I had split up from my wife and I wasn’t taking things particularly well. My best mate was still in the country (I know right, what best friend deserts you for fairer climes?) and I had my daughter for one of my holiday stints. We had travelled out to Chichester where he lived so that she could see her Godfather and so that he could attempt to cheer me up.

We had a pleasurable enough day, despite my mood throughout. Anyway, during it, my daughter was sat at the computer, a two monitor set up with keyboard and unit, as well as a drawing pad as Alex likes to do a lot of drawing. Alex had youtube playing a playlist he had set up. This song came on as part of it and my daughter started singing along to it. Now, whenever I hear that song, that scene and my daughter singing it pops into my head.

Another was when I had a friend over a little while after getting my own flat as I’d promised to cook a meal to prove to her that I actually could. So after a bit of tinkering, clanging of pots and the odd profanity here and there where I caught myself on the edge of a tin lid, I had cooked up a rather respectable spaghetti bolognaise.

While serving, I quickly decided to run the drinks into the living room, which was serving as my diner. I had placed a square dining table on top of the beige coloured carpet and seated two chairs opposite each other. She had sat in the chair facing the entranceway, as I had no door partitioning the living area and hallway, and I remember her toying with her brown hair, staring intently at the offending strands through green eyes while quietly singing along to “Here without you” by 3 Doors Down. I remember standing in the archway listening before she looked up and saw me, immediately stopping with her song. Smiling, I had walked to the table and set the teas down on it, telling her that the food would only be a couple more minutes.

Music brings me back to those moments, stirring sensations that sometimes I had thought were long forgotten. Music and I are inseparable which is why I find it so strange when I meet someone who lives their life without it.

Belgian Memory

I bought a Belgian bun today.

That, in itself, is not really worthy of note, however I realised that I hadn’t bought one in a while, although that too has little point. I wasn’t even thinking about the last time I had one when I got it, it was closer to “Meh, why the hell not…” and took it up to the till.

I then sat in the staff area and opened the case. The crack of the plastic stirred a memory from my childhood. Saturdays always used to be my favourite day. Not just because it released me from the hell of school but because on Saturdays Mum and I would go shopping. Now I will point out that I must have been quite young as I don’t remember either Natalie or Julia in the recollection.

Mum would drive us out to Badger Farm Sainsbury’s and we’d do the weekly shop. I remember the blue crates Mum would grab out of the boot of her car and we went towards the store’s entrance and collected one of the “new style trolleys” as mum would say, which were shaped in a kind of a zee with holes for the boxes to sit in. Mum then scanned her Nectar card and waited for me to pick up the hand held scanner out of its holder, which glowed a bright white.

We then proceeded into the store, Mum picked up the bits we needed, while I tramped along rather bored of the whole thing until we got to the chilled and bakery aisles. I remember running over to the fridge and grabbing a Frijj milkshake… back when the chocolate one used to be extremely thick and froth when you poured it into a glass and then we’d wonder down to the bakery aisle and the cakes.

I’d always be torn between two choices. The Chelsea with its raisin and doughy texture with sugar frosting making it mourish and sticky. Or the Belgian with it’s icing and cherry, still mourish but less sticky to eat. Normally, Sainsbury’s would be easier as they never seemed to have the Chelsea bun and that day was no different and I’d happily scan the packs that had the most icing on the buns before putting them in one of the blue totes.

The rest of the shop would pass in the blur until we got home. Mum would also buy an uncut loaf from the bakery, tiger bread. So lunch would consist of wedge sandwiches from the uncut loaf filled with the thick tinned Princes ham (because it always tasted nicer than the chilled regular packs), equally wedged cheddar cheese with a glass of Frijj milkshake. Followed by the treasured taste of the Belgian bun for after.

Later in the evening, I’d curl up on the sofa, watching whatever was on the Saturday night prime, Bugs, Spooks… countless others that I used to enjoy watching, even one year Crimetravellers with another glass of the milkshake before packing myself off to bed…

Stream of Consciousness

Today is a day that I am really struggling to write anything. So apologies for the following 400 words of drivel. “Kids these days,”

Elaine says as she walks into the living room. “No respect, ever since they took the cane out of the schools, they have nothing to fear. They don’t have a reason to behave.”

I sit and ponder her words while running my Fallout 3 character through an abandoned school, idly shooting lunatic bandits who charge round corners without a care for their own life. Outside, as if to emphasise her point, one of the kids next door is having a rowing match with his mother. I inwardly groan as I shoot another bandit in the head using the in-game targeting system, watching their head explode off their shoulders in slow motion.

To a certain degree I can sort of see her point. There is nothing to keep children in line except the stern iteration and veiled threats that bad things will happen if they do not behave. However, there is little to nothing that parents or educators can do to keep them in line. At home, they can ‘ground’ them, take away privileges and possessions, or take a leaf out of next door’s book and have a screaming match at their child. In the school, with the removal of the cane, all the teachers can do is take away a break time, or an afternoon. Tell them to write lines. But what if they do not listen? Suspension and Expulsion? Then who gets the blame for their child not being in school? The parents, because after all, teaching is just a job…

Elaine looks at Steph and I, “I know it works, I grew up through it. You see, your generation don’t know what your lost.”

Next door’s kid is shouting again. “FUCK OFF YOU BITCH!” reverberating around the living room walls.

“I’d never speak like that to my teachers let alone my parents. Kids used to fear the cane, they used to fear the father. Not saying all needed it but some kids need to fear them. Otherwise they run wild.”

As a father, I disagree with this. I’d never wanted to be one of those dad’s that scared their kids. I’ve never needed to use force and I’ve rarely ever shouted at my daughter and yet, I’ve managed to achieve regular obedience from her. My personal annoyance rises in stages, rather than going from pleasant conversation to shouting at her… Admittedly, I don’t have the constant interaction that I used to, but even when I did, I can list the number of times I’ve actually full on shouted at her on one hand…. and it’s the same symbol that the abusive father’s give their kids when they pummel them.

I disagree with the need for the cane. I do not believe that it should be a requirement. I do agree that it resides in the parents to work with the child. The child’s behaviour is a result of the upbringing. The experiences that they are forced to endure within the home affects them outside of it. If all they know to respond to situations is with anger and confrontation, they’ll respond in kind. Parents use fists on children because they lose control, children will use fists on others because they do the same. From personal experience, violence begets more violence. Anger invokes more anger.

The mother outside screeches at yet another of her children and I sigh with exasperation.

Home should be a sanctuary… is it any surprise that when that sacrament is broken that it affects them elsewhere?

Rewinding the clock

For the past year or so, I have allowed something to run almost rampant within me that before always had to be kept in check. I have enjoyed the… sensation, if you will, and even surprised myself at what I could feel if I just opened myself the chance to do it. However, being this way has not made me happy. In actuality, it has become the complete opposite. I’ve been finding myself go numb in different ways, and that is not what I set out to do.

So today, I did something that I’ve not done in a long time. I meditated. Not with the intention of finding clarity and enlightenment and relaxation. But to constrict and control that which I’ve considered a bane my whole life.

My emotion.

I closed my eyes, picturing myself in a harsh desert wasteland with nothing but sand as far as the eye can see. I turn in a circle until I feel the faint sound, sensation even, of running water, a trickling sound, and begin to follow it. I ignore the passing of time, the changes of surrounding and focus only on the sound of water, only peripherally aware that it is getting darker.

Then the sound stops and I look down to see a well. My emotion is sloshing around inside, bubbling and rolling, simmering along the surface and then cooling.

I close my eyes once more and take control of the well, removing it from that plane and then placing it in another, somewhere more malleable. I open my eyes to pure white and blanch at the raging fire that appears before me, its intense heat ravaging my skin as I acknowledge it for what it is. It roars at me, towering above threatening to consume. However, although it is a part of me, I had been its master for a long time and a year of leniency isn’t going to stop me regaining that control. I stare at it square in the flames, picturing a face amidst the smoke. It gives me pause for a moment. I close my eyes, sigh, and then raise the first wall.

It recoils from the touch of the cage and races for freedom in the opposite direction only to slam into another wall. It bounces off of it stops disorientated. I use this time to raise the other two walls, almost completing the cage. My emotion wails and tries to climb the walls, trying to reach the freedom of the top. I wait, cruelly watching its climb. Then I hurl my cruelty in with it and seal the lid.

I shrink the box to carry and walk with it towards the fort. The walls, left to fall into ruin have already begun reconstructing themselves. Following the dreaded path, I head into the fort towards a special chamber deep within its heart. In the centre of a barren room was a large pedestal, covered in dust from the passage of time. I blow the dust clear and then reverently upon its surface.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter and turn my back, closing my eyes and climb the stairs to the top floor. When I reach there, I look down at the walls, the construction complete. The gate slams shut and I am alone once more.

Never Kid a Kidder

(Slugline Challenge set by Kirsty)

Like riding a bike, you never forget how to tell a convincing lie once you learn. I would almost go so far to say that it is the true form of human nature, because truth is such a fragile creature. Want to know more? Well young pup, take a seat and I’ll try and explain.

Now the main question that has to be answered is ‘What is Truth?”

I hear the more logical thinkers out there claim that truth is something based in fact. Right? Or something that can be corroborated by evidence. However, truth can be subverted, and this is the key fact, hence why it is such a fragile thing. Why? Because truth is based on humanity, and humans are very fallible beings and they will lie for numerous reasons. For instance, personal gain, to protect someone (or self), deceive someone (or self) or to make someone just leave something alone.

Once you learn that basic… err… truth about truth. The rest is easy. The best way to lie is to take the truth and subvert it, because then you are taking elements of the truth and the hearer finds it more believable because it tallies up more with their version of events, or what they’ve heard or what they suspect to be feasible. If you try to clutch something out of thin air, the person that you’re trying to lie to will see the holes in your ‘story’. Their own mind will pick at it and gnaw away at it until it falls apart as the fabrication that it is. However, mix a bit of truth in there… Everything seems a lot tighter, there’s less gaps, less loose strands to tie up, because the truth does some of the work for you.

Lost, ok, take a court proceeding. The prosecutor and defendant take the pieces of the events, the hows, whats, whys, etc. The evidence that builds there case to try and sway the jury to see things from their side of things. We have a domestic dispute that has gone traditionally Agatha Christie and the poor wife has ended up in a pool of her own blood and the husband isn’t much better off and he’s in a crumpled heap, holding the corpse of his loved one. Now you reading this have already formed your own opinion of what went down.

So the prosecutor takes the stand. He tells you, the jury, that the husband was a man that liked his booze and would often be drunk on a Friday. That, he had been drinking that evening. That three people saw the events that took place and that their testimony plus the evidence should leave them in no doubt of his guilt. However what they don’t tell you is that not all the evidence points conclusively to his guilt and that the CPS is paying him handsomely if he wins this case.

Then the defence takes the stand and implores you to see this for the tragic accident that it was. Yes, the husband had had a couple, however so had the wife. He has evidence proving it as well. It was an argument that got out of hand, words, fists and then a knife got in the mix. It was tragic. A man has lost a woman he loved dearly. Not only that, but this accident has also robbed a boy of his mother. Could they honestly imprison his only other parent over something that was truly a horrible accident? What they don’t say? Is that they have next to nothing to back up their words. Their defence is circumstancial and is imploring to their emotional side to stop the convicting their client… because they get paid more if the husband is cleared or has a reduced sentence.

The witnesses take the stand. The first is the wife’s friend John. He was in the other room and happened to walk in at the point that they were struggling over the knife. He saw it plunge into the wife. He said that the husband was out of control, enraged. However, what he doesn’t say is that he was madly in love with the wife and was immensely jealous of the husband. Not only that, but he had said the bullshit that had started the fight and was walking in to see the fruit of his labour.

The second witness is the defendant’s mother. She was in the kitchen the whole time, preparing food. She was talking to the husband about this and that and the village rumours and then the wife came in and flew completely off the handle. The wife was always a little insecure and unhinged don’t you know. Came in accusing this and that then started hurling things. Drew a knife and then went for him. He tried to calm her, then wrestle it from her grasp. They fell and next then they know. She cries at this point. The wife was dying, apologising for being so silly… What she doesn’t say? It’s fairly obvious here… IT’S HER SON!!!!! She’s not going to allow him to be condemned. What’s more, she probably ignored most of it because when we’re caught in the same room as a domestic dispute. the last thing we want to be is there, nor do we want to seem like we are listening just in case we get hauled into it…

The third, was someone who heard the commotion and came to help. They heard her shouts, then his, then the cries for help. The truth here? They weren’t entirely sure of what they heard and when they came to investigate they saw her on the floor, him over the body and assumed. Was asked by the police what happened and saw their fifteen minutes.

NOW! You the jury, have heard all this. Seen the bloody knife, the clothing, the pictures of the state of the kitchen… Do you condemn or save him?

Want to know what happened?

She was accusing him of cheating. He was defending himself by arguing back because he was innocent, because John was shit stirring. They were both a little tipsy, but things got out of hand. Plates got thrown. Then when she ran out, she drew a knife and went for him. He tried to get it out of her hand and calm her down. She had slipped on some cucumber that had spilled onto the floor from the mother’s food preparation and caught the husband off guard and they both fell. The knife, sadly, went into her.

So…

Did you just condemn an innocent man?

Thing is, through out all of that, the truth was lost. All were using elements of the truth, but the truth itself, was lost. Some of those statements were more believable than others. Some may have swayed you more than others. Because they seemed closer to the truth than the others.

Now apply that to everyday. Because no one needs training in how to lie. You do it everyday. Someone asks you how you are.

You reply “I’m OK.”

Now whether it’s to your gain that they think that.

Or maybe you’re protecting someone.. or yourself…

Or maybe you just want them to leave the subject alone…

I can more or less guarantee that you’re not and that you are something else entirely… you just don’t want them to know.

A break for my Creative side

I’ll have to start with an apology I’m afraid, I seem to have had a minor burnout for the day. I see the sympathising nods from my fellow writers, however it is not creative burnout that I think I am suffering today but more physical and emotional, maybe. When I woke up this morning, I probably could have done something more creative, the plan itself was to introduce another fighter to begin on the path to Ranger’s aid, however when trying to write it a moment ago, I managed 2 lines before went “no”.

I procrastinated, thinking that sitting down and doing this would be a nice break from the physical toil that I was planning to put my body through today. I have been laying the foundation for a shed that will house my cats, meaning that they will finally be able to come and stay with me. (The situation in the house would not suit them otherwise they’d have moved in when I did.) So I spent the morning shoveling through grass, dirt and clay to get the border wall deep enough. The clay was frustrating and even required me to bring out ye trusty pickax to break through and remove. I had a thought early about posting a picture on Facebook with the caption of “Got bored of Minecraft so decided to do it for real…” but no one was around to take the picture, besides myself and me and selfies… no… just.. no.

So I was doing that, then I helped my housemates go and collect a family dog and take her to the vet and while that was going on my training partner hit me up to go to the gym. Yes, despite the physical toil in the garden, I still accepted to go to the gym and kill my chest and shoulders… because who needs them when digging in the garden right? It was good to go back though and I felt better for doing it, then returned to the garden.

So torso feels pretty beat.

Emotional, I feel drained. I can’t really deny it. The last two weeks have been especially hard in places, however the last month I think has been anything but easy on an emotional level. Hence building a cat-shed in the garden… you may be able to piece it together.

I was told today that I can be a difficult person. That, my inability to talk about anything remotely about emotion drives people away. I’d argued back of course, saying that I’m not difficult just private, however it’s been playing on my mind. I am private. But why am I private? Because time and again the people I have invested my emotions into have either disappointed me, proven undeserving of them or have abused them. So I don’t offer them out.

It’s odd that a saying that I have is that I’ll happily offer out trust, kindness and friendship to anyone. But abuse one and lose them all. However, I know that although I offer those three, I don’t offer my emotion. They don’t get close to me, and if they bugger off because they can’t stand that then I’m as equally unfazed.

Because if people didn’t abuse those three things and didn’t abuse the emotion that I invest in them as if its some sign of weakness. Then I wouldn’t be as reserved about offering it out, then maybe I wouldn’t be as ‘difficult’, then I wouldn’t be building a cat-shed in the garden and you’d all get a creative piece rather than a ramble…

Taste

“You wait till ya hear i’ ma’e. Blinding track. Not like tha’ shit you listen to, eh!”

I’ve never considered myself to be that great with music. In fact, I’d say that I’m almost certifiably tone deaf. However, I do enjoy a wide range of music, the scope of which begins in some of the darkest clutches of Rock, moves through the various genres soaking up the historical culture of classical along the way and finish in the upbeat synth tracks of dance and the like. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember, a reflection, if you will, of my view of my social standing.

“You jus’ wait mate. There’s beats, there’s rhythm….”

Growing up, I was always the outcast. One week I’d be tolerated or acceptable amongst one group and then a week or two later I’d move onto the next. Back then, I’d always be vehemently against anything that wasn’t U2, Pink Flloyd or Led Zepplin, parroting my father in his mantra of “the majority of modern day music is shit”. However, I did seem to glean something from those days because now, when I hear a track like the logical song (the ‘crappy’ scooter song not the one by Slade I think it is?) I get a twinge of, “I was in a warehouse spraying strips of metal that would later become army barracks with paint” nostalgia. Or Chop Suey (the track by System of a Down not the food) and be transported back to my first trip to the Dungeon nightclub or sitting in my best mates loft getting passively stoned wihile playing burnout 3 takedown. (Which later got lost in the boot of my Corsa, I questioned several people for several years as to its whereabouts only to find it about two years after losing it, seriously water damaged, under my spare tyre…) In addition, the more acceptable (In Dad’s eyes) Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, that one summer’s afternoon, in the common room of Peter Symonds College, brought together every social group going. When it got to that point in the track, and everyone knows which part, it set every head, be it towny, goth, chav, nerdy and god knows what other, banging. A feat that not many artists can claim.

“It’s a beast ma’e. Blow. Your. Mind! You see if it don'”

So I’m sat next to this guy, waiting for this monumental track which, by the sounds of it =, will sum up 2015 if not the whole of this millennia to date! Is it a rendition of Mozart similar to the class that Vanessa-Mae has done? Or the brilliant merging of past and present that The Piano Guys seem to do with such ease and elegance? Or is some other mastery of which I was not aware? I couldn’t wait. My breath was baited.

“‘ere we go! Class ma’e, just class!”

Out of his mobile phone, came this tinny, fast paced warble with garbled words that seemed to be set in a continual loop. It sounded pretty close to what it probably was. Something that a person high on crack or some other illegal substance produced after they worked out how to turn on a PC…

“Wha’ did I tell ya, eh? Class, ma’e, don’ you think?”

I looked at his expectant expression and returned a pained smile.

Mired in Thought

I sit at the bar mulling over my predicament with a glass of whiskey in the my hand, staring at the amber nectar as it swirls clockwise in my idle hand. It is often said that it is too easy to lose oneself in the mire of alcohol, indeed, I too have felt the affects of this addiction only to stumble home at the end of the night, piss leaking down one trouser leg, to fumble futilely with the door lock and fall in a heap in the hallway.

In the end, it was too much for Gloria. Even during my addled state I could make out the rustlings and thumping of bin bags and suitcases. Then the percussion of feet and wheels as she descended, the pounding vibrating through the floorboards to amplify the pain of my hangover and the rustling protest as bin liner bounced off of the bars of the staircase.

“Get out,” she ordered, suitcase in one hand and a bin bag in the other. “I’m fed up of having a drunken lout, come back when you’re me husband once more and maybe we’ll talk.”

So I pried myself off of the floor leaving a sweat outline akin to the chalk outline left at Victorian crime scenes and took the few belongings I’d been offered and stumbled out of the door. I remember that the morning was cloudy that day, as if it wanted to either set an ominous tone for my future or illustrate perfectly my current mood. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see the lock hit the latch and seal me from my love.

An hour later saw me signing into a grimy B&B. I had purposefully overlooked three nicer accommodations during my search for a home. I didn’t want to find a place where I would get comfortable and wish to stay. I wanted to punish myself, to drive myself to a state where I could get back to my Gloria. It was an honourable enough intention I suppose. However looking back, walls that were coated black with damp mould, a single pane window that rattled and threatened to break every time the train, whose tracks were directly overhead, raced past and a single cot that had more companions riddling it than I was comfortable with was going a bit far. However, I dropped to the pillow, breathed in the mould and said hi to my room mates before I promptly passed out.

The next few months were hard and I failed many times. In the end I sought help, joined one of those groups that want you to bleed your heart while claiming that everything was anonymous… despite the first words coming out of your mouth is “Hi my name is John and I’m an alcoholic.” Still, I won’t deny that it helped…

Well, as I stare down at the temptress in my hand, maybe not so well. I glance over at my other hand, at the chip with a gold embossed “1 year”. I turned it over in my fingers before looking back at the whiskey.

I’d gone home you see.

Home to my Gloria, her words ringing in my ears. “Come back when you’re me husband once more and maybe we’ll talk.”

Her car was in the drive, so I strode confidently to the door and knocked.

No answer.

I knocked once more and called out a couple of times, “Gloria, I’m home love. Come to the door!”

Again silence.

I went around the back of the house, peering through every window I passed to the empty room beyond, to the garden beneath our bedroom window. The Chrysanthemums and Tulips that had bordered the close cut grass had been replaced by the thick bushes of Roses. I went to the lattice beneath our window thinking that maybe she was still asleep, although it was ten in the morning and she was normally such an early riser.

But a lot can change in a year, I’d reasoned and started to climb. The lattice creaked under my weight, threatening to break, but by some miracle it held. My fingers rested on the window sill and I hauled myself level with the pane. The sun shone brightly, fully illuminating the room. The quilt cover rhythmically rising and falling. Blonde hair buried into her shoulder. Her arms wrapped around broad shoulders. Her head thrown back as she moved in countenance to the movements of the quilt. Mouth alternating between open gasps and biting her bottom lip.

The moisture in my hands and mouth vacated to my eyes and a lump blocked my throat. I felt something crumble within me and before I knew it, I had climbed down, left the rose filled garden and found myself here. Glancing between a glass of salvation and the chip claiming that I had already found it. Quilt, arms and lip biting re-flashed through my mind.

It is often said that it is too easy to lose oneself in the mire of alcohol. I drain the glass and flick the chip into it, ordering myself another. It sure beats reality though.