Services

×

Oats for Lucifer

His mother had died before he was old enough to form much of a reliable memory of her, kicked in the head by a horse she spooked early one winter morning as she was bringing it oats. His father found her face-down in the yard, halfway between the corral and the house. The rusty-red river of her life matted and freeze-drying in her cold hair, muddy snow caked on her hands and knees and a trail of blood painted garishly onto the frozen ground behind her as it disappeared around the corner of the barn like a marker leading to the the scene of a crime. Her name had been Marion.

His father killed that horse with an axe, buried his mother in the hard ground, drank all the whiskey in the house and did what he must to raise a son. Which wasn’t much to speak of.

The boy had been far too young at the time to fully understand what had happened, he only knew that his mother was suddenly gone and that all of the comfort he had ever known departed when she did. His youth after her passing was not an enviable one, consisting not so much of violence and fear but of loneliness and neglect. He spent near all of his time alone or with the few animals his father could manage to provide for. But until he no longer depended on the old bastard for his survival he had no better option that he was aware of. When he figured he had a fighting chance beyond the fences of the only world he had ever known, he took what few belongings he had managed to acquire during his short life and set out to try his luck elsewhere. He rode off one starry night on the old man’s only good horse, toward an unknown for which he harboured few hopeful expectations.

During those first few years away from home, life showed him that he was right to assume that most everything about living was difficult, because for him it was. He was tricked, used, robbed, beaten and perpetually hungry. But by fifteen he was tough as nails, jaded as hell and experienced well beyond his years; cold, capable, and indifferent to whether he lived or died but well-armed with the tools needed to ensure that he could live if he so chose.

Sometimes the world is fortunate enough to have hard men that lean toward moral righteousness and desire to use their strength to uphold whatever their sense of right may be. He was not one of those men. When he realized he could hurt people, he did. And when hurting people wasn’t enough, he began killing them. And it didn’t take long for him to become exceptionally proficient at it as there was plenty of opportunity to hone his craft within the circles he moved.

In a world where there was always a demand for violent men, he rarely had far to go to find someone willing to pay for his particular set of skills. And pay they did for all manner of evils they hadn’t either the fortitude or the freedom to commit themselves. He murdered and tortured men, killed women and children, burned down churches, homes, and entire towns and then took the money paid to him for his wickedness without so much as a sigh of remorse or an errant tear.

He spent eight brutal years as an evil man, an unrepentant sinner paving his way to hell with stolen souls.

But for all of the painful things inside him that he may have found reason to hide from, he never fell slave to booze nor drugs nor gambling. He figured it was probably better to avoid adding strength to the legions of demons already lurking within the dark places of his heart. And he knew that no matter how hard he might try, there was nothing money could buy that would hide him from his wrongdoings. So he spent little and saved much.

For a short time there was a woman who may have had a chance of softening his heart, and as far as he knew, she did; one of the whores he sometimes visited when circumstances and the desire to do so converged. But what may have been was never to be when she had her throat slit one night by a drunk preacher. The preacher wasn’t much with a knife though and she managed to scream for help and deflect his first few unskilled attempts with her arms. By the time he opened up her throat and jumped out a window into the alley below there were ten vigilantes after him. He didn’t make it far.

A handful of men brought the preacher back to the brothel after beating him near to death, and they dragged him underground into a cellar, more of a dungeon really; a place designed for committing atrocities. Somehow he managed to survive for two horrific days. What they carried out afterwards barely even resembled a man. The broken body was hung by the road near the eastern entrance to town, as a warning. What remained of him swayed in the wind for a time; bloody, tattered frock and all, until the birds and the bugs, time and tall creatures patiently stacked his skeleton beneath the frayed rope that had held him. The priest’s bones were left where they fell.

After the only woman he had ever been close to was murdered by a man of god, the sinner figured it was a providential sign that there was to be no love in his life so he gave up the notion for good. Shortly after that unfortunate event though, whatever sinister entity within him that had thirsted for blood became quiet and the need to dispense death and suffering left his heart. It was then that he decided to see if it wasn’t too late for him to alter his course and redeem what he could of any years he had remaining to him.

He gathered together his considerable savings and said his few goodbyes before boarding a train west with the intention of making an unassuming life for himself in a land where no one knew him. He would be just another mysterious stranger arriving from some faraway place and some faraway life.

When the train arrived to a land where his heart told him it felt like remaining, he disembarked, procured himself a surprisingly well-bred mount and scouted the surrounding area for a few weeks before paying in full for an outlying property. He then set to building a new life in the swaying grass of these foothills he now called home.

Within two years there stood a modest but comfortable house, a barn that met all of the needs of him and his few animals, a woodshed with small forge, built side-by-side under one roof, and some comforts and curios set here and there about the yard. Though there ran a creek through his land near year-round, a water-well and the small shack covering it sat quietly off of the corner of the house nearest the kitchen door.

It was a pleasant, solitary existence, something he was not sure he deserved considering the evil he had brought to so many others over the years, but he didn’t squander this peace with fears of divine justice or mortal revenge; hell would still be waiting for him when he died, and if revenge came calling he was prepared to meet it just as he had met it every time before.

This short interlude was the first time he could remember when not every morning greeted him with the promise of violence, fear, hopelessness or anger. It took some getting used to. He had no desire or need for companionship or distraction in his little paradise. He had long ago grown accustomed to loneliness; it was his most reliable friend, his only friend.

He did make some new acquaintances over a time however, during his visits to town. But these visits tended to be few and far between as the settlement was near two full days ride south. A barman, a barber, an undertaker and a card-playing woman were people that looked forward to his arrival. And he looked forward to them in some manner as well. They were the closest thing he had ever had to friends in all his years. Having people to simply sit and talk with, or to play cards with or take fishing seemed odd to him, people with no expectations other than the pleasure of his company, people that could disagree with one another now and again without resorting to hitting, shooting or stabbing. That seemed odd to him too, but he liked it.

He enjoyed near two-and-a half years of this lifestyle he had never expected to lead, though at some point during those years he developed a health condition he initially chose to ignore, thinking it would pass. But after months of an obvious decline in his physical well being, he had to admit that the cough wasn’t going away. Hell, it was probably too late to address it now at any rate. The night sweats and chest pain told him all he needed to know to be sure. He wryly supposed that divine justice had finally found him, and he was glad he had not bothered to concern himself with such things while they had been absent. He was as happy as he had ever been for the blink of an eye and now was no time for regret. Everything dies he knew, so must he.

He would be damned however if he went to the devil without settling one final account. It was something he had been putting off since had had first entertained the notion, back when the lens of youth made it seem like there were more tomorrows than a person would ever be able to spend. But youth knows very little and sickness affords the afflicted not the luxury of indeterminate procrastination. So he made the decision to clear this last order of business.

He led a horse he called Lucifer out of the barn and into the early morning light a few days after committing to his decision, and aimed him west. Before they rounded the last bend in the trail that offered him a view of his home, the man turned back for a moment to express something of a thank-you. It was the only place where he had found any measure of happiness. He didn’t expect he would ever return and he regretted that, it was probably the first sincere sense of regret he had felt since his childhood.

The play of his short life often ran through his mind over the years, and now, camped beside the beginnings of a mountain range, in the infancy of this latest, and probably last journey, he again reflected on his story. Most people are born only to suffer and die he figured, and he was one of those. The thought didn’t anger him like it used to, it just made him wonder if there was any reason for any of it at all. He didn’t figure so.

He leaned back slowly and looked up at the darkening sky as the first twinkling stars began tearing tiny holes through the thin fabric of evening. He pushed the fire around with the toe of his boot as a light breeze whispered through the trees and the grass and the hills, and he prepared for what he knew was to follow the terrible itching in his lungs.

Ten minutes later he wiped the blood from his lips and lay down on his bedroll for the night, exhausted.

A week down the trail the horse injured himself running from a bear. It wasn’t much of a run seeing as the bear was equally surprised and went the opposite direction, but the short distance Lucifer covered was over rough and rocky ground. By the time he was calmed down enough to be led somewhere suitable to hole-up for a day or three he had a noticeable limp.

It took four days of rest and hot and cold compresses of tree-bark and nearby plants before Lucifer was strong enough to carry his own weight. And when the two travellers set off once more they were both afoot. They continued in that manner for another week yet, thus prolonging the journey by near fourteen days overall if one was to consider the initial days spent confined to camp, and then the decreased pace with which the horse would have to travel even after his limp disappeared. That and the fact the he would only be able to bear the weight of his master for a certain number of hours per day and only walk unburdened for a short time following that. A proper recovery regimen for Lucifer would have been ideal but the summer was becoming autumn now and the man’s coughing wasn’t letting up any. If they were to make the journey in it’s entirety, unnecessary delays were not an option. So they pushed on at a pace they both could maintain.

As they ventured farther into the foothills it was clear that summer here was already at it’s end. The leaves had not yet begun to turn full colours but were starting to yellow some on higher branches and in open places. And although the wind hadn’t completely developed it’s winter teeth, in the sunless hours it eagerly nipped at exposed skin like a puppy tentatively gauging it’s own strength before being chased off by the fire. The sun, though still warm during the high part of day, had perceptibly begun it’s journey south for another season, taking more and more daylight with it as the nights and the northern shadows grew longer. Autumn had indeed arrived and winter would be right on it’s heels.

Eventually they returned to covering a respectable amount of ground per day, and if things went relatively well they would be out the other side of the mountains before the week was out.

Things did go well and five days later horse and man descended from the mountains and down into craggy, rugged foothills that stretched out two-hundred miles ahead of them before rising once again to meet the next range.

He had shared camp near the summit of the mountain pass in the company of a man and his son; they were headed east to winter among family. The father of the boy thought it important that uncles, aunts, granny and gramps and all the cousins had a chance to meet his son before the boy grew into a man. Something the journey itself would certainly contribute to. A perilous mission for sentimental reasons the man admitted, but The Lord would see them through. The Lord and the obviously well-tended-to arsenal of firearms they both carried.

The following morning they had all wished well to one another and parted ways. If man and boy were to be believed, their benevolent saviour guided the two down one side of the mountain in the golden rays of the morning sun as they began their day, optimistically headed towards a loving family and a bright future. On the other side of the pass a dying sinner and his horde of silent demons led an injured horse named Lucifer downward into waking shadows and uncertain eternity.

Three more slow but steady, and relatively uneventful days finally saw horse and man into a town with a real bed in a hotel with a well-maintained stable. A welcome discovery following the arduous trek that had brought them this far.

They stayed only two nights. Considering the season and the propensity for unpredictable weather so close yet to the mountains, prudence dictated they had best keep moving. That, and the sinner thought he may have been recognized by a man he was sure he recognized as well, though he was unable to recall from where. Considering the life he had lead up until fairly recently, being recognized at all was most likely unfavourable.

He had his horse saddled and on the trail before the sun woke up. By the time it began lighting the tops of the trees through which he rode, he had been underway for most of three hours. As far as he could tell nobody was close enough behind to detect, but that didn’t mean nobody was back there in pursuit, or possibly ahead waiting to ambush him. He knew it could be just as likely that there was nobody with any interest in him in either direction but he hadn’t remained alive this long by disregarding paranoia.

He made sure to ride on the grass verges and rocks beside the trail rather than on it when he could do so without compromising his horse’s recent injury. Where the trail passed by a scrub-brush leading to the river he decided to abandon the beaten track and follow the river until there was a suitable place to cross. A quarter-mile along, the river shallowed into wide, passable rapids where he forded the channel and rode up a blond grass-covered bluff that offered a view of the road leading off in both directions. He tethered Lucifer behind a bush and sat under the branches of a pine tree with his telescope.

He didn’t have to wait long before two riders came into view on the trail behind, moving faster than a man with a long day ahead but not fast enough that the clatter of hooves would thunder through the hills for miles.

Sitting in the whispering grass on a knoll under his tree, an irresistible urge to extinguish the unbearable itching inside his chest overcame his desire to remain silent and he began to cough. He hoped the riders were still far enough off that the sound of their mounts would mask the short but violent bout of hacking that racked the body of the man watching them. But although this particular fit was of unusual intensity, it was short-lived, and over before the two pursuers were within earshot.

When he had recovered sufficiently he brought the telescope to his eye. One of the riders was the vaguely familiar character from town that had seemed to recognize him.

He waited until they passed his position, and then he waited for a while longer than that. After a time he led Lucifer down from their perch in the hills and continued onward in the direction they had been travelling previously. He kept to the side of the river opposite the main track, stopping regularly to listen for the sounds of what he was sure had been his pursuers until they were too far ahead for him to hear any longer. He continued on cautiously nonetheless, and planned to do so far some time to come. At the end of the day lay another small town that he intended to avoid regardless of whether or not it offered a real bed and a hot meal. In order to nullify any chance of detection as they approached the village, he and Lucifer kept to the trees, skirting the settlement with little difficulty and only once emerging from cover to cross a road coming in from the south.

They rejoined the track in the light of dusk, some distance the other side of the town, and continued on into the darkness of night. They walked on until the horse began to occasionally stumble and the sinner led them upward into the safety of the nearby hills, not overly far from the trail but far enough that the sounds of beast and man wouldn’t be overheard by passers-by. And there they waited and rested.

There had been a time not long past when he wouldn’t have hesitated a moment to confront the two men that had been following him, and if their answers to his queries dissatisfied him or they couldn’t be convinced to abandon their pursuit he would have killed them both as they sat and took what he might need or want from the saddlebags of their masterless mounts. The decision not to do so now wasn’t influenced by any regret for his past or a desire to repent owing to some new-found arrival of faith, it was just that the desire to solve the problem using violence no longer presented itself to him as the most viable option. The consequences for solving problems with gunpowder and lead were generally more problematic than simply avoiding confrontation and so it was simply a matter of energy conservation.

The ailing sinner and his faithful horse spent most of the next day holed up in the hills waiting for the sun to fall as they prepared for another push through the cover of darkness. The following evening they emerged from the bush with an hour or so of hazy light remaining and resumed their journey.

They held to the same schedule one more day and one more night. By the last morning the man was sure there was no longer any threat of the two strangers on his tail and he and his horse went back to travelling during daylight hours, afterwards only stopping briefly in populated areas on two occasions: once to get a hot meal; and another to buy oats for Lucifer.

A week out from their destination it began to rain. It started as intermittent showers early one morning, waking the man before he would have otherwise arose. By noon it had become a steady drizzle occasionally interrupted by brief downpours. He had anticipated the likelihood of this and had secured a heavy rain-slicker behind his saddle before leaving the comfort of home. The horse had not had the foresight to equip himself so and was left to contend with the turn in weather wearing the only coat he had. It seemed to affect his disposition very little. He threw his head a bit more than usual to keep the water from his eyes, but dutifully forged ahead just as he had since the journey’s first day.

It rained every day for the rest of the trip, making for a very long, soggy week, but despite the discomfort brought about by wet weather and the increasing cold, they eventually reached the end of their journey.

The small ranch looked mostly as he had pictured it in his mind, except for the green trim around the doors and windows. The outbuildings, corrals and fences generally fit the profile he had constructed in his mind though, as did most everything else.

Atop a slight rise, barely high enough to look down on the scene below, he tottered weakly in the saddle, astride Lucifer and sicker now than ever; he attributed that to the constant dampness of the last week and the colder fall nights. He and the horse stood motionlessly under a giant spruce tree while water dripped, poured, and was blown all around them in the windy, waning light of evening. He wanted more than anything to go down there now and take care of his business so he and the horse might have a warm, dry place to sleep. But he didn’t, and he knew he wouldn’t until he had a better idea of what to expect. His intention was to watch the goings-on below from the cover of the shadows for a day or so before formulating a plan of approach.

He barely had the strength that night to construct a simple frame for supporting the small oiled canvas sheet he carried in anticipation of inclement weather conditions such as assailed them now, but he managed. Keeping most of the rain off of the horse and himself was the best that could be hoped for tonight.

When the sorry little shelter was as complete as it was going to get, he undid the cinches tethering Lucifer to his saddle and bags, of which he then let roll lazily off of Lucifer’s back to the ground before painstakingly dragging them out of the deluge. Then, after coughing out what to him seemed like an endless supply of blood, he passed out sitting up.

Some hours later he awoke, shivering uncontrollably with his knees gathered up to his chest like a hypothermic man-fetus violently miscarrying in the inhospitable womb of that strange forest. The trees writhed an uncomfortable dance in time with the contentious, whipping wind as they spit needles and broken bits of branch down onto the drenched forest floor. Twisting and swaying, they incessantly moaned their protests against the wild manipulations of the tempest. Off in the distance he heard the painful, rending death-cry of one of the most unfortunate among them as it was executed in the night. It’s decapitated head clumsily crashed it’s way through the limbs of it’s struggling cousins before finally smashing upon the ground below.

Somehow he summoned the will to move and managed to convince his cadaver-cold fingers to unfasten the leather ties that held his bedroll together. Then, with great effort, he wrapped whatever warmth he could salvage from the damp blankets around his quaking shoulders and waited. By the time the faint light began stealing through the trees his bones were no longer in danger of rattling through his skin and he was fairly certain that it was now safe to rest his tongue against his teeth without fear of losing it. He hadn’t slept a wink since waking near-dead hours before.

By mid-morning, the wind had subsided to nothing more than a whisper and the rain fell straight down from the heavy, low-hanging clouds. The sullen forest stooped wearily under the unrelenting burden, much beleaguered and still attempting to recover from the trauma of the previous night’s abuse.

It was all he could do to find sufficient strength to crawl the ten feet to his horse and pull himself upright. Sickly sweat drenched his already soaked and shivering body as he struggled to undo the loose knot binding Lucifer to the top-rail of their feeble shelter. When he eventually succeeded in doing so, he let the short rope fall to the ground and slowly folded back to his hands and knees. When he could next manage to move, he made his way to the saddle-bags, fished inside the one farthest from him and pulled out what remained of the small sack of oats he had picked up in what seemed to be another lifetime, opened it up and placed it on the ground. His last supper for Lucifer.

When Lucifer was sure that his master wasn’t getting back up, the horse turned away and started towards the ranch he knew lay only a short distance through the trees.

* * *

A horsey, a horsey! the little girl cried out from where she stood on the veranda. Mommy, Daddy, come see the horsey!

They heard the excited cries of their daughter from their comfortable chairs in the sitting-room. They had both been deeply immersed in whatever they had started reading during their incarceration by the recent weather. Both were now intent on finishing before the warm rays of a long-lost sun evicted what moisture it could from the land, and the brief, welcome reprieve from hard work reached it’s end. Two sets of eyes hesitatingly abandoned their missions for the moment and met each other in the space between them.

You go see what it is dear, she suggested. He nodded silently and began making his way out to see what the fuss was about. He glanced through a window as he passed it by and saw the concerned face of his six-year-old daughter looking through at him.

Over there Daddy! He followed her finger to the edge of the large eastern lawn.

The horse didn’t appear to be in any great hurry as it walked steadily toward them. The man hesitatingly descended the stairs, almost as though undecided as to whether that was the course of action he wished to take before his body had started without him.

Man and horse met in the openness of the small field, neither immediately certain of what to make of the other. The horse was a fine beast, that was undeniable, but he looked tired and was most likely hungry. He was clearly no stray but had strayed from somewhere. The only visible trappings of man about him were an expensive halter and the rope trailing from it. And a brand that the man didn’t recognize.

After brief introductions the horse must have decided the man was of an agreeable disposition, and the man he.

When he was certain he had the man’s attention, the horse turned back toward the forest, ambled a short distance that way, then cocked his head back to make sure he was being followed. After a few stop-starts the man determined the horse’s intentions and they had an understanding. The horse didn’t need to stop again.

The little girl sat on the steps back at the house, exactly as she had been instructed to do, bathed in lazy sunbeams while she watched her daddy follow the big black horse from the field toward the trees from where it had emerged. The horse’s head bobbing rhythmically with each step, her father’s mostly-grey hair waving slightly each time a foot touched the ground.

Before disappearing from view, the man stopped for a moment and turned to wave an arm at his daughter, letting her know that it was acceptable for her to leave her perch on the stairs. She waved back but didn’t move, so he smiled and waved again, then spun around and continued to follow Lucifer into the eerily inviting darkness of the still-dripping woods, each of his steps carrying him unwittingly closer to the body of his only son.

×

Get in Your Cage

This is the part where I take you by the hand and begin leading you toward a grimy-looking door set a little too securely into the wall of a derelict tenement-building. I hand you the first hit, it’s free, and assure you that everything is going to be alright. Please, don’t let the strong stench of hobo urine, the accumulated filth, or the scattered needles deter you from entering this hellish-looking den of iniquity. Just place your unsullied palm square in the middle of the “Abandon hope all ye who enter here” warning, painted in blood, give a hard shove and follow me. Completely at your own risk. And I can’t promise you will exit as the same person you went in, or at all even.

What follows can hardly be called an adventure. A challenge maybe. Or a trial. The best way I could describe a reader’s experience of this book is as a third-person ordeal through my tribulations. Self-imposed tribulations for the most part, as I have had a penchant for taking golden opportunities and magically transmuting them into lead weights to hang around the neck of my gargantuan regret-monster. Maybe the thinking was to eventually hang so much weight around the neck of my monster that he wouldn’t be able to dog my every step and blot out the light from my life, and I could escape. A poor tactic to be sure. It didn’t work.

What such tactics did ensure though was that I now have a laundry-list of hard-luck stories born of many poor choices. The dependability of “Yours Truly” to consistently make the absolute worst decision in any given situation has often baffled even the most adept scholars of the human mind. Maybe not quite to that extent, yet, but that’s only because they’re still unaware of my existence. However, given my track record with the people I have crossed paths with over the years, should any so-called “experts” of human behaviour look into any of my experiences, whatever previous findings they have relied on concerning the rest of humanity will go right out the window.

From the depths of poverty did I emerge, to painstakingly scrape and scrabble up the ladder to positions of wealth and responsibility I previously had no idea even existed outside the realms of rockstar, hockey-player or some other such high-profile god-figure. Like Icarus was in regards to the sun, I was in regards to the ways of having: woefully under-educated. I panicked every time success and abundance invaded the comfort zone of familiar lack and struggle and I expertly chased them away.

The pit of despair is a greedy beast with an intense phobia of being alone. It hangs on to it’s children with the strength of eons when they attempt escape, making freedom impossible for all but the most determined of fighters.

I did manage to escape now and then, sometimes even for extended periods of time, but faithful minions of the pit eventually found me and brought me home to repent. And the higher I climbed, the harder I fell back into the wretched embrace of sweet despair; the default home of poor and ignorant weaklings.

A beautiful family, good health, mountains of money and a lifestyle that is the envy of most of the world’s population could never fill up whatever part of me that needed to be dissatisfied. My happiness must have been hiding deep somewhere in the darkness of misery, why else would I insist on returning there at all costs? My life; the fool’s errand.

I have somewhat evolved since the inception of this book and am able to clearly define many things that had previously been indefinable to me. Glimpses of many good things frequently shimmer through the thinning haze, but my journey to the other side still has a number of miles to go and exorcising a few demons through the tips of my fingers seems to be a necessary gauntlet to run.

Why write a book about pain and failure? Why not write a book about pain and failure? It’s not like I’m doing anything better with my time. And pain and failure is a huge part of most people’s lives, so it’s something we can all relate to. I’m just doing my best to spin a web for catching failure-flies when they aren’t too busy eating shit. I don’t plan on eating the shit-eating flies, I just want to create a stopping place where loser shit-flies can go to eat up stories about somebody else’s pathetic life. Bon appetit.

It’s a good thing I’m writing this thing more for myself than for anyone else. As long as I remember that, the people I’m not writing it for will enjoy a much better final product. Then I can feel good about not wasting hours and hours typing phoney garbage I don’t believe in. Have as much fun dissecting my stupidity as I can and everybody wins. Adversely, I could sit here trying to force out an overblown turd in hopes of passing something grand, and squeeze out something that belongs in the toilet.

Sometimes being your own critic can be a useful trait, other times it can just keep you down, wallowing in a pit of your own filth and desperation. An insatiable pit you just keep digging deeper and filthier the dirtier and more desperate you become. Enter alcohol and drug addiction and the hole goes straight to hell. At least then it has some direction. I’ve never had the courage to commit to hardcore addiction, though I am a middling alcoholic.

Aristotle once said, well he probably said it more than once, but he said: No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness. Some consolation. I like to use sayings uttered by wisdomous historical giants to make myself believe that the foolish insanity I’ve let run untamed throughout my painful existence must be a product of tortured genius.

It seems comfortably sensible to me. And strokes the ego enough to convince me that it must have some ring of truth to it. All the truth I need is the truth that I’ve convinced myself is real, just like everyone else. We’re all far beyond fucked. Sorry folks, it’s the only reality we should all be forced to accept, whether it seems comfortable or not.

I am a crazy bastard. I have come to accept that. You don’t get told such a thing over and over and over over the course of your entire life and not acknowledge that the sentiment must have some aspect of truth to it. And upon accepting such a thing, many of the fully unforgivably stupid things I have done over the years can be passed off on said insanity. Praise the Jeebs, cuz’ if I am completely on the hook for everything I’ve done then I’m damned for eternity. Blame my ghost for all the things I don’t want to know. And on and on we go.

If the morbid warning on the door of my condemned mind hasn’t frightened you off, then please continue along with me through some of the most painful times of my adult life. Read on and learn some expert tactics of self-sabotage, study tried-and-true methods of terminating affluence and stifling happiness, and crawl through the mud with me through abject depression, apathy, cynicism and self-loathing.

I accept no responsibility for the health and safety of anyone who decides to join me on this mission, your well-being in is your own hands, I am just the guide, and I had to go at this a number of times on my own. Research and development was a harrowing experience but I’m still here so I’m confident you will be fine. Just keep your voice down, your head low, and try not to drop your pocket or step on my blue-suede shoes.