He sat in the waiting room.
‘So you want to be male, then?’ Someone said.
‘Yes, please,’ the male replied.
‘Umm, you’ve got a choice of two names. Jason or Scott. Take your pick,’ the Someone said.
‘Won’t my parents choose?’
‘They did. They chose either Jason or Scott.’
‘Oh. Jason. Yeah, Jason.’
The room that Jason sat in was large and white. So large that the walls seemed very far away, if there were any walls at all. It was like living in a piece of paper.
‘Well, Jason, you take it from here. It’s a touch sensitive screen. All pretty self-explanatory, I think.’
‘What’s a touch sensitive screen?’ said Jason.
‘Umm. I’m not sure, actually,’ Someone said, ‘but you’ll pick it up.’
The piece of paper turned black, like someone dipped it into cosmos-coloured ink.

A sign lit up in the black room. Clear white, it said Life Choices.

‘I have to pick them all now?’ said Jason.
‘Afraid so.’ The Someone said.
‘But I haven’t even been born yet!’
‘Yes you have, it says here. In fact, quite a few times.’
‘How many times?’ Jason was slightly panicked.
‘Umm. All of them.’
‘What? How? When?’
‘Are you going to ask where and why as well?’ said Someone. Jason didn’t find it funny. ‘Fine. Well, according to this, you’ve been born all the times you will ever be born, at exactly the same time that you’re about to be born. That’s space-time for you.’
‘I don’t like it. I don’t get it.’ said Jason.
‘You should try working here.’
‘Don’t I even get reincarnated or something?’
‘Of course you do. As yourself.’
‘I was hoping for an eagle or a sea lion or something.’
‘No can do. Get to work anyway. We’ve only got three years until you start taking control of your life.’

Jason stood before the great black space. There were two neon blue lines with a node at each end. Next to one node was the word ‘Burp’. Next to the other was the word ‘Giggle’.

‘Are you serious?’ he said.
‘Every single choice.’ replied Someone.
‘Kids are dumb.’
‘Ever had them? Oh. It says here you’ve had them a lot of times.’
‘How many?’
‘Well, the number is, huh, dangerously close to infinite.’
‘Oh.’

Jason made his first choice. He touched a node. More lines unrolled with more choices to be made. He chose ‘fall over’. In this strange space, this waiting room, he did not have any real form. If human eyes were to be laid upon him they might see a pudgy baby on the ground. He made his second choice. The baby seemed a little different.
‘Cute,’ said the Someone.

It became clear that Jason was not standing in any of God’s waiting rooms, rather that he was sitting in Jason’s waiting room. Each choice that Jason would ever face was laid out before him, one by one. He chose his right foot to take his first step. He chose to vomit his spaghetti the first time he ate it, rather than enjoy it. Jason chose to ride his bike across the road rather than around the block. He took the running race in school rather than high jump, he slept through his maths class, he dumped his first girlfriend after meeting her dad. By now the glowing blue lines and the globular choices they linked hung like a grand crystal chandelier, a nightmare circuit-board. Jason looked a lot like a scruffy-haired teenager by now.

For three years Jason mapped the path his life would take. The light played against his face. He gained weight, lost it, gained more, got bruises and scars before they healed. His hair was cut and fashioned into every shape imaginable. Lines began to pit his face. His skin started to sag. Choices flew by. He was an expert at making decisions. He seemed like a rather old man now. He knew the consequences of every action. Every choice was considered promptly and logically. He didn’t even use the touch screen now. He just thought, and the choice was made. The web was a blur. Suddenly, it stopped.

‘Now there’s a life a man can live with,’ Jason said. The room seemed empty. He kept talking. ‘You know, when I was younger, I barely even thought about it. I just went with it. I mean, when I was a baby I barely even looked, I just picked at random, you know.’
‘It’s time to go,’ Someone said.
‘Mmmm.’

If there were any lights in the waiting room, they would have turned off.

Some time passed. Fate stepped into the room. He looked like he knew where he was going. ‘He’ll do,’ thought Fate, ‘Of course, I already knew that.’ He looked towards the light glow of the web. It looked like a robot’s family tree. Fate took a step closer, and then made a mess of it.

A thick layer of smog surrounds the city.

Swine Flu Status: I’m starting to give up on ever getting swine flu. EXCEPT FOR WHEN I COUGHED UP A LUNG, HELLZ YEAH!

Cool Shit I learnt at the house: Skank ribs are delicious. Just because it’s a shady butcher, doesn’t mean they don’t know their shit.

Daily Rhyme: Baha, can you dig it like a spigot, my guess is: yes you can like, can I kick it? Wicked. Lick a shot, If you happy and you know it as you clap your hands to the thick snot of a poet flow it. That’s not actually my rhyme, it’s MF Doom in a Gorillaz song but it’s totally rad and I forgot mine. It was probably as good though so don’t worry, I’m sure he won’t mind.

We got up late, it was rad. Then we got lunch at the Pita kitchen. Rad. I ended up with a yiros sort of thing. See, yiros and gyros and pitas and plates all mean different thing in different places. And in these cases I just take a wild stab and hope I end up with something rad. There were too many vegetables in mine but I managed to eat around it.

We went shopping afterwards, because I always get new clothes when I’m over here, right. Hailey had to do girly stuff so Chad was my assistant instead. He is as good as any girl, trust me. I got a polo shirt so I’m gonna come home and look like some prep kid. Like I’d just been to college or something. I got some new shorts too… I love my old ones but having to resew the buttons on every week gets annoying. Also a nice shirt that I can still dance in. And it doesn’t make me look fat.

We lounged around for a while, I played some games, and then headed off for a walk around the park with Bowie. It was about dusk, so needless to say I was pretty frightened we’d get shot. I was totally on the ready to pounce any mofo who tried to pounce us. BUT I DIDN’T HAVE MY BIG KNIFE!! That was the lesson learnt after I accidentally tried to take my pocket knife from Las Vegas to New York last time. Woops! I was going to have to rely on my close quarters skills and wits to fight them off.

The walk was about five kilometres all up. About halfway, when it was pretty dark, it turned from lovely parkland to NASTY scrub. Not nasty as in ‘this looks nasty’, though it was a little bit like that, but nasty as in ‘AMBUSHHHHH!’ All I’ll say is that my ghillie would have worked like a charm in there, and so would anyone else.

My heart rate was up, and I was scanning the surroundings HARD. People in hoodies with shifty looks ran past every now and then. It took all my will not to fade into the bushes and then jump then before they jumped us. My heart was really pounding now. My sister is blind in that light. Chad ran off ahead with the dog and disappeared. Goddamnit. It hit me then, I was suffering PTSD after my days with the squad.

Yeah, those nights just breaching around with the boys, they were coming back to haunt me. All those late night water balloon fights, car headlights blinding me, waking up the next morning to find our wasted plastic ammo strewn across the fields. The Cod Squad is pretty intense, and years of being the number one mercenary squad in the world was catching up with me. I took the dog from Chad and went down into the black underpass ahead. My eyes adjusted and THERE! Nah, just a bit of rubbish.

We started heading across the fields. No cover. There were bins everywhere. Were they all bins? I could see the house, but I knew I wouldn’t be safe till I was through the door and it was all clear. Kevin had the keys. He put them in the door. I saw someone coming towards us in the corner of my eye…

And watched them run past. We were safe. Even from the dog. It fell asleep.

A thick layer of smog surrounds the city.

Swine Flu Status: I felt completely healthy today. Except… at night my throat felt funny, with a slight taste of blood. But this was nothing. I think I’m turning into a hopeful hypochondriac.

Cool Shit I learnt on the Playstation: Chad sucks at putting. Thankyou, Tiger Woods.

Daily Rhyme: Boom boom boom, the radio will play another song… soon soon soon. ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE, I’m so pumped to be in this song! (I know, I know, that was all wrong).

Oh, hi. What’s up dog? Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Bowie. All I’ll say is that the dog has teeth. And it uses them! My arms are shredded. It’s my own fault. She likes to bite my feet more than my arms. They’re like crack to a crackhead, or steak to a lion. She pounces! Ouch! She also eats shoelaces and steals socks.

Today was probably the least eventful. I went to the grocery store with my sister and we loaded up on stuff I wanted to eat. Number one: CHIPS AHOY, HELLZ YEAH. I can’t get enough of that shizz. I practically lived on them in New York last year. I got some Jell-o too. I haven’t tried that yet. You know you can buy cell phones at the supermarket? That confuzzled me. We got some Jamba Juice from next door (I felt like such a noob at being American when I took longer than 3 seconds to decide. GIVE ME SOME TIME DAMNIT!) and then headed to the bookstore. I didn’t get anything (yet) but did lose my sister. We walked around the store about 4 times each before we found each other.

Chad took me to Fry’s Electronics later. All I’ll say is that I’m a bit jealous. It’s like JB Hi-Fi ONE THOUSAND. They all have themes, the stores. This one was Alice in Wonderland. That shit is craz-ee. There were giant cards hanging off the roof, giant character things, giant hedge bushes and more. But mainly I was more annoyed that I could have built a better computer than the one I did for about half the price over here. Damn you, shipping and handling. Chad and I got a few games each (exchange rates! Rad! So it’s lovely and cheap, again) and headed home. There are like 40 checkouts and they all share the same line. You know at supermarkets how there are a few mints and chocolates and magazines next to your lane? This was that, to the X-TREMEEEE. Everyone slowly zombie walks along to the end, past a veritable yellow brick road of sweets. It’s huge.

The most exciting part of my trip so far was up next. Can you believe it, I was going to…

OUTBACK STEAK HOUSE

I might have been paid for that ad.

We went over to pick up Kevin. I hadn’t seen my old pal yet so I was pretty pumped. There’s this song on the radio, I guess it’s called ‘Boom boom boom’ or something, kinda like candy-gangsta style, and it plays about 4 minutes. I think it’s about 4 minutes long. Seriously though, we went into a shop once when it was playing on the radio, came out not long after and it was playing again. WHATTT?! Anyway, there’s this bit where the whole beat drops out and is replaced by this lame drum beat, like you’re tapping on your leg with one finger. It’s like ‘tit. tit. tit. tit.’ And then this woman, at the top of her lungs, yelllllls!

PEOPLEEEE IN THE HOUSEEEEEEE. IF YOU WANNNAAAA GET DOWNNNNN! And so on.

I thought that was so weird, that she was yelling so loud, so then I yelled (in a stunning impersonation):

PEOPLE IN THE HOUSEEEEEEE! I’M SO PUMPED TO BE IN THISS SONGGGGG!

And that was really funny (ha ha) and so now whenever anything happens (anything at all) we yell that and change the second line. And. Well, you know, it’s actually pretty hard describing a personal joke. So I’m gonna stop.

Outback Steak House was pretty weird. Only when I was walking to the door did I think how strange it was that I was going there. There’s signs with koalas and platypuses and pictures of Ayres rock (and one that was definitely supposed to be Ayres rock, or Uluru if you prefer, but it had a big hole in the middle. Like a much bigger rock came by and took a bite) and all sorts of fair dinkum dicky dye rinkum lilly lai lay sayings. The menu was just as good. We got a bloomin’ onion and I got the authenically Australian teriyaki steak. It actually turned out to be delicious. The onion was just an onion, ‘flowered’ you’d have to all it, as in cut in slices from the top down to it all blooms out, and deep fried. Rad!

I wasn’t too hungry, unfortunatey, partly because of my jet lag and partly because I’d been guzzling soda all day. I went to the ‘blokes’ toilets. They’re just like normal toilets but it says blokes on the door. The red backs under the seats. There was ’sheilas’ toilets as well. AWESOME. I felt realy authentic being there actually. I wonder if they were talking about me, back in the kitchen. I had said ‘how yer going, mate’ to the waiter.

We went back home. Chad started playing Tiger Woods and he was pretty terrible at it, to begin with anyway. Sorry Chad. It’s probably because he modelled his character on my sister. We stayed up till about four watching him play.

It was only then that I realised what an amazing opportunity I’d missed. A chance that I might never have again. I felt my stomach sink, and my face drop. I’d passed by my license to kill.

I hadn’t said to anyone ‘YOU BLOODY DRONGOE!’

A thick layer of smog surrounds the city.

Swine Flu Status: Promising cough on the plane, possible infected sitting nearby. Watch this space.

Cool Shit I learnt on the Discovery Channel: No human can survive in the CORE of JUPITER. WHAT?! Really?! Also, woman on ‘Toughest Women’s Jails’: ‘It’s like I’m in a big cage.’ NO!

Daily Rhyme: I’m watching Deal or No Deal, some guy let out a big squeal, Chad and Hailey can’t help, the dog just let out a yelp. Sorry guys, that was pretty lame. I shall ‘premeditate’ the next one.

Whatup dawgs, I’m just kickin’ it LA style, fo’sho. I speak like that a bit, but today mostly because I’ve been listening to the gangsta radio station. Chad just turned on the ‘World’s Strongest Man Competition’. Where was my invite? The dog is chewing on my shoelaces. Take it easy.

Today has been really long. I went to bed at 4 after handing in some work and playing some games and got up at 5 to catch a plane. I know what you’re thinking. OUCH!! right? Yeah, I was thinking that too. I flew to Melbourne, had a bit of a wait there and then jumped on my just-under-14-hour flight to Los Angeles.

SHITTTTTT!!!!! nearly FOURTEEN HOURS ON A PLANE!!!!!

SHITTTTT!!

I only use profanities for impact. The flight was…alright. Maybe I’m used to it. Maybe I was just so drunk with fatigue and dehydration that it flew right through my delusional head. I had an unpleasant experience on the plane. Whilst waiting to use the Little Boy’s Room an older woman came up and started baby talking to some stranger’s baby. It was gross. What was more gross was that she was OLD and has a great huge BUTT and proceeded to GRIND me into a fine paste against the wall. Did she have no feeling in her derriere? It seems so.

I pretty much shot through customs. Rad. Chad picked me up. My sister was absent. Sleeping, I found. I don’t mind! That’s what I’d be doing. May I say, I landed in Los Angeles just half an hour after I took off from Melbourne. Mad. We headed to Wish Avenue. The dog was happy to see me! I dumped my stuff and then did my WIGGLY FINGERS and SILLY NOISES to get the dog riled up. She is still going nuts, twenty hours later. My arms are covered in bite marks and possibly rabes already. They have a giant beanbag by the way. It was a joke. It’s amazing. It takes up a whole room. I’ll take a picture once my camera charges. I feel it’s the closest I’ll get to my life long dream of having a trampoline room.

We went to IHOP for breakfast. It was like an old friend. Free refills on my drink! I love this place. I had a bacon and egg burger and it was RAD! Hailey was all up in my grill-like, ‘get some breakfast food, puh-lease’ and I said ‘I had two breakfasts and one dinner BUT NO LUNCH SO BACK OFF!’ It wasn’t quite that confrontational.

Later we went to Bed, Bath and Beyond. I thought they were joking. Why is it ONLY when I’m over that they go to B3? It’s like spelunking in there. The building is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. I felt like I should have been sprinkling bread crumbs behind me. Black magic was at work. We made it out eventually, after a near-death experience involving high-shelf pillows. There are so many silly things there. Lettuce Knives? Anywhere-Throws? FABRIC SHAVERS? How do you shave fabric? It looked like a mini-blender / blow torch.

We headed back and I fell asleep on the bean bag, after a lovingly administered mauling from Bowie. So did Hailey. Chad nicked off to the driving range. That’s where you hit golf balls. You don’t actually go driving. He came back and after some more lounging around we headed to a Japanese restaurant. Jingos? Something like that. It was one of those cool barbeque your own food places. I had some beef tongues. DELICIOUS. We came back and have been lounging around since then. I’m gonna get owned by jetlag, I just know it.

I watched the Man vs. Wild episode with Will Ferrell. That was pretty funny. The weather here is nice. It’s covered in the ‘June Gloom’ though. Squirrels are around. I think I’ll train the dog to catch them. They had a squirrel toy at the drug store… wrap its legs in bacon and we’re set. Some disappointing news; it turns out that Chicken and Donuts has closed down. I was finally ready to try it, but it’s gone. Everyone asks me about it. I’ll have to settle on Chicken and Waffles. I better get to bed. I had a couple of glasses of wine with my Sis, you know, just to ease my sleeping. Good drinking habits now = good drinking habits when I’m older.

P.S. IT IS SO ILLEGAL THAT I’M DRINKING!

http://www.vooks.net/story-18088-Three-more-from-Nintendo-for-the-DS-prepare-to-get-Savvy.html

http://www.vooks.net/story-18087-Professor-Layton-and-the-Diabolical-Box-heads-west.html

http://www.vooks.net/story-18086-Nintendo-show-more-on-Zelda-Spirit-Tracks.html

http://www.vooks.net/story-18092-As-expected-Nintendo-reveal-Wii-Fit-Plus.html

http://www.vooks.net/story-18091-Missing-in-Action–These-Wii-games-missed-the-conference.html

Also, a review I did a while back:

http://www.vooks.net/article-1299-Little-Kings-Story.html

Expect some more stuff up SHORTLY. BAM!

Off he goes, pretty much straight away finds this castle where he is entertained and goes hunting for a good many months. This noble woman who lives in the castle keeps trying to get with him. He backs off because he is all chaste and stuff. Eventually he accepts a gift of a scarf or something. He goes to the Chapel on the appointed date. The green knight gets his axe and goes to take the stroke but Gawain flinches. The second time he doesn’t flinch, the Green Knight nicks his neck and that’s all. The Green Knight says ‘har har har you have proven your worth, I nicked you cause you flinched, oh, and it turns that noble lady who was hitting on you was my wife, and I was the castle owner, but you didn’t know ’cause I’m magic and sh*t. So don’t worry Gawain, you’re noble and all. Cya.’

So that’s the poem. I might be a tad off on some tiny details because I haven’t read it in the last 12 hours at least. From what I gathered in the movie, well first of all it’s not Sir Gawain, it’s Miles O’Keefe who couldn’t act his way out of a cardboard box. He looks like a cardboard box, but not as high calibre as say a Metal Gear Solid cardboard box. When I started watching there was a fight going on. No, that doesn’t happen. There’s no fight. Oh, and that woman, she totally wants Gawain. So I was like ’sure, that’s accurate enough.’ Anyway, he kills all these randoms. May I say the other guys are wearing bright red and silver plate mail. Nope, didn’t happen. Oh and Gawain is in this golden armour, with whats supposed to be a lance except its blunt and lame, and he throws it at someone off screen for no reason. And then he draws his sword and you see it bend all the way over, because it’s rubber. And they keep putting on that lame 1980s camelot shine on all the armour. The same kind they use for candles in the Bold and the Beautiful.

Anyway, so at the end of this battle the Green Knight just appears and shows himself. That’s Sean Connery, and that doesn’t happen either. ‘Come with me, lad.’ By the way, when Gawain is talking to his friends there’s a green light reflected in his armour. You can pretty clearly see the reflection of a dude with a spotlight. Good one.

So they get into the Green Chapel, which is pretty random cause it’s not really like the poem. And Sean is dressed in a big raggedy fur coat with huge hair and antlers by the way. So yeah, he takes the swipe, but he flinches. So he goes again and nicks his neck.

So, pretty clear that the Green Knight spared him right? Apparently not to Mr. Box O’Keefe, because he goes ‘oh, you clearly nicked me on purpose bitch, I’m done playing your game, now it’s time to play mine.’ So he stabs him! Right in the gut. Oh, what’s that I hear? The dude who can HAVE HIS HEAD CHOPPED OFF can’t take a light blow to his heavily armoured stomach with a rubber sword? Yeah, wtf. So he dies, and says some bullshit about the seasons going full swing, which was never in the poem. Oh, and gawain realises the answer to a riddle the knight gave him. And looks at the camera, face like a guppy, for a full minute. There was no bullshit riddle in the poem. And he just killed a supernatural knight who spared his life. And feels no remorse. Good one. He’s pretty pleased actually.

So he goes outside, and, ‘awww sh*t, there’s my castle bitch’ and she’s all like ‘I love you, touch my cheek’, so he palms her.., no just kidding, he touches her cheek, and shes like ‘I gotta go, cya’ and he’s like ‘I won’t leave you,’ THEN SHE TURNS INTO A BIRD WTF AND FLIES OFF. Sh*t. And there’s some jewel on the ground, probably significant, that disappears too. So it turns out she wasn’t the knight’s wife and the knight didn’t run the castle. Good work, retards. Oh, and straight after that it freezes on his stupid face.

And did I mention his hair? Okay, let me give you some examples. Sorry about the sheer amount, but this is too good of an opportunity to pass up. He does better faces than George Bush.





How does keep it under the helmet?




My personal favourite:

Come to think of it, he looks a bit like Stifler.

This is a problem, because as of tomorrow I have to start waking up at 8 again. Oh dear.

It’s raining at the moment. That’s pretty nice, I’ve put my car out the front to wash all the salt off. I better remember to put it out the back again or it will just get covered in salt again. I was a bit lazy with lunch today, I went and got take away.

Mum and Dad have been away in France for about 2 weeks now, they’re having a lovely time. I nearly achieved my goal of getting scurvy but my amazing dinner last night just pushed me further away. I caught a huge trout at the farm yesterday, that was good. So I spent about an hour cooking it up with mad stuffing and an orange sauce. It was very exciting. I even did vegetables.

I’m playing Little King’s Story to review for Vooks at the moment. It’s a rad game. I feel sorry for my poor villagers every time I get some of them killed, especially the original crew. But then, they magically wash up on the beach! That’s really nice, but it doesn’t happen all the time.

I had some rad ideas for stories and whatnot in the bath last night. I like having baths.

I did a rap about my character Magwillihir the Slug at Angus K’s place last week. He’s been practising his recording on pro tools so I just freestyled things about how I’m not a snail (I ain’t got a shell on my back, but I’m still keeping this on track). We tried doing a Medieval Fayre rap (only a week away!) but I lost ‘the flow’ so it failed pretty hard.

I realise that lately content has been somewhat lame compared to the awe inspiring Travels, but I’m going to remedy that soon, I hope.

LOVE

—

The rising sun shall become the falling star,
For I will grab it from the sky and cast it into the pacific
And it will burst like the bursting bombs.

Noone loves war but a soldier might hate it,
And is hate on the battlefield the same as love in peacetime?
Does it not drive you to rip and to tear?

And the devil on my shoulder
Shall shoot the angel on the other,
for there is no room for angels in war.

And I shall cry, ‘no, no, that is not me,
It is my devil!’ but there is no room
For a devil in peace, and you are that devil now,
Wholly a devil, and the devil does not love peace.

—-

This is a world gone mad.

Well, I assume so. I don’t know any other worlds I can compare it to, really.

I’m Timbert by the way. Timbert Hardling. My Dad, Hubert, he died the other day. Um.

Well, you know, movies and books never really underwrite things, do they? They romanticise or criticise or turn everything into a metaphor and the worlds in those are never as simple as the real thing. I guess children’s books balance it out. They reduce the world to a dog and a spade or some shit; no wonder kid’s are so messed up. Um.

I’m a writer, right? I find what I just did rather clever. I write about things, I don’t make any money, lots of people read my stuff, and someone else makes lots of money. I should have got into publishing. If I had an infinite tolerance of boredom and letdowns.

So my father left me the rights to write about him. You need the rights to write about something. It’s the way it works. I can write about my day, because it’s mine. Of course. Or my toe that is turning green, that’s mine too. Um.

So I get to write and, again, not make any money. He insisted I write about him. I don’t know how many strings a dead man can pull, but I’ll hedge my bets for the afterlife. Where do I start? He was an odd man, no doubt.

It’s hard to think of him being with any woman. I’m not sure what that says about me. Luckily I don’t have to imagine the woman, since I had a real world reference.

She looked like any unglamorous woman in a black and white photograph. Crooked smile and immense bushy, curly hair that looked like, well, a bush on her head. I hope no one from the younger generation is reading this. They’d probably forcibly misinterpret that. Um.

Well, she wasn’t at all interesting. Her pacemaker was the most interesting thing in her. It was beautifully and painstakingly crafted to do one job and do it well. Nearly all of her life it did, except that bit at the very end. The only craft that went into making my mother was my grandparents ‘doing the dance’. More skill and thought gets put into hammering a nail through a board. That thought would surely disgust me, if I ever knew them. Actually, it still disgusts me.

He didn’t like music much. If he did it was old, and not ‘golden years’ old, but ’shit’ old. The stuff you’d never want anyone to know you listened to. If they did hear it their images of Billie Holiday and Charles Trenet and that whole era would always be associated with a slight taste of vomit.

So I’ve established that he wasn’t at all romantic, I’ve said he wasn’t interesting more than anyone wants to hear, and I can’t help but think the picture is close to complete. When you look at a portrait and try to imagine what kind of life that person led, he didn’t. Whatever you imagine, he didn’t. You might guess he was a book worm. He wasn’t. Too much imagination goes into plain English, surely. The stern tone of technical writing was too tough for him. He was a distinct mix of jelly and gravel with half the taste.

And now, I can’t help but feel I’ve exhausted everything about him except his death. A death that was rather ordinary for everyone else on the plane, but perhaps extraordinary for him. And filled with excitement and colour. I will call it ‘Death with a Hardling’.

—-

So it’s not a terrible piece of writing but it’s not quite what I imagined. Actually last night I only got the part with the grandparents and couldn’t think of any more. And that ending, that just turns it into a whole cyclical nightmare of reading. Right? Write.