1992-ish

 I know nobody will read this. That’s not the point. It’s an exercise in telling my story. It’ll be long and honest. It may even be brutal- depends on your tolerance of brutality I suppose. If nobody reads this I’m fine with it. I’m going to change the names. They’ll kill me if I don’t. Can I make one point clear- I’ve never murdered anyone- despite the title of this work. I have murdered insects though- which doesn’t seem to carry the same punishment, even though some would argue that it should. My message to them- how would you police it? 

It didn’t start in 1992 but that’s where I’m starting. I would have been 8 years of age. Sun streamed through my arched window throwing shards of light onto my bedroom wall, blinding you if you happened to get in the way. My brother was outside, stuck to my Mum’s side- a trend that was to continue throughout most of his adult life. I’ve started here because I think it’s when I most felt at peace despite being only 8 years of age. Mum was outside and by proxy wasn’t bothering me, encouraging me to ‘do something’, or worse, do something ‘productive’. Why? My bedroom was tidy, still and calm. The temperature for a summers day was perfect- shorts and t shirt for sure but nothing daft like the summers we tend to get now. I lay on my crisp, cool duvet, covered with an inconsequential sheet that has escaped my memory. Doing nothing. I could see the little fragments of dust hanging, suspended in the air, illuminated by the shards firing from the window. Where did dust come from? I was buggared if I knew. Little did I know but I had yet to be damaged by events that would be thrust upon me without my say so. Things just happen in life and unless you stay in your bedroom until you die you have no choice but to accept them. But you also have to accept that they will change you to. Change for the better and change for the worse. 

I can’t remember anything else about that day but I can still touch the stillness and calmness that I felt. No TV, no music and only an unreliable ZX Spectrum computer for company. I had books of course but it wasn’t until my early 20s that I actually began to enjoy reading. Kids are luckier these days with the amount of books, and accessible ones, that are available to read. All with exciting covers and vocabulary, written for all different age groups. We had the now demonised Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and a few classics. No wonder it took me until I was 20 to get into it more. That stillness though, is something I’ve looked for ever since and never managed to recapture- if I have it’s only been fleeting. In that room I also had a skylight that you could open. Added to the calm and stillness was the low hum of the traffic in the distance. Listening to it was like medicine for my brain administered through my ears. The thrum of each passing car was like a calming tablet, driving itself through my bloodstream. This was, I’m pretty sure, the end of my innocence. Things happened from then on that changed me. Moulded my brain and shaped my personality. I’m only now coming to terms with it all. Some of it- I’ll never come to terms with.