canheforgivethough

To what can my master be compared? I would struggle to find an example. I would go so far as to say that He can’t be compared to anything, or anyone; but because he is a man, I can say something about that.

He’s tall, slimly built and is largely hidden in his appearance by a thick beard and a darkness which spreads across the eerie features of his face, although his face is beautiful and haunting. His hair is a shock of matted black hair. His eyes are like coal; a fire, seemingly dancing in the recesses of his soul, flickers across their surface. He wears a heavy, black, woollen robe, badly burnt from all the occasions when he’s walked through the fire. He wears black leather boots, swollen and cut from the times when he’s faced the raging rivers in this life.

When he’s angry, he hisses wild, painful, rebukes at the darkness. He is so similar to the night that you wouldn’t be able to tell that he is good, not from his appearance at least. He wanders across fields and lives in holes in the ground, destitute and oppressed. He looks like an enemy and is dressed like a thief.

He’s been beaten, whipped, ridiculed, abused, vitiated, vandalised and hated from the day he was born but He never turns to hate. He gives life to you when you are unaware of his presence, like a guardian, tending your soul while you sleep but he is unaware of you during the day, and if you look at him then you will not be met by his gaze. If you catch his gaze, it will be as though he doesn’t see you; his eyes will seem blank and unresponsive, and he will move past you and onwards and will not look back.

He holds onto nothing or anyone and yet owns all things. He straddles the void of the abyss and laughs at the threats coming from the darkness, throwing his head back and screaming wildly, yet he gives himself willingly and unreservedly in order to protect you from whatever is thrown out of the deep, to the destruction of his own soul, never regretting a single sacrifice or asking for a single penny in return.

He’s here to avert the darkness of man.

My master’s crazy, a startling enigma. And many years ago, I willingly made myself his servant.

“This is Snuggleton Veron reporteygne. Repeat. This is Snuggleton Veron. Over.”

“Nothing.” The small child, sitting on a chair in front of a desk, flicked a switch on an imaginary microphone on which he was pretending to send an emergency message to the Queen.

“Shit show. Yet again.” Another small pause, followed by (quietly and with a hint of resignation), “what am I going to do with her?”

He dropped down from the chair (the chair was real) and padded on his paws across the room (Snuggletons have paws), towards the fridge. He opened the fridge and peered in, looking for something sweet and tasty.

“A smackrel for me please,” he said as he rummaged around in the fridge and then, as he happened on something, a softly punctuated, high pitched, and slightly draw out, “a-ah!”

Having found something to eat, he padded on his paws across the room again, this time walking past the desk with the imaginary microphone on (“no, thank you”, he said crisply, on the way past), and into another room with a sofa in.

He lay down on the sofa, had a bite of his smackrel and masticated childishly, swallowed clumsily, smacked his lips a couple of times, then put the smackrel on another, smaller table next to him, shut his eyes and began to think some pre-full-snuggle-up thoughts. He hadn’t ever spoken to another person (although he was sure that he, himself, was a person) but he knew that he would definitely be speaking to people like the Queen if he did speak to someone else (since the Queen was certainly his type of person).

She must just be busy, he thought.

And in the sunlight from the window, as he lay on the sofa, Snuggleton Veron began the procedure that preceded full snuggle-up.

Full Snuggle Up pre-Snuggle-up procedure by Snuggleton Veron of the 1st Snuggleton Guard:

• Bring all paws into a place of warmth and cosiness and warmth;
• Get all scrunched up and warm and cosy and warm;
• Check temperature and atmospheric pressure;
• Proceed to full snuggle up.

“You will bruise his head, and he will lie in wait and bruise your heel. There will be enmity between you.”

Be careful how you judge because one day, you too will be judged. With the measure you have used to judge, you will be judged the same.

“Awake, O Sleeper. Arise from the dead, and Christ will be your light.”

“Remember and never forget, that you have hope, and a future.”

“If anyone tries to harm you I will raise my fist to crush them and their own slaves will plunder them.”

Who’s side are you on?

Is there a God?

…..

are you sure?

In essence, I really want to say “thank you” for all you’ve done for me. The benefits and blessings of all I’ve been through can’t be counted. Without you I would have a soft head and a hard heart. I now have a hard head and a much softer heart. Without you I wouldn’t know what justice is. Without you I wouldn’t have a reason not to give up. You have done all of this for me without even knowing it. From my heart I say, “thank you”.

I also say, if you’re even willing to read on, that you need to know what you do not currently know. You need to know how much you’ve hurt yourselves. You need to know how much you’ve hurt God. This is a travesty of justice. It’s an abomination. Good might result but if it does it is of no cause of your own. If you’ve done good, it’s been purely coincidental. If you’ve saved a life, it’s only because the person you saved used your drowning head to free themselves from the flood.

You also need to know what the Word of God says. This is very much your responsibility and if you don’t know it you will be deceived. The truth is that you’re already deeply deceived. I’ll give you an example, though: “The Word of God is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, able even to cut between bone and marrow; to the core of your being.”

Suffice it to say that in your blind conceit, you don’t even know you’ve been cut.

“Bless you.”

Now actually pressing a pen into his upper lip, Robin Dupree’s thoughts were drawn back to the unusual request that had appeared in his inbox that morning. He had printed it off, as if he had begun to conduct an inquiry into the incident, so curious did he think that the request was. He wanted to read it again, so he accessed his Internet account and opened the mailbox. There it was, marked as “read” now but still there. It wasn’t a dream. He opened the mail and read:

Dear Robin,

I am afraid that my identity must remain secret for the time being. Nonetheless, you may honestly believe that I mean you no harm and that I desperately need your help.

I am in a situation with an associate and I believe that the situation may become quite unpleasant, unless a brave, noble fellow like you steps in and does an old friend a big favour.

Derek Nuddle attends the local church and claims to be a Jedi Knight. He is not. His appearance alone is enough to persuade even the layman that this is the case. However, he honestly believes himself not only to be a Jedi but to be “The” Jedi, “The Chosen One” – I have attached the prophecy, and although it is incomplete, I have come to the conclusion that Derek has made this wild claim about himself purely on the strength of the fact that the prophecy mentions “red hair” once, as a fragment. Derek has red hair.

Derek has crossed just about every boundary of social conduct that it is possible to cross in my short time of knowing him. I have studied his mind and brain and have found both to be badly damaged. He is a glutton, a fool, a preposterous and malignant man. His actions are reckless, inhumane, evil; he is perhaps the most stupid man on the planet, not to mention his ridiculous appearance – that of a gerbil after a particularly big meal that has been laced with LSD.

I have a strong suspicion that this man is planning to seriously injure me and/or members of my family. I need your help.

My plan is simple. You are to take on the guise of “Hangers” KcKnee, as SAS veteran with a very secret mission to save the world from a nuclear holocaust. You are to make contact and build and maintain a relationship that will ultimately lead him to trust in you enough to induce him into sending you a full and frank explanation of his terrible plans regarding myself and my family, thus saving our lives.

I have also attached details regarding making contact with the target, and some examples of the types of stories you can tell to help build rapport.

This is our most desperate hour.

In trust,

Obi Wan Kenobi’s Brother, Duggal.

I’ve attached some information that you might find useful in your assignment.

Protagonists:

‘Hangers’ McKnee
‘Tash’ McBride
‘Looney’ Lukeman

Here are some stories to help you build rapport:

‘Hangers’, ‘Tash’ & ‘Looney’ go gun-ho in the Congo.

“We was there, in the jungle, giving it the full ration pack, and I looked at Tash and gives it, “what’s the crack Tash? Where’s the joint of beef?” And he seys to me, he seys: “gotta size the joint first, Hangers. Gotta give it the full portion.” So I seys to ‘im, I seys, “never gonna manage this one kidda. Not in a million years.” So ‘e seys to me, ‘e seys, “not if I get me nuts out kidda. Not if I swing me hing-dingers.”

‘Hangers’ at the meat market:

“So me and Looney-tunes is giving it the full version, trashing the joint, raggin it, flat out, hard out, givin’ it the beans. No frills, no spills, just guts. So there we was, weighin’ in; swinging through the trees, ain’t we? And I turns to im and seys, I seys, “put some vinegar on this one pal. Give it the full dosage.”

‘Tash’s tank theft:

“So we’ve ‘dropped in’ on some old contacts. Got the big “5-0” down ribeye street. Sliding like a peg-legga with them tits out, ain’t we? I turns to Hangers and I gives it, I seys, “we’ve ‘sussed’ a little nest egg if you know what I mean, could do with a good man. Someone who doesn’t crack under pressure. Someone like the Toz-Burger.” And he seys to me, he seys, “I’m not sure about this corned beef Tash. Not sure about it at all.” And I looks at ‘im and I seys, I seys: “That ain’t corned beef kid. That’s me hang-ender.”

Another day passes, and yet again I find myself sitting alone and in silence. The typical argument as to why this should be allowed to continue, by my peers at least, is that I “deserve it”. This is partly true. The main problem, my main problem, with this judgement is exactly that it is a judgement. The scripture clearly states that “mercy triumphs over judgement” and so, even as I am accused of being a defeated “loser,” my peers employ a policy designed to make me exactly that.

The solution is clear and ignored, so we will move on to other matters.

The “Hang-Bungaloid” is a very curious case amongst us as humans. He is the residue of all of the things that we claim to hate, although to one degree or another we all indulge these things effortlessly well. It may transpire that I am doing exactly that now. He or she will appear to us from time to time in the guise of a rejected and despised being but more often than not, as one of “us” (or should I say, you).

“The Hanger” as he (or she) is affectionately known could be anyone; look around you the next time you’re on the bus or, more startlingly, when you’re talking to your friends in the pub or in your car. Are you absolutely sure that your friends are “good” in the generally accepted sense of the word? Exercise caution. You may actually be in love with a Hang-Danga-Ding-A-Donga.

It may turn out, in the fullness of time, that all of the traits you observed in your “enemy” are actually not only the very things that you’ve become but also the very things that you accept as perfectly normal and fair. You may even already be laughing along with the very same person who once used you for sex, or snogged your girlfriend, or who lied or cheated you; the only difference being that the “Hanger” has not yet acted in his new guise. We make a very serious mistake in assuming that just because someone does all the right things, says all the right things and, most pertinently, hates all the right people, that they will not in turn, at some stage, turn on us. Remember: it is indeed a very serious thing indeed to underestimate your enemy.

So what is the answer to this heinous ill? In a word, composure. We’re all full of shit. Don’t ever let anyone know that you haven’t got the first idea what the answer is. Carry on as though you’ve got it made, and nothing bad will ever happen to you. The “Hanger-Ding-Donger” prays on the weak and the fearful, so be neither of those things. Be unapologetically strong, even if it hurts your passive neighbour. Be stupidly brave, counting as nothing the uniqueness and irreplaceability of your life.

In simple terms: if you’re walking on a trapeze, act like you’re being ferried across the heavens by the hand of God; if you fall off, act like you can fly, and when you hit the floor act like you’ve just fallen into the soft breasts of an exotic beauty lying on an enormous lilo somewhere in the Mediterranean. YOLO. Do it. Do it big. Don’t look back.

Who cares anyway?

“Your friend is still in that car.”

“This is a dream,” I said.

“No it isn’t, David. This is your real life. Everything that has happened in this place has led you to this truth. You walked away from your best friend when he needed you most. It isn’t a lie. Nothing that I speak is false. You’ve read the book. Everything I speak is the truth. The Spirit that’s guided you in this flat is the Spirit that speaks to you right now, even as you write these words.”

“And the solution statement is?”

“Go back. Ever since that night you’ve been held in this place. I’ve held you here all this time, and now you’re ready to make the choice you should have made all along. You always knew that something was wrong and now you’re ready to deal with this situation.”

“Do you expect me to…”

“You will.”

“Right, fine.”

“This is my last conversation with you here. I want you to know that I’m proud of what you’ve achieved, and I wish you all the best for your life.”

“What’s left of it.”

“Faith. Hope. And Love. You don’t need anything else.”

“I’m afraid.”

“Do it afraid. Are you ready to go back?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dad….!”

“Whatever. Bring it on.”

“Close your eyes.”

“God be with you.”

(Derek D’Wally was an unapologetically big man. His whole demeanour spoke to someone who is utterly confident in their own body and all that happens within and without of it. He was not overly cock-sure, but modest and considered in his dealings with his fellow men, and when he spoke he exerted the authority of a man who had dealt with just about every problem that life could throw at him because, basically, he had handled most problems that life has to offer. To see him would be to understand.

When I first encountered this man I was travelling on a train from London King’s Cross to York. I’d been visiting an old friend in London and Derek, as it happened, had just been on a long and eventful flight from New York. The conversation he had with whoever he was speaking to stayed with me. It’s so funny that I want to share it with you:

“It happened like this. I was sitting sipping my coffee, flicking aimlessly through “The Times,” and this man walked into the carriage and slipped his suitcase into the rack just inside the door. He walked the few rows into the carriage that separated the door from me, and parked himself on the seat opposite mine.

“Do you mind?” he said. “Not at all.” I replied. “Thanks.”

After a moment or two, during which time he made himself seamlessly comfortable in his seat, he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled a number, adjusting his collar slightly during this process, and clearing his throat. After a few more moments he started speaking.

“Hi, it’s Derek.” A small pause. “How’s it going?” Another small pause. “Oh, right, great. Listen, I’ve just got back to from New York. It was, without doubt, the worst flight of my life. I was sitting in JFK waiting to board the flight and I was listening to this fella talking to his daughter. He was telling her about the “infinite” benefits of retaining perfect control of one’s “functionality” in every situation. He said, and I quote, “A Jedi must never, ever, be at a loss in any situation. There is never a time when he (or she (he was wagging his finger in her face at this point)) must behave, nay (this is a direct quote), even betray a sense that he is out of control or at a loss of what to do in any given situation.” Are you following this?”

A moment or two passed during which time Derek held the phone to his ear, open mouthed, looking in a palpable state of shock and awe. He coughed and pulled his collar down slightly while lifting his chin upwards, creating some space in his clothes.

“Are you ready for this?” he said. Another small pause, then he said, “he then proceeded to shit his fucking pants halfway across the Atlantic whilst he was asleep. Can you believe that? The meal came round after take-off and they ate and then the lights went off and they went to sleep and then a couple of hours after that, as I was reading the fucking agenda for the meeting tomorrow, the smell of shit drifted down the cabin. I thought that someone’s child needed changing…..until I heard them talking about it.”

“Just go to the toilet”, she was saying to him (his wife). “No, it’s fine” he says! “How can it possibly be fine?” she says. “It’ll pass” he says. “You’ve shit yourself! Go to the toilet!” she says. “No!” he says.”

“I’m not shitting you man. It happened just like that. I was almost in tears at this point and if it hadn’t been so funny I’d have been ready to throw this lad out of the airplane.”

“What a fucking shambles” Derek said after a small pause, then continued.

“How can it not be a problem to shit your pants on a transatlantic flight? This dude didn’t seem to understand the dynamics of the situation, either. I could hear them arguing and by this time the stewardess had taken more than a passing interest. She was urging him to go to the toilet. If he’d have just upped and headed for the bog he’d have saved himself a lot of embarrassment but no, he dug his heels in.”

“”There’s no problem here”, he says. “Sir, I think you should go to the toilet”. So this guy raises his hand, and waves it in front of her face while saying, “I don’t need to do that,” putting emphasis on the “don’t.” Can you believe that? “Yes you do sir,” she says to him, “right away.” “No,” he says, “I don’t,” using his hand again when saying, “I don’t.”

“So the stewardess calls for help and they forcibly remove this guy from his seat and take him to the toilet, basically kicking and screaming. They actually had to push him into the toilet and then, wait for this, they had to give him instructions about what to do when he was in there. “Just wipe yourself clean now sir. We’ll get some wipes and pass them through the door.” Can you imagine that? Fucking, “wipe yourself clean” they say, in front of a hundred and fifty passengers. Fuck me. What a shit-show.”

“Anyway, this guy basically got cleaned up and walked back to his seat to a round of applause. Unbelievable. The cabin crew must have tipped off the authorities because the last I saw of him he was being led away at customs. What a clown. Anyway, how are you? Long time no speak.”
)

“David! Can you hear me?”

I was standing in my flat, by the front door. I opened the door. No need to look through the keyhole. I opened the door and when it was halfway open I began to feel resistance until I could hardly move it at all. Then I was wrestling with the door, moving closer to the middle of it then I was reaching inside a window, clamouring for the handle. The flames from the car were licking up my body.

HOT, so FUCKING HOT!!…

…job to do…

I managed to open the door, flung it open and reached for the seatbelt and released it, pain searing through my body and face. The fire was all around me. I pulled my friend from the car. I could feel that my face had been burnt and my hands. My friend was screaming wildly:

“SHIT! FUCKING SHIT I’M ON FIRE! SHIT. FUCKING SHIT!!! FUCK’S SAKE,….MY LEGS!”

“Easy now mate. Almost there.”

I pulled him clear and scrambled him up the bank. I knew the car was going to explode, and it did. Bang, straight across my back, flinging me and my mate up the hill, almost onto the road.

I heard someone screaming in the ambulance. I didn’t realise until later that it was me.

I guess in a way I got what I deserved. My mate was burnt but not so much that his life was irreparable. My life changed completely. After they got me into a fit state to go home I wasn’t really anything that resembled my old self to look at. Shit happens sometimes. I only really took a passing interest in life for a long time. Things changed so much that I didn’t ever think I’d be able to do anything but sit and think about it, over and over and over again. My mate visited occasionally. He’d had a painful time having his bones restructured. We didn’t talk about much. Things had changed permanently.

I could walk and I considered this a major blessing in my life. I used to walk the paths I walked as a young man. Everything was pain, pure unfiltered pain down to the core of my being. Everything that I had as a man I had lost. Pitch black. Miserable.

This is what it was. It’s all I can do to write it down, perhaps in the hope that you’ll look at your life now and think about what it could be in the future. Not everyone is lucky. Not everyone escapes.

You will be required to go back one day. God will visit on you the consequences of everything you do, whether good or bad.

It’s all in the book.

And the book never lies…..

A part of me wanted to tell the police officer that the reason I was riding the curb in my 2.0l Citron AX TDi at two thirty in the morning in the middle of winter, in a town I’d never heard of, was because I was looking for a place to skin up and I hadn’t been concentrating on the road. A part of me wanted to; the part that had had six or seven pints, a strong pill and a few joints. But the part of me that had to get up in the morning – presumably to present myself in court, steadfastly refused to do this.

“I must have lost concentration for a moment.”

“I see. And your friend? Why was he hanging out of the window?”

“He’s a little drunk ossifer.” I slurred slightly, but managed a smile. “We’ve been celebrating, and he’s had one too many.” I smiled again, a little nervously. “We’re friends” I said. I don’t know why.

“I see. What were you celebrating?”

“Birthday. A friend’s.”

“Same friend?”

“Yes sir,” I said confidently. Then, “no sir.”

“Have you been drinking?”

This question was always going to come and I figured that if the police produced a breathalyser I was finished, so I calmly told a few lies.

“I’m not going to lie to you officer, I had about three pints early in the evening and then switched to coke at about ten so I’d be sober enough to drive my friend home.”

The officer made a few notes on his pad and I sat nervously watching him, hunched up slightly and leaning forward, trying to get a look at his pad, with my hands held tersely in small balls in my lap. Had he bought it? My eye twitched slightly just as the officer looked up from his pad and I half winced, half gurned a hopeful plea bargain with my face inclined idiotically towards him. The other officer was talking to my friend who was sitting in my car a few metres away.

“I see,” he said.

I could smell the beer on my own breath. I noticed that the other officer was now walking towards the car I was sitting in. I smiled at the officer as he looked at me again. The pill had switched gears on me and in a moment I relaxed completely, fully reclining in my seat and opening my arms slightly; I ended up smiling for too long; it was probably only a few seconds, but when you’re being interviewed in a police car at three in the morning while your friend is hanging out of the passenger window of your very fast, black car just meters away from where you’re sitting, a few seconds too long is too long. Way too long.

“I s…”

The door next to my interviewer opened up.

“He wants a cigarette. He insists.”

“I see. Do you have any cigarettes?”

I was now watching the scene unfold with quiet delight. “Yes I do,” I said, but did nothing.

“Can we have the cigarettes please?”

“Yes you can,” I said, now smiling widely at both police officers. “Yes you jolly well can!”

This is super. Wait a minute. Did I say that or think it? I looked at the police officer sitting next to me in the hope of picking up a sign as to whether I’d thought, “this is super,” or said it. Nothing. Although he was holding his hand out for some reason.

“Right,” said the officer smartly, still holding out his hand. I nodded in what I thought was a sage manner and smiled in what I thought was a knowing way. A sharp bolt of fear went through me as I realised that I was supposed to act immediately and, in actual fact, I was about to act much too late for all intents and purposes. “I, eh…,” I floundered and then, without wanting to appear ruffled, I took the cigarettes out of my pocket and handed them to the police officer. It’s all over, I thought.

Or was it? As it happened, my friend was now behaving very badly indeed, much worse than before. He was hanging out of the window of my car, motioning wildly with his hands into the darkness, screaming for the officer to hurry up with the cigarettes. He was now acting so hammered that I appeared to be relatively sober. I must have seemed like the local vicar in comparison. A few cheeky ones, ho-diddly-ho, no-one’s to know.

The other police officer took the cigarettes, leaving the door open, and strode over to my friend. The scare I had had in not reacting to a simple request had sharpened my instinct and I now felt like we had a hope. All we needed was a miracle and we were home and dry.

The other police officer handed the packet of cigarettes to my friend in my car and began telling him in no uncertain terms that he needed to be quiet. He helped him roll up the window and then shut him inside the car. The officer in the car with me had watched his colleague sorting out my friend and then he began writing some more notes in his pad. As the other officer strode back towards us in the police car I saw the passenger window of my car roll down and in an instant my friend’s voice bellowing out into the cold, crisp night: “HEY. CAN I GET A FUCKING LIGHTER IN HERE, YOU CUNT?”

My blood ran cold and my head snapped ludicrously quickly towards the officer in the car; eyes wide a saucers, beaming high. Now we needed two miracles. I forced a smile.

“Your friend does appear to be a little worse for wear.” The officer made a few more notes and then, rather surprisingly, asked me for my lighter. I duly gave it to him. He then got out of the car and shut the door and met the other police officer, who was on his way back to the patrol car. Once they had delivered the lighter to my friend, they made their way to the back of the patrol car and stayed there for several very tense minutes.

The first miracle was that the police couldn’t find the breathalyser. The second was that they bought my story and let me drive away.

I drove very carefully for the rest of the night.

We were far too hammered to go home.