I've found some interesting papers (won't say where, yet) and have decided to post them in regular installments, which means when I get the time and remember to copy them out. They're really quite...well, weird, but I'll let you decide for yourself! It seems to be set in Yorkshire, but not sure where. It mentions a place called the 'Land of Oaks'.
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Voices lost on The Wind, but the words will remain,
Another life has passed me by, but inside I'm still the same
'DZZZANG: A History'. Cuthbertson, David. 1899
How does someone who has forgotten to feel for others exist at all? How did this sorry sentiment come to enter my heart?
Frantically, I began searching for answers. The first port of call was the internet. I googled "Sociopath" to see how bad it could get.
Mike sat back and grimaced, then chuckled.
"What kind of emo crap is that eh?"
Setting a now unecessarily sharp pencil down on the desk, he rocked back in the office chair (borrowed from Dad's study across the landing - he tried to ignore the long, runny stains on the arm rests from too many rushed egg sandwiches) and accidentally let out a collossal fart. It sounded like a rubber phone directory being torn in half, and this meaty gale quacked with such ferocity from between his arse and the fine italian leather that he exploded with laughter.
Man, how good was it being a kid. Really. Being able to shamelessly belch, boff, play fox and hounds after dark around the burnt out school, blow up juice bottles with fireworks, eat chip shop specials with chips, curry sauce, pizza and a can of coke for lunch EVERY day; all with no consequences.
Just what was it worth?
"Ahhh right, right", he giggled, and wiggled himself into a comfortable position before clearing his mind by executing what he called a 'brain boff'.
"One end triggers the other. Philosophers must have smelly brains. PhilosophARSE!"
14 year old Mike Edwards snorted, then realised this was a bit too childish. He breathed, rubbed his eyes and calmed down by coming back to his coursework, a 2500 word short story on anything - not a problem for Mikey Mike Mike, to whom creativity was a piece of piss.
Instantly his eyes found the quote. A frown creased his slightly pudgy face, still freckled from summer.
"Did I just write that? Where...".
Like the times he had been asked to close the windows by his parents before going out, only to walk upstairs and completely forget, he felt totally bemused and a bit light headed.
"That documentary said that when that happens, it means your brain has had a little seizure," he thought, and shivered at that rogue piece of adult knowledge.
However, what worried Mike more than forgetting was the sickening slight recognition that now flared like a pilot-light, threatening to bloom into an uncontrollable inferno.
That title. It made him feel just a bit sick inside. Just a bit unsafe.
'DZZZANG: A History'.
There was no book like that in the house, so he must have read it at school.
"Maybe it was on one of the shelves in Biceps room?" he murmured, and instantly, those strange thoughts were pushed from his mind, only to be be replaced by the misery that Monday morning's English lesson would bring.
His teacher was Billy Bicep, known formally as Mr Lake, and when Mike found out that he was to be in his class for GCSE English Language he had punched the air along with several others in Miss Horn's geography lesson. He noticed she looked down after giving the news that warm July afternoon; motes of dust floated in an orange river of soft light that touched her face, a tight little smile on it.
Why would she be sad? Mike had thought, before the bell rang on Miss Horn and Year 9 forever.
However, the Bicep!
It was known how cool and, well, different he was. The nickname came from a school trip to the indoor climbing wall in Leeds three years before. It was January, and the heating in the centre was down. It must have been about 1 below in there, as breath streamed from the cracked lips of tired climbers. Whilst trying to haul himself up an overhang using only the features on a 7B route, Lakey-boy tore his right bicep completely free from the bone just below the elbow, and the taut and cold muscle curled right up beneath the skin. Mike's friend's older brother had been there, as he'd said that Bicep had screamed, before calling to the students: "Ere, did anyone bring any camping gear, 'cos this pains pretty IN-TENTS!"
Yes, he had actually said that before puking and passing out.
Generally Mr Lake was a fun and quirky guy, whose lessons were said to be intersting, engaging and unforgettable. So why then, had this cool, epiphany inducing legend turned into a miserable, timid, angry man with nothing to say but passages from frayed textbooks? What exactly had happened over summer?
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