Chapter One:

Step one: ‘A metaphor is like a simile’ ~ Author Unknown.

Boom. I love a story that grips you, from the very first word. An explosion of ideas and excitement, a cannon shooting you straight into the centre of the story. Boom. Smack bang, into the action. I’m waffling again. I seem to do that an awful lot recently; go off on a tangent and completely off subject, just for the sheer hell breaking the monotony of modern routine, born, work, pay taxes, breed, die. That’s it isn’t it? The life cycle of a human. How futile.

Anyway, allow me to introduce you to your humble narrator, your raconteur through the realms of the unknown – my name is Yorick. No joke. Named after the jester in Hamlet; set me up for life. Always been the court jester, although thankfully as yet no angstful Danish Prince has stumbled across my skull and commented pessimistically on the true purpose of life in one of his trademark ‘in the depths of despair’ speeches. Couldn’t think of a worse ending really, your remains inspected by a suicidal fictional character. Although, did you know, Hamlet is the third most written about character in literary history, behind Napoleon and good old Shakey himself? So, actually, it may not be as bad as all that.

But averting the lovely theme of our impending doom, and onto a seemingly lighter note, it’s my birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday to me. And no, you do not need to worry about balloons and candles and scandals, because to me, it’s another year wasted.

Not the way for a seventeen year old to think, you may say. Get out there. ‘Teenage years are the best years of your life.’, my old pa used to tell me. Pah. Nothing but trouble, misery and small mountains of coursework, and the desire to be unique counterbalanced by the fear of being shunned for it. Thus, you end up losing your true identity. Maybe that’s why so many people like their teenage years – they can escape their pointless and angst-filled lives and become someone completely different. Start afresh. That’s what they say about Vegas, not that I’ve ever been. True, I’ve considered it, but it’s just not my cup of tea- like a phonier, more grown-up version of Disney, if the former is possible.

Another moral message from the informed mind of Yorick Solo.

Get used to them.

Chapter two:

Step 2: ‘Be obscure clearly.’ ~ E. B. White.

The puddles are mirrors, christened in moonlight and bathed in the heat of a dense summer evening. I often think I see life through a puddle; distorted, larger than life, fragile even. I stamp right in the centre of said puddle, spreading ripples to its edge. It gives me a strange feeling of satisfaction, watching the mirrored, marbled surface crack and shatter, splitting my reflection in two, four, eight.

As I stroll down the street, with nowt but shadows for company, I briefly consider writing all of my witty phrases in a notebook, which can be whipped out at short notice. I muse over the idea, adding it to my ‘to do’ list for later. But now, I focus on what has to be done tonight.

The house approaches, an ugly minimalist building in a street awash with character and period properties. Block paving, manicured lawns and tinted windows give the impression of a model house, robotic in it perfectness. Unwelcoming and unforgiving, its angular and harsh concrete walls house the target.

Oh yes, we’re going all commando style now. Night-vision goggles and all. Serious. Heat makes my vision two-tone, monochrome.

The dim and flickering street lights illuminate my face. Eerily, like a Batman villain, I hope. I’ve always liked the Joker. His sadism, his enjoyment of humiliation; the mastermind of the pack. I quite like his hair, too. Suddenly, in the distance, a light is extinguished. Now, I’m not one for superstition, but at this point, I’m getting one of those feelings. Oh yes, one of those feelings. Nausea and nostalgia rolled into one, with a pinch of nihilism chucked in for good measure. Then it’s gone.

Wrought-iron gates stand in my way. Well, it’s a nice gesture, I think, as I scale the metal poles and drop down into the garden below. The heart’s pumping now, palpitating in my ribcage with adrenaline-fuelled blood. A drunk teen passes on the pavement next to me, staggering against the poison in his blood. Now, personally, I don’t drink. Have never seen the point; probably never will. Another case of extreme escapism, I reckon, and I’m just fine with me. There’s no movement inside, the curtained windows concealing many a dark secret. People wonder why they’re pessimists – take curtains, for example. Keeping the dark in, and the light out, doesn’t give a particularly positive mindset, does it? I keep to the shadows, knowing they’ll protect me from discovery, from harm.

The night is my world, the darkness my substance; riding Solo’s a lonely trip.

Chapter three

Step three: ‘A page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of battle.’ ~John Cheever

Now, at this point, you’re probably wondering what I do like, having already dispelled teenage years, Disney, alcohol and curtains in your introduction to yours truly, but it’s not all doom and gloom, oh no! Allow me to take a minute here, to tell you of my interests; all purely fictional. Oh yes. Literature and its vice-like grip has held me since childhood; Dickens, Steinbeck, Tolkien and their worlds of fantasy. The feeling of freedom and escapism is unparalleled by anything in the real world. I know what you’re thinking: hypocrite! But for a person going to Vegas, drinking, or Disneying, being somebody different is from reality to reality, and my escapism is from reality to fantasy, of a world that we have created to one that could be created. A clear difference.

However, I abhor plays and their respective creators. Detest them. It ruins the creative inspiration behind the whole concept of fiction – it is meant to instigate ideas, locations, and characters in the reader’s mind, without the need for a prima donna playwright to display them visually.

But more about that later. Rant over for now.

The coast seems clear. The foliage sculptures leading up to the house seem to be manicured, like fancy topiary, some form of conceptual modern art probably. Trees in the front lawn give me shelter as I creep from fir to holly, apple to chestnut and various others in the cocktail of trees residing in the courtyard. That’s what strikes me straight away, and dislodges me. The perfect exactness of everything. Rows of trees, alternating between species, the perfect symmetry of the vast house obscuring my line of vision, even the stars seem unnaturally tessellated tonight, like a rearranged jigsaw. How I’d have loved to shake the box and randomise them again. The symmetry of everything is eerie and unbalancing, in an uncompromising and distorting equilibrium that’s ready to snap and break at any second.

I’m seriously considering leaving, it’s unnerving me so much. I’m never one for superstition, but I’m feeling it’s a sign. That my world is about to shatter into normality and uniformity, like the stars that stare down upon me.

Chapter four

Step four: ‘Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia’ ~E.L Doctorow.

‘Dual realities and time: is it possible for a parallel universe to exist?’ That’s my physics essay topic. Sounds riveting, doesn’t it? It’s four a.m. and I sit at my desk, thinking of how to start the essay, but my mind is elsewhere, distracted by fatigue. At this point, I’d love to say that my room is clogged full of presents from my many adoring friends, wishing me a happy birthday. But alas, as yet, it is empty of presents. Not even a card. In fact, it’s empty of most things, a bed, desk and wardrobe the sole pieces of furniture in my otherwise barren room. But I’ve gotten used to it; even when I was little, presents were at a premium. Un anniversaire memorable, I got socks and a toothbrush. And that was from my mum. Happy days, eh?

I give up on the essay, debating whether to hand it in late or simply not bother. Always hated the subject anyway. I leave my cluttered desk, filled with scribbled sheets of paper, books and a stray packet of dental floss borrowed from the bathroom. Oddly enough, there’s no stationery. I’m more of a conceptual person; writing things down does nothing for me and my creative spark, thus I’m doomed to an eternity of an inability to get down my ideas onto paper. Manuscript after manuscript taking form in my head, only to evaporate as soon as pen touches paper. Catch-22, only magnified, like a Catch-222. The talent, but without the means to properly utilise it. Walking to my bed to catch a quick nap before school, I notice the mud on the floor. Mud from my shoes that I cleaned yesterday. Mud which shouldn’t, and couldn’t be there. I hadn’t worn them since. I try to recall wearing them yesterday night, but my mind’s a blank as to what even happened last night, let alone whether it involved wearing shoes or not.

Dismissing my suspicion, I lie on my small, creaky and uncomfortable bed and look at the stars. The ones Blu-tacked to my colourless ceiling. They glowed in the dark, once, but over time, like everything, they forgot their purpose and died. Now their weak luminescence bathes me in an eerie twilight just annoying enough to keep me awake. Whilst I’ve never slept well, it just seems now that my body has given up with the concept and now strives to keep me awake and fuel my current coffee addiction. But, pessimistic as I am, I eventually drift into a disturbed sleep.

Chapter five

Step five: ‘You must stay drunk on writing so that reality does not destroy you.’~ Ray Bradbury

My body is a cloud, floating on stray zephyrs, unable to control myself. I float aimlessly around, without a care, without a thought. My mind morphs, and I’m a jellyfish. Again, a feeling of weightlessness, bobbing on the whim of the tide. Tentacles stream below me, beautiful tendrils of death; poison streaming and coursing through every vein. Pure power. Pure unpredictable, deathly, beautiful power. I spy a foot underwater, kicking with a soothing regularity. Feeling an immense, ballooning satisfaction, I try to ebb towards it, hoping to sting it, hurt it, kill it.

But the wind’s picking up, sending spray on the white-flecked waves, forcing me away, helpless as a damsel in distress. And I am in distress, yearning for the thrill of the kill. I struggle, forcing every tendril in my desired destination. It’s useless. Buoyed by the tide, I float until I’m unable to see the feet any more. Frustration builds up inside me. Bottled up emotions of anger, isolation and loss, and it swamps me, enveloping me in a cocoon of unhappiness. That lucky swimmer was the last straw.

I can feel myself inflating, a giant balloon of jealousy, ire and ambition. I swell, getting bigger and bigger. So big that the sea seems like my bathtub, a puddle, a raindrop. I hit the sun, angry when it burns my fingers. I grow faster, faster, faster, consuming the solar system, and eventually the universe. Now it’s me, just me. Alone in the universe. And I feel it eerily so. Solely Solo.

Still I grow: a giant, poisonous, toxic killing machine. My tentacles pick up planets like they were tennis balls, and I throw them around. This is what I was talking about. Chaos, destruction, anything to escape the routine and uniformity of the world (or universe). One of the planets hits a comet, sending it crashing into what I can only imagine is my head. Time freezes, then begins again in slow motion. My body pops with an almighty BANG, and like a helium balloon I fly uncontrollably through the air, much like the jellyfish in the sea. The irony and déjà vu is lost on me at the moment. The air escaping my body makes a harsh rasping sound, echoing in the silence of what I have created. My silence. My world.

And I can’t stop to enjoy it because I’m hurtling through a vacuum at millions of miles an hour.