The book - bit by bit

[lukas989]

He immediately started to sweat - the effectiveness of his jacket became overly so at the sudden onrush of heat caused by his forgetfulness turning down the heat on his exit.  He always managed to convince himself it was better to walk into a pre-warmed house, despite the overwhelming evidence supporting the theory that movement in a continuous manner generated body heat.  It did however offer the perfect fodder for finally moving onto the next tshirt and pair of jeans available at the tope of their respective piles.  He tugged off the coat and replaced it on the hook on the back of the door - correcting his turn away to reach into the inside pocket and retrieve a packet of gum for consumption after a quick snack of toast and coffee.  He paused momentarily to ponder stripping and showering first, but decided to stick with the 'snack and ponder' plan he had originally decided upon.  At the back of every move so far was that girl, dog at the end of her arm, with the added effect of wind in her hair and slow motion movements...a wide smile etched on her face, slowly but surely exchanging her gaze at the dog to him, the smile dissolving and being replaced with a soft serious come-hither look, complimented by down-tilted gently blinking eyes.  The sort of look that turns many a person fond sexually of beautiful women to lose their shit and gibber like buffoons.  Except in this instance - albeit with the assistance of make-believe - he remained cool, evensofar as to return the look causing the come-hither to be replaced by a downward side tilt with accompanying embarrassed giggle.

[lukas989]

The sun had settled in that spot that shone right at his favourite spot on the couch.  It pained him to do so, but he reached behind the table in front of the window and tugged at the curtain, just enough to dilute the suns rays.  It pained him, because it reminded him he was more comfortable indoors, away from civilization, alone...afraid.  Open curtains represented a glimpse into what hopefully might one day be - jumping headlong into the picture framed by wood and held back by glass.  but there was no fucking way he could stomach temporary blindness, just to suspend the misery drawn curtains represented.  Sighing, he slowly lent back on his heels, returning to his now shaded favourite spot.  He allowed himself a couple of seconds of full reclination, before leaning down towards his coffee, sipping impatiently at the overly hot beverage.  Not too hot though - he'd read somewhere coffee was spoiled by boiling water...the burnt taste he'd experienced experimenting with this claim had him become a believer.  Of course now he struggled with the loss of that batch of coffee - every pot he made he told himself he could have saved for later had he not just fucking believed what he'd read.  Much like that tenner he'd lost on a bus trip a few years ago...every tenner spent should have still been his.  He'd found a tenner or two since then - but it didnt work like that, as in, he didnt see it as cancelling out.  Finding stuff is lucky.  Losing stuff is careless and preventable.

[from_musings]

[lukas989]

It was a strange sense of mellon collie he felt as he sank back into the couch.  Moments like these were reminders of things in both senses...yes, that there was unparalleled beauty in the world, yes that amongst the madness there was things that made sense, components that came together at the right time in the right place etc etc....but that didnt escape the fact that there was madness, there was things that didnt make sense...bad things that meant the good couldnt be taken for granted, that meant the timing and reaction to things that were good were oh so very important.  Just that experience had taught him that he was especially good at the timing and reactions necessary, in order to take advantage, meaning with each passing day/month/year the importance grew and grew.  It was all a case of balancing frustration against experience - each experience confirmed course of action not to take, and furthered the case for those he had yet to try.  what swam around his mind more often than not, was that maybe just maybe tactics adopted in the past with individual cases would perhaps have been better suited to other cases - the incorrect component had been selected to complete the puzzle that faced him at the time.  It wasnt as simple as tossing the used component away - he had to replace the component back in the sack and give more consideration to things next time - assess and decipher the best component to use, before just whipping one out on a gut feeling and trying to cram it into place.  He knew for a fact though he had a lot of components available to him - the array confused things a lot more than the average person, who would stick by the trusty ol' component that had served them so well through their teens and into their mature years.  Sometimes he wished he was dumber, his brain offereing far fewer options to him than he had now, on top of removing the afterthoughts of yet another failed venture.

[lukas989]

The desire to be dumber was one he often mused upon - leading to inane thoughts as to how to make the desire become a reality...banging his head off a hard surface repeatedly; becoming a boxer and not bothering to defend himself; calling a huge angry guy a cunt then laughing at his genitalia bulge...of course there was no way of gauging what level of punishment was required to make his way down to an acceptable level of dumbness, and saw the sense in avoiding any punishment to remain at the current level of intelligence rather than risk going too far and ridding himself of the capability of essential functions like talking and so on.  Plus although being dumb added up to a nicer ride out of the misery tunnel, he imagined the journey would be taken far more often owing to the lack of sustinence a dumb person could provide....unless it was another dumb person.  At least being smart meant you could 'act' dumb when getting sex was the priority - you just had to make sure that once the lass had been conquering there was no lingering, 'You know, she actually is quite nice' type thoughts.  Which was always the issue really - if she wasnt 'quite nice', what the fuck was the point.  He pondered for a moment before switching his thoughts to the masturbation aids modelled on pornstars vaginas...all the joy without the hassle - albeit replaced by self loathed in abundance.

[lukas989]

The thought of sex immediately made him regret masturbating so early - all this free time offered too much in the way of options to fill it.  A desire to release sexually trumped them all, if it was there it would happen - the challenge then was what else to do.  He had loads of ideas, all of which required dedication...he was never one for quick easy fixes.  When it came to video games he was always more a role player than a mobile snake type of guy.  He wanted to start a band but was wary of who he was opening himself up to; the alternative to which, i.e. doing it himself always grew frustrating after a while owing both to: a) his sub standard guitar skills placed against his overly complex riffs and b) his short fuse frustration at the 1980s keyboard demo sounding pc music efforts.  He wanted to play a sport, but knew noone able to dedicate to a regular time to commit to for a one on one game of something or other, and didnt know nearly enough people to gather together for anything as involved as football.  He thought sometimes he might return to smoking pot, but his heart just wasnt in it anymore - he used to base life around it, and upon quitting was frustrated at himself for allowing it to do so.  He liked to tell himself he could combine having a life with a casual affliction with pot, but he owing to the fact he was sitting doing absolutely fuck all right now, there was a 99% chance he would fall headlong into it again.

[lukas989]

The fond memories poured out of him as he sat...but they all seemed to stem back to when he was still hopeful.  There was many a shit memory during 'The Pot Years' too.  He discovered that, regardless of how often he put the theory to the test, smoking pot regularly alone was a little tragic...almost like admitting there was no hope left.  Of course admitting it made it a lot easier to do, but outside of the occasional chuckle at a random inane thought -  he found in the main he experienced bleak, depressing moments.  These days, there was plenty of those sure, but amongst it was a shining light of possibility - if he found the strength to turn his back on something that had such a vicelike grip on him previously, he could continue the confident stride into, socialising, regular sex, creativity, fun, excitement and so on.  It had now been around 5 months since he last smoked....anything for that matter.  The overlap was a couple of weeks from joints to fags, but eventually he saw sense in turning his back on the two fags a day habit he'd whittled down to.  Slowly the money saved was spent on cake, chocolate and biscuits - progressively moreso as the nasty taste disappeared from the back of his throat.  The lack of ability to run quickly without a strong desire to vomit was subsiding, in its place a nice round pot belly - two facts that were moving him towards seriously investing in keep fit equipment.  the main thing he desired was looking good naked; in essence visible abs, and large arms.  cardio was unimportant to him at this stage - that would come naturally via team sports he'd inevitably become involved in owing to the exposure to fellow keep fit'ers he'd bump into during his new found obsession.  He realised this was all a good few months down the line.  Just a simple case of filling the void with everything that equalled eventually being there.

[lukas989]

The desire to commit pushed him towards reaching for the laptop in front of...then pulling back, laying the over-sized cup of coffee down, then retrying the exercise.  An incident 2-3 years ago, which cost him a lot of misspent hours initially suffering through the scald suffered, then countless hours since regretting ever putting himself in such a position.  He double checked the stability offered by his lap, before collecting the cup once more.  The lull in between pushing the button, and waiting for the screen asking for his password, prompted him to also switch on the tv (remote immediately available on the small table alongside the couch).  The tailend of breakfast tv - hopefully just enough time to catch up with events of the day before slipping casually into ordinary folks house repair dilemmas and what shit was worth something in their attics.  The picture of the airbrushed cat stared back at him as he tapped in his password - one of the dozen or so that was etched into his brain (all the same structure with alternating letters and numbers).   The additional seconds for the final stage of boot up allowed a quick browse of what he would allow to pass as background noise.  He decided upon Frasier - although was well aware of the lack of respect he would be able to show the sharp dialogue owing to the commitment he'd be showing to the task of finding previously premium but now budget fitness equipment.  He clicked the shortcut to firefox - his email counter popped up to show 8 unread messages.  8 was too many to ignore, and as such he opened a second window after clicking his amazon link, to get the ball rolling towards simultaneous email checking.  The inbox was a smattering of promo mails from casinos, updates to forums he posted in, and crash sales at an american book company he couldnt remember buying anything from.  He rapidly clicked the check box by all but the forum updates, and deleted them.  the forum update was a response to a response he'd made...a wall of text explaining how from what he said, he was obviously someone who lacked any real intelligence and general knowledge on the subject (which in this case was that the megadrive was better than the super nintendo).  A light prick of sweat pierced his chest and face - but he maturely decided to postpone the temptation to dive straight into yet another retort, and dwell on the content until after the actual purpose of logging on in the first place.

[lukas989]

He clicked through the tabs to reach the fitness equipment on Amazon, scanning each page along the way for inspiration.  The obvious was weights - dumbbells and a weights bench, he glanced skywards - for no other reason than movies told him to - as he imagined the spare room with the addition of a weight bench.  He pondered on the extra hassle caused by continuously shifting the new apparatus back and forth, switching between using it and the dwindling promise to himself that he would pick up his bass guitar more frequently...to finally realise the dream of becoming better, and thus creating the confidence to move his arse and find likeminded fellows and fell...esses to make music with.  Well, at least to begin with, before the inevitable ego clashes over what direction to take, whose turn it was to buy the drugs, and the arguments about the fact they would have made it by now ifthey had only done what they chose not to do.  As the years dripped by, the more the dream edged towards doing something on his own - create dittys on his pc...buy expensive music applications and plug ins, then splash out more money on interfaces and foot pedals to fuse the automated with the mechanical....all eventual.  big arms and chiselled abs.  Wrist weights...he liked the thought of that.  Bulging biceps and veiny arms purely via the magic of the natural urges of arms being lifted and straightforward moving about...plus it fit in brilliantly with his notoriously slow realising of things.   The heavier the better he thought - no point fucking about.  He found the heaviest set that offered free postage, and ordered them.  2-5 short days later, and he'd be Schwarznegger-esque purely by cutting about.  The thought was accompanied by a satisfied exhalation. 

[lukas989]

He had been obsessed with developing the body once before - successfully one might add.  The problem he found, was that once he was immersed, there was little time for anything else.  The bigger and stronger and fitter he got, the more he felt obliged to do (the satisfaction came from constantly outdoing himself), as in after a week of doing twenty push ups, twenty press ups and twenty of everything else, next week he'd push himself to do twenty five push ups, twenty five press ups and twenty five of everything else, to the point where after a few exhaustive months, he was pumping out over one hundre of each every morning and evening, as well as a two hour run after work , and several miles on his mountain bike every Saturday.  The end of the summer (coincidentally) coincided with the realisation that he just simply wouldn't be able to fit Miss Right into this sort of schedule, which in all honesty was the whole reason he'd undertaken the whole process in the first place.  Pile on top a healthy dollop of gay accusations (the tight tee shirts to emphasise his arms likely didnt help), and a diet that meant he took one almightily huge shit every four or five days - which he was convinced was doing his rectum irrepairable damage - and the decision was taken to cut back, which eventually became nothing, which eventually became toking.  The recurring waves were fast becoming evident...rather than originality there was reprisals of previous endeavours...but fuck it he thought.  I'll get original when a lady volunteers a viewing of her breasts.

[lukas989]

This of course was the upshot of the new found enthusiasm for reshaping the biceps and accenting the abs...to enable a shortcut to a womans heart - specifically in this case a certain young dog owning lady happened upon that very morning.  try as he might the ability to muster confidence in his banter minus the body he imagined himself having x amount of months down the line was minimal to say the least.  The biggest stumbling block was binding together a yarn that explained the preceding years without coming across as a hermitised loser...as someone damaged beyond the point of repair.  The sort of person who no right minded lady would take a chance on.  He knew that a popular perception of women was that overwhelming urge to nurture; to take care of.  But he didnt want taking care of...at least he didnt think he did.  The whole premise of being looked after, having his deficencies analyzed felt patronising - one of his biggest dislikes.  The very suggestion of being patronised brought forth an imaginary sprout of hair upon his chest and a totally unreasonable mindset that scared him into thinking he was capable of mindless and life-altering actions he would never recover from.  As well as this, his inescapable need to think of others, meant he would forever protect their right to avoid the sort of bullshit baggage he brought with him.  The unbelievably lucky lady - out there...somewhere, had to want this - him - without the desire to nurture, without the desire to fix...there could only be desire for him.

[lukas989]

He found it hard to accept however, the strong possibility it would be nye on impossible to justify the last six years(it always made him shudder when the depressingly long amount of time was rekindled as a thought in his head...not to mention the fact it was that little bit longer every single time it refreshed itself) -as an existing human being.  He was quite literally friendless, hadnt seen any of his family in over a year (his mother still called every week, which he screened for as long as possible until the overwhelming guilt cascaded over him...which usually equated to a maximum of three weeks) and his job - a stock controller on a late shift pattern in a warehouse - meant he was rarely disturbed outside of stock enquiry calls from head office, or a few moments of friendly banter with fellow late shifters who drove forklifts.  It was a position he had put himself in - he knew that - but the longer the situation was as it was the harder he knew it would be to remedy.  He often cursed himself for his fussy attitude back when he was regularly surrounded by these groups (family, colleagues, friends)...whereby he would be all in with regards to promoting contact and activity organising, before an incident (or incidents, if it was the case where he put the situation on notice for smaller infringements, which then built up to equal an incident) would cause his enthusiasm to deflate wholly, and therefore retract as much as possible to plant the fuck off seed, waiting patiently for the dawning of realisation within the perpetrator that he should indeed, fuck off.  Of course, there was varying degrees on the scale of acknowledgment hit by the numerous victims of the judgement....the memories of the biggest offenders - ie those who took the longest to allow the penny to drop - haunted him...mostly in the way in which they flabberghasted him.  He couldn't get anywhere near to fathoming how a persons perception of a situation could be so off, whereby they would gleefully continue to impose themselves regardless of the blatant 'go to fuck you madman' vibes piercing their exterior.

[lukas989]

There was no doubt he was at the opposite end of this spectrum, whereby the slightest indication of 'gotofuck' was felt, he would indeed do just that.  As such there had been many many confused folk left in his wake, who, in spite of this confusion, never got another look in...they were all left with with the wonderment of what had just happened.  Of course, there was no way of telling how much of an effect it had left on these people...maybe they were like 'ah well, fuck him anyway,' maybe they were like 'fuck this Im killing myself' - the not knowing was a comfort in a way.  The ability to just assume they'd be cool, life would go on.  The only thing worse than thinking you'd fucked someone up, was knowing so.  In a fifty fifty good or bad, he always happily sacrificed knowledge of possible good, for ignorance of possible bad.  There was no doubt in his mind however, that one of these thick skinned, carry on with the pursuit people he found so confusing, were in essence the very type of person he would likely end up with.  Someone with the ability to fight through the constant barriers he put up, shrug off the bullshit he slung at them.  Which at the end of the day equated to someone realising, and building into how they dealt with him, the fact he was fucked up, needed help and had to be moulded into someone who could become socially skilled.  He had to be changed by someone. 

[lukas989]

It was a strange theory to think about, and to know it had to happen if the end result desire was to be realised...just how would the overriding problem of him not wanting to be placed under a microscope be side-stepped, whilst forcedly attempting to ignore his repulsion?  The musing brought forth a memory from when he was around twenty - he'd just finished college and with that the people who surrounded him through that time, regardless of the comfort he felt with any of them.  He had decided to travel as far away from home without leaving the confines of Britain; which meant travelling to the general vicinity of Devon and Cornwall.  A day plus spent on the bus, thusly dropped him into the abyss of naivety....miles away from anything familiar - a literal lamb to the slaughter for anyone who happened upon him and realised just what he was.  Fortunately, the optimism that accompanied him in this grand venture, met with positive results (of sorts), and so it was, that after a weekend spent in a B&B above a pub in Torquay he secured himself a (horribly shit) bedsit in the small town of Newton Abbot, famous mostly for its rich resource of clay.  The serious lack of money promoted the utter desperation of then getting a job, which flopped into his lap in the form of a call centre position.  Alas, he (and those he was surrounded by) were unwittingly phoning hapless daydreamers and inviting them along to a seminar where they'd receive a free gift for their trouble....tv's, pc's, video players - all of which they'd receive obligation free, but only for listening to a dude droning on about signing up to a 'holiday club'.  The truth would out years later, on a tv show whose premise was to expose dirty evil underhanders, who preyed on peoples inability to recognise a scam.  Be that as it may, the job paid for his accomodation and enough food to avoid malnourishment, so the scale was balanced in a way.  It was during this time he met James - a brash yet warm-hearted guy, who he instantly felt a rapport with - the chemistry was enjoyable owing to James splendid ability to take his razor sharp/bad taste humour schtick and judge him for it at every turn - a double act that was appreciated for what it was.  The stronger the bond was, the more forthcoming James became with his undiluted compliments of his character, which made him more and more uncomfortable, and desirous of a way out.

[lukas989]

The wish was granted upon James announcing he was to undergo a tour of the east, starting in Asia, before working his way down to Australia and then ending the trip with a visit to some friends he knew in America.  He wanted him to join him.  He felt humbled by the invitation, but without any doubt in his mind that he wouldn't do it.  He was also aware however, that a flat out no, would likely tarnish their current relationship, and chose to basically, lie.  The remainder of time he had with James was then interspersed with little nuggets of information for James, that relying on him taking this trip was less than likely.  The booking of the ticket was a joint effort - James (as he often did) put him in a postion where he had to commit, asking him if he was going to book his ticket now also.  He chose to go down the line of not being able to commit to the full trip owing to the length of time that was required to allow for the complete experience, and would therefore need to organise returning home to drop off belongings, assessing the funds he would require and so on.  James seemed satisfied with this, and although he breathed a sigh of relief that more time had been won, he also felt downhearted about both, the quickminded lies he was weaving to effectively free him from ever seeing this person again, who had been so positively enamoured with him, that he was wholeheartedly desirous of sharing what could possibly be the most enjoyable experience of his life.  He cursed his lack of ability to accept this responsibility.  The thought that kept running through his mind from this point was that of James, sitting on a beach in Thailand sorely disappointed at the realisation that he wasn't to be joined, and that this in itself dissolved some of the enjoyment he was supposed to be having.  He couldn't shake the likely possibility that what he was doing was purely selfish; if he just had the courage to admit to his thought process, the early closure would allow sufficient time to rid the disappointment and just get on with having fun.  But as often before, the shame won over, and the lie was maintained right through to waving James off at the bus station, on his way to the airport.  Even I'd think I was a complete prick he thought over and over, fuelled by a steady state of being completely stoned.

[lukas989]

It was his mother who snapped him out of it to a degree - plaining putting forth the point that he was in no position to commit to such an undertaking...it was all fine and well James was prepped and ready to fuck off round the world, he couldnt expect someone else to drop everything and join him.  The to a degree came in where he told himself that it was by no means James' fault he was keeping him in the dark about not going.  Thankfully (and no doubt deliberately) his mother left these facts out of the pep talk.  It left him with a quandry however - he knew he had to move on from this place, removing him from any people who would eventually know, as in James returning and spreading the word he was left out there, alone, confused and betrayed.  The flipside, is that he had barely been away for 2-3 months, meaning there was a pretty good chance he would be viewed as a failure in his efforts to finds the gold at the end of his fucked up rainbow.  So he decided to wait whatever amount of time felt right, or to the point where he had to to leave after James had taken off - whichever came first.   The first step to seperate himself happened swiftly - within one week he had moved about twenty miles to Exeter, finding himself a grander yet still easy to improve upon bedsit to hide away in.  The shutdown of communication with those he had intertwined with in Newton Abbot started immediately...there was a few half-hearted texts received from a one person - a guy he had bought pot from - about getting together for a smoke (which he duly ignored).  Other than that it was a clean break.  So clean in fact, he didnt see anyone other than strangers during trips to the shops for three months.  He had earned himself (finally) around four thousand pounds, via being run over by a car, and patiently waiting over three years for a result.  The benefit of this it turned out, was that he didnt have to move or communicate with anyone for a considerable amount of time.

[lukas989]

It was a strange experience all in all.  Essentially zero contact with the outside world...he likened it to something he'd seen about Salmon Rushdie, who in light of that book he'd written, basically became a total recluse in order to avoid being shot or stabbed or whatever.  Like him he spent most days perfecting video game after video game, turning it almost into a career - waking up each morning at around half past eight, to go through the allotted stints with various long term goal laden games he'd plucked, obsessing unhealthily over targets and achievements.  Of course the big difference was that he hadn't a book that was causing people to wish death upon him - it was all of his own doing...entirely deliberately.  Of course living this way, with no fixed income, meant that the resources eventually dried up.  It was left until flirtation with absolute poverty was achieved, before he got himself a job.  The job was back to the phones - this time offering lucky businesses cheaper rates on their electricity bills.  The twist in the tail was that the deals were being offered by a company who had brokered the unknowing businesses previous deals, with an electricity company who went bust.  One namechange later, and reference to a handy database of now desperate companies later, and it was onward to extracting yet more cash from the hapless.  As shitty as he felt for being involved with this, he soothed his soul by focussing on the fact he wasn't there during the original fuck over with a pinch of acknowledgement of his own dire situation.   Plus the people were nice.  Back he was to being with those who knew nothing of him.  A short while of non-judgement (entirely justified at least) to savour.

[lukas989]

The problem was he knew it was finite - the company was small - even smaller when you took away the bosses, and elders - leaving basically three people who would by natural means place him under the microscope.  Everyone starts out friendly and formal to begin with (varying time-frames granted), but owing to the fact they were so much in each others faces for much of the day, it was only a matter of time before barriers would be broken, questions would be asked, and information would be sought.  And it wasnt only these folk - they shared a building with a larger telecoms company, from which the pool of people mingled with was increased via the smoke breaks taken atr set points throughout the day.  A friendship was struck up with a couple of guys from them - Dave and Wayne, who shared a love of pot smoking and talking random bollocks.  From the confines of his own company there was John - potentially the most brash and upfront people he'd ever met, coupled with the bombshell that he wasn't gay.  He was the very definition of a lad, who regaled the open mouthed onlookers with tales of masturbating onto biscuits with his friends....the premise being he who shot last, enjoyed a increasingly soggy snack.  Being one who tried wherever possible to keep judgement to himself, he fought almightily with urges rousing upon the revelations of John and his school buddies video-ing themselves group shagging naive girls, and watching them with other friends.  He was the kind of guy he felt certain one day he'd witness getting into a huge ruckus purely because of his version of how to live life.  Wayne was one of those he felt would sooner or later butt heads with.  Much like John, Wayne was a floor-taker, often a topic of discussion for those who witnessed his inane stories.

[lukas989]

He found himself therefore in an increasingly familiar position, whereby he was the filling between two very different slices of bread, accented by varying situations where social expertise was forced into play by way of headbutting for his company...much in the vein of two horny stags wanting to shag a trembling roe.  He did hope this wasnt a literal comparison - he wasn't confident of being handled affectionately by either of these two fucked up maniacs.  Dave it turned out was a handy buffer to Waynes beyond recommended intensity, and found himself slotting in nicely to their dynamic...Dave's chilled outedness offering a large area of openness for him to snuggle into as the equally friendly/more energetic/less intense middleman.  As such he found himself wandering round to Daves flat, which initially was a welcome alternative to sitting and staring at the tv lonely and bored.  The flat dwelling was often precluded by a couple of hours at the pub across the road, which served as the location for his debut meetings with two other regular contributors to the group dynamic - Ian and Sam.  Both were easy guys to get along with - he chatted at length with Ian in particular from early on..it was more a case of being chatted at by Sam - but it was all friendly enough.  Two or three liaisings in, and he started recognising traits in Ian that caused him concern.  The relationships of both with Wayne was eye-opening; Wayne was the kind of guy who provoked an open and honest reaction from anyone who encountered him.  Even if that was one where reservedness took place it told him they were savvy enough to let things slide and go with the flow.  Ian possessed a ton of this savvyness - evensofar as to poke subtle fun at Wayne, which caqused him to battle nervously at the natural reaction to guffaw at the brass-neckedness of it.  Ian on the other hand talked to Wayne (and vice versa) like they were planning a war or somesuch...musing way way too matter of factly about things that would pucker the vast majority of eyebrows.  He would often struggle to contain a huge exhalation of disbelieving breath at things they'd say.

[lukas989]

There was one particular night at the pub that served as the inevitable proof of paranoia - Wayne was eagerly keen to invite him along - pills would be on the go, and with that a long optimism-filled night.  Pill poppage was something that had escaped his free time since college - some 3 years ago at this point...and the opportunity was seen as a welcome one, despite having his internal ying and yang yell their cases at him.  He decided to go with the sneering scoffing yang, and join the crew for a night of debauchery.  The five of them sat round a table in the corner of the pub, talking excitedly and randomly, laughing out loud at the inanity of the tales being put forth.  An hour or so in the convo turned serious all of sudden; Sam was letting them in on a touch of argy bargey he'd had with his mother, over her lack of understanding during a particularily rough period he had endured recently, owing to excess in the partying genre.  He automatically assumed extreme alcohol consumption - it was now the norm he watched Sams drinking prowess in awe, unable to comprehend the level of dedication it took to reach the level of consuming so much without automatically passing out.  Promptings were offered to Sam - what sort of shit was your maw saying; have you sorted it out yet, etc etc....to which he muttered much the same things back about how unreasonable she was, how she was always doing this, and she'd never get it.  He decided to address his lack of engagement by asking how much he'd drunk to cause such a level of recovery requirement - to which Sam replied with a hushed 'bit more than that mate,' through a vacant smile.  He took in the response and filtered it into a reason for worry, but chose (wisely he thought) to push the issue no further.  Certain characters around the table would soon provide deeper insight into what was at play here, or to put it more accurately, supply the proof for his suspicions.