“Exploring life through fiction, together.”

I’ve never been very good at doing what I’m told. It’s taken a lot of years to learn the restraint to not automatically do the opposite, just to prove I can. You could have told me not to push the red button, and there’d have been no doubt what my next action would have been.

Fiction Bite - Why do you want a firearm, Sir?

“Work hard at school,” my Dad said, “and you’ll be set for life.” He cried at my graduation speech when I thanked his unfailing support.

“Pick an employable degree,” he said, “nobody made it on an Arts Major.” I disagreed “You’re choosing,” he shouted, “between a crapshoot or a career.” I picked accounting.

Wendy and I had been dating for a year when he pulled me to one side. “Get married, kid. People are talking.” I tried to ask why, but he just crushed my arm in his meaty hand and walked off. We got married that fall.

Bill sent me a photo of her kissing the hotshot from legal at the Christmas party. I stared at the blurry pixels until the image burnt into my retina. She strode in at sunrise, smelling of booze and men’s aftershave. I just held out the photo. They’d been seeing each other for months, she said. They were in love. I wasn’t the man she married.

I rang my dad. I cried down the phone while he took a dump. When the words ran out and my throat burnt, he sighed.

“Life’s a bitch, kid.”

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Times gone by, a real man would kill the bastard who’d been sleeping with his wife. But that was then, and you’re you.”

Quote of the Week

'The most important factor is... the power not to respond in the usual way... Its absence would negate the very possibility of adaptive variability in behaviour' David Steinhouse

Book recommendation - The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need by Daniel H. Pink [Manga, Self-Help]

Final Words

What’s my decision, and what’s just a reaction to my surroundings? Or a reaction to a reaction? Sometimes, I spin for hours trying to work out if I’m really autonomous, or just a complicated wind-up boy bouncing around a pinball machine. Rationally, I favour personal responsibility. That we can choose to change our responses, reprogram our behaviours, and literally rewire our brains. Still, in the wee hours when the ghosts come a-courting, I feel like I’m just rattling around this big old world without a steering wheel.

With Love,

Josiah

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