Wait, what piano? What? I am lost... I need to reread my notes...
Also taking a couple of days off to just write on my other project, just to clear my head and to get a little sleep.
I admit that there is a lot of concession for the page. I need that room to be able to tell this story out as effectively as I can. I try to be as honest as I can with it. And I do find myself wandering with story at times. I have taken to stopping, and going back, and rewriting when that happens. But many of these memories are twenty-plus years old. The exact contents of a conversation is difficult, and where I can I have spoken to or asked the people involved what they remember. Wil being the most obvious one of those. We sometimes have conflicting memories of things, and where I can, I have tried to show it.
We have a term: Unreliable Narrator.
I have done my best to show that and own it where I know it comes up. I could paint myself as a monster, god knows I have been one at times. But I am trying to be kinder to myself as it is an unfair judgement on my own behaviour. My disassociation is... an ongoing problem, and when you stand there while someone falls apart and you feel nothing... yeah.
Hey Jimmy never claimed to be GOOD at love. I was never able to just make it work right. The string of rather messy relationships is part of the pattern, and were this a love story... I'd have ended this with Hugo. But it's a story about what Trauma does to a person. And those moments, however short, that give us connection.
Maybe these loves were short, broken, or jagged, but I am trying to be as honest as I can with them.
So I was going to write about Marc, but Ben’s hijacked the story and is holding it ransom til I talk about him. Probably a good thing, Marc… was a mistake. It led to two years in Toronto, Richard… and that was not a good time. Relapses are hard, and brutal.
There are two stories I will tell you, eventually, about Toronto, but they will come when we next talk to Wil. This isn’t a Wil chapter, so forgive the time jump.
Jimmy had gotten out of Toronto alive. Let that sink in a moment. Ali
Washington D.C. -1953 - November 27th
The air was sterile and tasted of nothing, a stark contrast to the rich, earthy aromas of a proper forest or the intoxicating chaos of Kulai. Stoker paced the length of the apartment, a square, sterile box with a single window that offered a view of a brick wall. His boots, a new pair that Dottie’s people had provided, made no sound on the plush, institutional carpet. It was a place designed to contain, to isolate, and
I think exploring him as a more realized character might be good, besides I am interested in Blake as well. Very small Idea that Matt might make a decision about what's really important. As was said many times in the text, if you're willing to change who you are and what you believe for someone... that counts for something.
Besides, Hugo already KNOWS he's the most exciting Bottom Alec has ever met!
Stoker however, probably agrees, but won't ever tell Hugo that... I mean Hugo's ego is large enough
God's we're coming up on the underpants in the bar story.
Man when that dam finally burst between Ben and I, wow... which reminds me I need to email him, long over due to remind him about it.
He's still very much in the picture, but unlike Wil, he was far more direct... as you will come to see.
So, some of you know a little about Ben.
lil’Benji. I think I need to introduce you to another constant throughout Jimmy’s time in Canada because it was about this time in Jimmy’s story that Ben appeared.
Ben was quiet, but it wasn't the kind of quiet that made you feel like you had to talk. It was a comfortable quiet, a space you could just be in. Then, just when you thought he was a model of poise and grace, he'd flash that broad, cheeky smile, and you'd remember he was also a total
I am delaying release of today's chapter pending a re-write. Should have it out a bit later as I have to pop into Leamington Spa today to visit the pharmacy.
Apologies for the delay