A day Out- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013

A day out

              -Taken from- Our Lives as Fiction- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013

Many of the boys were quite enthusiastic when it came to their physical education class, but some felt that they were not of the sporting kind, that they were maladjusted to the physical exercise, the stamina, the confidence, the assertiveness and the general team playing that was manifold throughout the games played during the physical exercise class. The boys would stroll confidently in pairs down from the school, to the exercise yard, they would whistle, they would jeer and chat as they walked.

The boys would face the instructor, lining directly opposite him, baring their summer clothes, their jokes, and their childish grins, while the instructor sought to silence the boys and to put a stop to any messing that occurred in the line.

“Smith!” He thundered out as he began the roll.

“Present”

“Adams!”

“Present”.

“Gomby!”

“Present.”

“Freeman!”………………..

“Freeman!”………..

“Where the hell is Freeman today?”

“Oh he’s going to be late, he’s putting his bra on in the changing rooms sir”, said one of the boys sarcastically and he was met with a little chorus of giggles and laughs from the boys that stood on either side of him.

“No more nonsense from the stand up comedian here! I will issue detentions if anyone speaks out of turn again. Is that understood boys!”

“Yes sir”, muttered several of the boys half-heartedly.

“Oh here he comes now. Late again and he never learns”, said the instructor to himself, while several of the boys at the far left side of the line, nudged each other, grinned and laughed at the sight of Freeman sprinting down the hill towards the line on the hockey pitches.

“Freeman good to see you grace us with your presence. What happened to you? Did you put your trousers on the wrong end today or what story have you got for us?”

As the instructor spoke, Freeman could only forge a grin, he nodded and he apologised and he tried to hide the very humiliation, which he had suffered time and time again during his physical education classes and during school time in general. He blocked out the laughs, blocked them out with images of his home, his back garden, his loving mother and the freedoms, which were guaranteed during the summer break at the end of the term. He simply ignored the laughter that was directed towards him, he filtered it out, as if he were filtering out the slime within his own daily life, so to cleanse, to purify and to harden his rather delicate resolve against the daily and the weekly insults that were directed towards him.

“Now boys we are going to have a good game of soccer. I want you Connors and you Caldwell to pick each man for your team. Stand over here beside me boys!”

“Yes sir”, said both boys with urgency, as they both stepped forward and stood beside the instructor, as they assessed and surveyed all the boys in the line up for the soccer game. Freeman daydreamed in his complacency. He looked at the face of the PE instructor, casually gazing a the broken veins on his rather worn and wrinkled face, the bloodshot eyes, with his hoarse voice and grubby mannerisms and he believed that he bore the resemblance of an alcoholic or someone that was in poor health. Even his fingertips were stained and bleached from smoking.

“James, Anderson, Walsh, Phillips, Murphy, Granger”, cried the boys as they selected one by one the boys which they believed were right for their team. Each man selected his best friends first, then he selected the other members of his little clique, then he selected casual acquaintances and finally those boys were only selected so to fill the numbers and to get on with the game. These boys were the duds and they were the gangly introverts, the shy, more lonesome and perhaps the more socially despised of the boys in the group. The segregation process bore a certain social Darwinian element of selection at Matt Gamly High, where the fittest, the more confident, the socially boring, the pretentious, the ignorant, the boys that played on the rugby team and the womanisers were all perfect for the school resume, for popularity and success.

Unfortunately Ralph Freeman did not fit into any of these categories. He was hopelessly bad at every sport he ever played. He couldn’t catch a ball, he couldn’t kick a ball and come to mention it he couldn’t even be bothered whatsoever to get engaged in the game, for after years of trying and failing, trying and failing, he grew tired of striving to be something he was not. Sport did not lie within his own forte. But what did lie within his forte? He did not even know himself. He was not an intellectual whatsoever, since he couldn’t count at all and he had trouble with just about every academic subject that he ever tried to learn throughout his days. One had to learn the survival skills and the code of the school to survive, if one had talent in any specific area, you had to milk it and to exploit it as best you could so that you could endure without harassment or harm from the more maliciously minded pupils that attended the school. The other option was to keep your head down, keep a low profile and to avoid the very bad elements that roamed the school looking for trouble, but that was difficult since recluses or anyone that bore the stamp of differing opinions and attitudes came under fire from the bad elements at the school.

“Oh I guess we’ll have to take Freeman”, said Connors as he called Freeman over to his team, with an entire team of apathetic faces looking straight at him.

The boys separated and went off in different directions at different sides of the pitches.

The instructor stood before the two captains for the teams, he flipped the coin and called it. The odds would play directly facing the school while the evens would play directly facing the back gate.

Freeman was selected to play in defence for the odds, and while the team were up the field attacking he would stroll around his spot, with his hands in his pockets, feeling bored, feeling miserable and yet wishing that he could be home playing one of his beloved computer games, or spending time with his hamster, or spending time just sitting and reading a good detective novel out in the back garden.

The game continued on, each boy got stuck in and there were shouts for praise and encouragement, calls for fouling, shouts for goal on both sides, shouts of abuse, commands given by the instructor and then a general chorus of laughter when the instructor blew his whistle for full time.

The boys were tired; they walked in pairs, two by two up the hill, while freeman walked alone up ahead of them, towards the school. A general sound of laughter and the rancour of the boys messing could be heard in the shower rooms.

Several boys were getting changed in a rather small, damp changing room; each man rummaged through their clothes and their sports bags, at their allocated spots on the bench. The room smelt of the human odour, it was mucky and a certain hostile atmosphere would often grow between certain boys, as fights often broke out.

The rooms bore an uncanny resemblance to a cage that kept the pupils compressed and in tight numbers so that the coaches and the instructors could keep a close eye on the pupils.

Ralph Freeman, a furtively minded young man stood facing his bench as he quietly gathered his belongings to get dressed beside a semi- circle of about five boys who were chattering away and messing with each other.

One of the boys took of his belt and smacked Freeman on his right calf, trying to impress the other boys who now gave the subject of harassing Freeman, their absolute, undivided attention.

“Hey, why did you do that for, it wasn’t funny,” said Freeman feeling rather upset and annoyed with the situation, but still he forged another smile to assure his tormentors that they were not getting to him and that he was “joking” with them in turn.

The boy with the belt, only stood and faced Freeman, he winked and grinned and then he grabbed his remaining gear and walked out of the room.

                    

                                                                  

II

Ralph Freeman would spend his lunches alone. He would saunter out by himself through the school gardens and grounds and often would sit out by the front gate of the school, just to be alone, because he had tried for too long to permeate the impenetrable segregated lines and circles of the school year. So Ralph sought isolation and often he would wander over to the music room just to strum and practice on some of the acoustic guitars that had been left there for the school music teachers.

He would transcend the school curriculum, the ignorance and narrow-minded herd that attended Gamly High, by strumming the guitar, getting lost in the music, the power of music, the influences of some of his inspirations and when he played, he finger picked with his plectrum, slid his fingers majestically up and down the frets, and he accompanied each song with the his own hidden depth, his words and his voice shone out like a trapped bird, that found a momentary sense of freedom. His hunger to escape was more and more transparent to his own desires and needs over time, as he had failed many an exam and had started to play truant just to avoid certain classes on certain days of the week because of the unwanted, negative and uncomfortable attention that was being directed and targeted at him by certain pupils. His needs and his uniqueness were being trampled on and they certainly could not be understood by any of the pupils nor even the teachers themselves who were more apathetic and distant with every year that proceeded. They had heard it all before and the school disciplinary proceedings simply were not functional and effective with regards to many of the pupils that suffered at the hands of their merciless persecutors. Many of the teachers were guilty of absenteeism and certain teachers bore a less than satisfactory level of professionalism when it came to the management of the class and the standards of work that were to be performed. Ralph would strum several chords, sing and then perform the solo to each song that he played and he did this all in the silence of the music room. When the bell rang and classes were due to commence he could envision the rush and the clamouring of pupils marching and rushing up the different levels to the school and he would ponder to himself that he had only one year left at Gamly High, if he could only survive this final year, then the world might be his oyster and the freedom that he had long since strived for might be attainable. He would escape the narrow minded, petty opinions, fashions, fads and creeds of the pupils and he would become one with his own interests, his own destiny and his own way in life.

The corridors smelt of stale food that had been grounded into the floor. As Ralph Freeman sauntered up the corridors, he could see several of the schoolboys grappling and wrestling with each other, pulling and ripping each others uniform off, a fight had broken out between two of the students and cheers, roars and encouragement were given by the mindless mob of pupils that lingered and loitered about outside the cafeteria. Ralph perhaps, had often felt himself too mature, and other times he had seen himself as being certainly behind the other students in his maturity and his adaptability and he was certainly all to aware that he was the most naïve pupil probably in the entire school and that was the reason why he was the source of so much stick and torment from his peers. Ralph strolled past the fight scene like a ghost, and he was the ghost that wandered the corridors five days a week, the ostracized object of abuse, misfortune and great sorrow that bore down on his weary soul, a creature unworthy of anything good, of any friendship or any positive inclination from the self absorbed, vanity of the pupils

Ralph Freeman sat at the back of the geography class, watching through an invisible glass wall of torment and anxiety the activities of his peers, who were waiting in vain for the teacher to arrive. They threw paper at each other, laughed in chorus to each other, mocked and mimicked and jumped on the desks. Freeman pictured the students as beasts, wild animals, incomprehensible, unmerciful monsters that crawled around on all fours like bipeds or the mob that had crucified Christ. He believed that he was some condemned man, perhaps the last real man of humanity that had been punished and sent to some penal institution for some unspecified charge or sentence and that he was specifically targeted for naivety and preyed upon for his innocence and that his only motive was simply to survive the unscrupulous regime that presided at the school.

“Hey Freeman, why wont you tell us a joke. Why wont you stand up on the desk and dance for us, we love your dancing”, said Adams, who was probably the greatest slacker and dosser there could be found in the school. A greasy faced, acne-ridden clown that would play truant as often as he could and would get stoned on weekends with his “buddies” who were all dealing and selling their own contraband.

“Yeah Freeman, why don’t you stand up on Mr. Tyndall’s desk, so when he comes into the room we can all cheer you on. You’ll be the coolest guy in the class and I think you might even impress some of the girls that are watching”, said Georges with the motive to embarrass and harass Freeman as best he could in front of the entire class.

Freeman stood rather apprehensively on the teacher’s desk and looked around to see the entire class cajoling and enticing him to dance on the desk. They cheered and some even whispered into each other’s ears, the cruel taunts and the insults which they hurled at Ralph, from the cruelty which they harboured in their heart for anyone that bore any difference and weakness with regards to the segregation that presided rather uniformly at Gamly High.

“Go on Freeman! Go on Freeman, dance, you stupid monkey! Dance!”

Shouted one of the boys that jeered.

When Mr. Tyndall the geography teacher entered the room, the commotion suddenly ceased and the teacher gave an astonished look of both sullen anger and surprise.

“Hey, Leave the class, nobody dances on my desk, go to the vice principle, immediately”, said Mr. Tyndall in a calm tone, hiding both his annoyance over the issue and the fact that he hated his job with an immense hatred. It was obvious to anyone from his wearisome attitude and his less than ample attendance rate that he would rather wash his hands of the entire class of wasters.

Ralph stepped outside the room and heard the door slam abruptly behind him. Then he heard a sound of cheers and another chorus of laughter bellowing out from behind the closed door.

                                                            III

Ralph sat nervously and rather mournfully outside the Vice Principles Office at the little enclave where bold pupils would sit and contemplate their crimes with a penitent heart. The door opened, a small gangly boy left and then the vice principal summoned him with a simple call to the room.

The vice principle was old his face bore the uncanny resemblance of a wax model or a mannequin. His eyes were grey and cold; they revealed the hatred that he bore for the job, the daily grind that he had encapsulated long ago into his daily life and profession.

Out of his mouth and through his waxy lips, you could here his nasal voice and whenever he addressed Ralph or any pupil for that matter, his eyebrows would meet in the centre and the wrinkles on his forehead would move up and down below his balding head, that sparsely housed the few bits of sheep’s fluff that flopped about when he oscillated and tried to demonstrated a point with his arms and head.

“You just don’t seem to get any break in this school, now do you?”

He said showing a rare sense of empathy and perhaps understanding for Ralph who just sat, gawking half anxiously and awkwardly forward into the steel Grey eyes of the Vice principle Mr. Farnham.

“Yes sir. I don’t feel comfortable in class. Through French they throw paper airplanes at me. In Geography class some of them keep trying to trick me into making a fool of myself, and even the ones that I thought had some liking for me, even they secretly taunt me behind my back. I am hopeless at every game played during the PE sessions and I think that I am happy to be all-alone when the bell rings either for break or for leaving time. I guess that they can all smell the fear in me, I am not immune to their threats and their over confident ways”, said Ralph trying desperately to evaluate his problems and to sum up and to measure the level and the breadth of his difficulties that had sprung up a long time ago, through years of ostracism, teasing, tormenting and a general alienation of the individual which the boys sought to enforce through their own sadistic unscrupulous game of pleasure.

“Well Ralph, I have seen you too many times, willingly becoming the bait to their taunts and you have only been in here twice before because you listened foolishly to the advice of others and you suffered because you were too naïve to realise the truth that you have become too unassertive and yet you will become the more independent of these pupils. You are a late bloomer for this life, you suffer academically with poor results which I have discussed with your year head personally, you seem to be constantly distracted, you lag behind, you lack an intellectual curiosity which others inherit by your age and that is why you certainly have no natural defences of your own to protect yourself from the barrage of taunts that you meet from certain pupils during certain classes. Perhaps this intellectual curiosity will come later; perhaps you too will bloom once you have found a niche in life. Perhaps you too will find a form of joy which others cannot dispossess from you.”

After he spoke he sighed, gazed deeply into Ralph’s deep green eyes and then he began again.

“I think that I will have a brief word with your geography teacher and I want to have a word with your parents. Tell your mother and father that I will want to meet them next week, I will inform you of the date and time once I have a vacancy for the appointment to be made. You really must consider your options, you have inform the teachers, if you are being harassed from other pupils.”

“I have tried before, but I really don’t have much of a choice, I find my time can be troublesome at this school, I absolutely hate my time here in this school!”

Said Ralph as blunt and as rash as ever, but trying to purvey the honesty that he wanted to display to get his point across.

“Well then you can consider whether or not you really want to stay here since you have nothing to lose and since you hate this school! You can decide for yourself, but I have to tell you that you will find the same trouble recurring within whatever school you move to. You will be the target of many heartless insults and you will be seen as

as a mere pawn for the pleasures of others. I have some concern for your welfare and I want you to see it! I want you to go to the library, to wait until the lunch break and then after break I want you to return to the your next class.”

When he moved his mouth, the lines on his face moved up and down, whenever he frowned and made a facial expression to exert his point. Mr. Farnham’s voice displayed an almost passive aggressive tone that showed no empathy whatsoever, but beneath this reserve of seriousness and this distance that he kept there was a certain concern or sympathy that he felt within for Ralph, who looked as gormless as ever and who could only stare distantly downwards to the ground. The long protracted silences were finally and abruptly interrupted when Mr. Farnham ordered Ralph “to go to the library to work on some homework or a project that needed to be completed.

That night Ralph dreamed that he was free. He was walking out from beside a funfair ground, through a dark foreboding night, he walked away or rather slipped away from a crowd that faced and stared into the darkening veil, into an immeasurable distance that grew in size and width, that darkened considerably into the hidden faces of the mob. Ralph suddenly found he was being transported into a field where the grass grew tall, mounds and stacks of hay reached upward and a forest lay out beside a meadow where no man dwelt, nor any human falsity persisted. The brilliance of a dazzling sun reached down upon Ralph’s head, filling the entire sky with light that made the field light up, like a field of dazzling gold bullion. This dawn seemed to be the greatest of dawns alive and when Ralph walked through the field, he strived and ran through thick fields of hay and grass, he laughed to himself and he sensed with a rare and purely refined sense of peace and joy, which his body and spirit had never soared to reach before. As he walked he felt as if he were walking, ever so slowly and ever so carefully, to his home. In the dream his body and his mind were as one and they were enmeshed and conjoined in the spirit and the bond of peace and freedom, joy, love and life itself. That was the sum of his desire for life, for freedom, for love, for meaning, for peace, for joy and yes a niche and a meaning that would ultimately transform his world into something dazzlingly new.

But Ralph awoke, and found he was lying very gently within the bosom of his warm bed. Through the gaps in the curtains he could see that the sky was filled with a tumultuous sight, the sight of black clouds that swirled above a rushing wind that gushed and pushed against the sycamore trees that surrounded the circumference of his back garden. Ralph had decided on the spur of the moment, that since it was a Friday and since he had suffered enough from the previous day’s debacle, that he would play truant and go into the city centre, to ponder and to muse and to spend some quality time alone with himself. Perhaps he would find his niche and find the meaning that had alluded him so cruelly for so long, that he had thought that perhaps some prejudicial force or malevolent power or being had against him, perhaps to there could be meaning to the torment which he was subjected to, for the cruel whims and quirks of the pupils. He rarely ever played truant and when he would dare himself into spending some “free” time away from the “prison” he would journey off into the heart of the city on the bus, dedicate his day to musing through the city shops, or even to catch an early morning flick at one of the old cinemas of the main street.

Ralph would always manage to keep an old, partially crumpled doctors note for his school matron, which he would hand it to if he were even questioned about his whereabouts for the previous day. But they never questioned him, because his record of punctuality and his record of honesty were impeccable with the school facilitators and the administrators.

                                                             IV

The morning had shifted, from the black tumultuous clouds, to a clear blue sky, which permitted the sun to permeate and suffuse the surrounding leaves of all the surrounding trees and shrubbery. The morning was ripe, and the weather had a positive effect on the mood of Ralph, who was now enchanted with the crescendo of the birds, a symphonic sound that lifted his mood away from the doleful and the fearful classes of the school. Ralph’s mother had offered her son transport, to get to school that morning. She naturally enough trusted her son when he stated that he would take the lift and then walk about half the way, since he could afford for he had plenty of time to waste and since it was a fine incomparable morning, for him to get some exercise. Ralph’s mother dropped the boy off beside the main cycle lanes that were approximately half the distance between the school and his house. Fortunately enough he was close enough to the Regal Park, that was only within five minutes walking distance from the drop off spot. He waited cautiously until his mother’s car had got out of sight and then took this ample opportunity to g for a walk through the park, to enjoy the aesthetics of the park, to do a bit of nature watching and to cross the football pitches so that he could go and wait at the nearest bus stop to get into town.

It was approximately half eight and that left him plenty of time, to wander and saunter through the park, without any bad company or any authority to question him, whatsoever. He climbed up every tier of the gargantuan oak trees of the park whose roots, stretched and drew down into the deepest mounds of earth and he climbed and swung out of the roots that were large and bulbous and rather impressive and he made his way exactly from the elongated roots up unto the summit of the tree canopies, where he could gaze down on a near bye heronry that housed several parents trying to feed a pair of hungry juveniles. The sound of the traffic and the sight of the morning rush hour could be seen and heard in the distance. But that was not his world, that was the world for men, for hardship, hard labour, the cruel world of conformism, the cold chilly world of routine and a mediocre existence that lacked the raw imaginative edge which had transcended to and reached only on a truly rare occasion when he was not at the mercy of some cruel taunts and mockery by his associates in life.

He strode across the fields of the park, carrying his school bag, which was conveniently filled with books and food, and he set out for the bus stop, which was allocated on the footpath just across the road from the park.

He had only a five-minute wait before a large double Decker bus arrived that was teaming with school children from different secondary schools around the area. Ralph sat at the very front of the bus and gazed out at the passing shops, the trees, the streams of diverging traffic that came and went in both directions and he watched a beautiful girl, of similar age walk up the road quietly at the side street on her way to her nearby school and he sensed that he possessed absolutely nothing with which he might entice and attract the girl of his dreams. His world was a world devoid of comfort, passion, love and youthful confidence; instead it was filled with the lukewarm, cold and callous world of limitations, rejections, boundaries, and it was controlled by others all for him, as if his life were all ready set forth, planned out, mapped out, controlled and stolen from him by the arrogance and ignorance of others.

He was too young for the desires and passions that he longed for both day and night and night and day, he had reached the culmination of his maturity, he relied too much on others, on his parents, on his own sensitivities, the opinions of fools, cared too much for a frivolous and time wasting courtship process with girls and he felt himself too unintelligible to ever survive and prosper through the academic curriculum of college.

The bus swung in to stop right outside the central bank, off one of the main streets in the city centre. At the corner of the street the flower sellers could be seen, with each and every stall laid out, running parallel to the main street, something reminiscent of the city of Brussels during the flower festivals held annually each year. Cerise pink tulips, purple violas, bunches of Irises, bunches of bluebells, pansies and red roses were laid out all artistically and prudently for the decorum, the attraction and the enticement of the public to buy and sell to their fancy. Ralph wandered through the street, watching the people pass him by, observing their very nature, their complacency, their distractions, their sense of attention to this role that they had become. This was certainly true when he observed the businessmen carrying their cappuccinos, ties firmly mounted to the collar, wearing fine suave Armani suits walking briskly forward while they jabbered on the mobile to their colleagues and bosses, like energetic parakeets, the models of the 21 century, more robotic, more condensed like conformed corporate whipping boys, skivvies and unimaginative, uncreative, career minded clones. Ralph could only feel the bliss within him rise and fall and then rise with a greater capacity, carried on a wave of ecstasy rise again higher and higher, as he browsed through the shops on the high street and wandered on down through the streets towards the nearest cinema.

While Ralph was sauntering along quietly to himself, with the sun shining all around him, he caught sight of a man, a rather eccentric man that wore the clothes of an old cowboy. He could have passed for a Texan line dancer with a pair of fur chaps, his ten-gallon cowboy hat, a bandana tied firmly around his neck and a white cotton shirt underneath. The man even had spurs beneath his boots; he looked the right part to play a cowboy. Ralph noticed that the man was trying to sell books behind a stall and was trying with every ounce of his own assertiveness to entice the tourists and the general public to consider purchasing one of his books.

“I swear that God couldn’t have made a made a man like myself in a thousand lifetimes and he certainly couldn’t have made a writer as great, as bold, with the audacity of a genius like myself to follow in the footsteps of Joyce. I haven’t the time for a dalliance with the publishers, that bloody fickle lot. I am selling my diamonds in the rough here, for the enjoyment of the public; I present to you a true storyteller, who has mastered the art of this country’s brilliant heritage for storytelling”, said the street seller to a group of Spanish tourists that had only briefly mused and browsed through his collection of books and given him a few smiles and laughs to the charm that he evoked. The man spoke with a hearty confidence that almost appeared to radiate a sense of arrogance, yet it showed the charming personality and the devilry that this man personified and he was ready to laugh both at the world and at himself for what lot he had chosen in life and what mistakes he had made and has lost his quite approach with the public, for he seemed ready to shout with a megaphone to attract numbers and customers to buy his book.

Ralph approached the man, looked at his wrinkly face, and noticed how the man gazed out towards the river. Ralph looked at his snowy white beard, the white curls of hair that seeped through the cowboy hat and simply began talking with the man in a quaint, casual and friendly manner.

“So do you like books, poetry and short stories?”

“I don’t know what I like?”

“That’s an unusual response to make. You should know what you precisely like and dislike, you should know yourself intimately well.”

“That’s part of my problem in life, I can’t make head nor tail of it.”

“Well hear let me read you a verse from one of my poems”

The poet began to read slowly and softly with a powerful rhetoric to sum up the hidden convictions and passions of his soul.

There are many windows to the world

And some are bright and some are darkened,

Some are filled with the lustre of the sun

And I am looking out through a vision

Of all that I behold as beautiful

Golden and perfect,

When you look through the transparency

Of my window, you will see my world

The immaculate man that I am

All that I encompass, all that I strive to be,

My window and my mirror,

Is filled with layers of realism, surrealism,

The murky city streets, the veiled country glens,

The stratosphere, the orbits and heavenly luminaries,

I look forever through this window

Until I voyage through another door.
Destiny has spoken from the heavens
that declare to me all I am
and will become
from the toiling of the earth
to the rising from the grave
my tears have fallen upon stone
and let not my heart be stone
but be the repository of love
for all who come upon me
and I will go from the wayward people
unto my home
from the toiling of the earth 
to the rising from the grave

The poet slowly tore his gaze from his book, smiled and gave a look of deep content to Ralph that smiled and applauded him with a few claps of praise.

“So now you see the level of commitment and devotion I have towards my work.

It embodies every ounce of my aspirations for life, it covers the secretive and the public dimensions to my world and yet it expresses how I feel, for when I cannot explain the very fears in me, I have only the written word to tell the tale and sum up what I cannot normally proclaim through speech.”

“I am no expert on this sort of thing, but I have to say, I am impressed with this taste you have given me with your work.”

“Ah see you too can be a poet and a story teller, you said taste and that is exactly what I have given you, a sample and a morsel of the great body of my work. You could write wonderfully with metaphors and similes if only you were a self educated man like myself, but it takes years of hard work.”

“What do you mean”, enquired Ralph before the beaming eyes of the poet.

“Well most writers, well at least the genuine ones, will have to wait years or perhaps will only be accepted after their own physical demise and this is down to the fact that no common medium is available for the publishers to understand and circumspect the message and the art behind the story. Every storyteller strives to express himself in a greater fashion than another and he express true joy with himself when he expresses the exact point he wants to state, so that clarity bared through the work and the story serves the purpose of its intended need. But the writer’s needs are not wanted, nor are his intentions, his originality, nor his creativity understood under the wavering and flaunting needs of his publishers and his wishful audience. The work is slammed and criticised for its eccentricity but yet the work is only written so that it serves the writer’s needs and wishes so that the writer can piece together the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle within his own jumbled existence.”

“Its hard to follow you, but I think I get what your saying, your saying that you only write first and foremost for yourself and then secondly you write because its your livelihood, am I correct?”

“Correct.”

“Anyway it takes years of patience for a writer such as myself to get any recognition, for recognition is given to all the wrong sort these days!”

“I wish I could find my niche in life”, said Ralph reverberating what the vice principal had said the day before.

“At least you acknowledge the fact, that every path is different and every man will not always stray unto a similar road, but will journey forward unto an unknown destination strangely familiar, because he chose the way that leads to his particular destination, to the goal that makes the man what he is and brings him the joy he needs to be renewed and reborn. Having a niche in life for me is one of the most vital and important things to possess and whether it be music, or literature, art or drama, it serves you a safeguard and a protection, a shield against the unreliability, the disappointments, the rejections and the cruelties of this world. What I am saying is that your niche is your very own flower, give it all the nutrients it desires, give it all the water and sunshine which it needs and watch it grow, it is your own project that you will invest in and you can let it soar even higher than your greatest inclinations and wishes. This niche is for the making of you.

“I cant live on a niche though, I need food, water, housing, ample employment, health insurance and other essentials to survive in this world”, said Ralph protesting quietly.

“Yes you need all that, but what separates and differentiates you from the rest of the hive, it is the nature which you make for yourself, it is your niche that makes you original, that orientates meaning and purpose to your life. You must say to yourself that you will bury your troubles under the weight of your successes and I have done this through my craft, which is my writing. I am feckless with regards to others, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what people say about me, I comb my moustache in broad daylight, I am no Casanova when it comes to women, I curse the world and its technology and I have been wearing this outfit all week long, but I don’t give a damn what people think, because I abide by my own constitution in life, with regards to how I have fulfilled or expanded on my niche.”

“I myself have been suffering a tirade of abuse at school, said Ralph rather reluctantly but still he spoke as if he confessed to a new found father figure, the niche maker, the poet, the travelling salesman, this eccentric character whom he had seen on many an occasion making conversation with young students and intellectuals.

“Well don’t be downtrodden and dampened with the words of young fools, that amount to nothing and are nothing, nothing good for the good of others and nothing good for even themselves. When you leave school the whole world will open for you, very slowly a gap shall open up from new experiences, new opportunities, you will mature and you will find your niche, one day when the gap widens and you have something to belong to. You will leave that zoo which imprisons you and you will leave behind the ignorance and the narrow-minded arrogance of kids, to belong to your system of reality, to your rules and your own path in life. People are frightened of change, many hate anything or anyone that systematically opposes the way of the majority, simply because the differences found in another are purely incomprehensible to another. Individuality and independence is alien to an animal that secretly eats, lives and sleeps subconsciously to obey the will and creed of a fashion and a way of life imposed by the majority and the foolhardy of this life. They wilfully have no colour just to assimilate themselves into the bland, insipid grey of the many and the common. The unique and original is beyond an evolutionary standard, for every thing great excels its time and place, surpasses contemporary society and achieves a new part or particle in the overall fluctuations of humankind, the natural process and the universe itself.”

Ralph felt himself truly overwhelmed by the intellect of this man, who could ramble and debate, converse and orate for hours on end, because he had a great will to life, a great capacity, a vivacity, a raw hunger for his passions and his hobbies, his craft and his own choosing. Ralph would not even have considered himself a lightweight debater in contrast with this heavyweight champion, this confident intellectual, this introvert who could descend from his imaginative realm of literature to become the extrovert that would converse with those who could extend their interests with his

Over flowing, long enduring passion, so that mutuality could be found.

“I have enjoyed talking with you, I hope I can see you again sometime”, said Ralph with a humble smile as he shook the poets hand with a firm honourable grasp.

“You will. You know where to find me and perhaps some time if you want we can go for tea and I can show you some of my stories, they might interest you they are all about coming of age, the discovery of life, the awakening of secret passions and designs for life. I think you’ll find them inspirational because a young man like you could possibly be the central pivotal character within the story. But to tell the truth the writer and the main character are all before you, standing here, bearing testimony.”

“Well maybe, someday, when I have the time, thank you for the advice.”

“Its more than advice its wisdom, which so few can ever know.”

He pulled his hat down, so say goodbye, he smiled and when did this you could see the gold fillings in his mouth and then he immediately began to chat and flaunt himself once again to face the ebb and flow of people that passed up and down the busy city street.

Ralph casually strolled off towards the cinema, feeling confident, with his heart baring a new found glow, the words of their conversation had sunk deep within his psyche, for he would one day foster and adopt his own ambitions and desires that would carry him out of the Tartarus of his despair, from being set in a sea of confusion and having been a man with no name or identity, he would lose the inhibitions and the fetters that cut into his spirit. He would embrace the vision that he sought to become, but it would take time, it would take a long time for him to travel to his unknown destination, through hell and heaven unto the depths and heights of knowledge and truth.