Introduction
Where are you?
What a strange question to ask. Probably even a silly one. I mean, of course you know where you are... You're right here, looking down, reading these words! Now go live large your life.
However, if you're not entirely convinced (and that would make you radically different to almost everyone around you) start asking the question and live large your life.
Chapter 1
From his breath spilled infinite peace. A peace exceptional in sum. With unerring tenacity, he savored every dying moment of boundless union with enchantment, the one for whom longing had been sculptured. Though it frustrated him, enraged him and reduced him to wretchedness - even to the pitiful lows of a vagabond escaped from the ball-and-chain of insanity, running amok, naked, and unfettered, with extraordinary insouciance through the thick fog of delirium - it also lifted him into euphoria.
Every stolen encounter with it was worth all of this, all of this and more. And while it embraced him with sometimes cruel infrequency, its lure oozing with wanton provocativeness, fully knowing reciprocation was not possible - when it gave itself entirely, what bewitching etherealness brewed with small effort did it dispense. What exquisite treasure did its, enigmatic shadow reveal. What profound repose did for moments steal all firmness, subduing his burdened flesh toward the realm of nowhereness.
He groaned, mumbled and with bitter resentfulness opened his eyes. Light, the pretend-friend flooded in rapidly, like a gushing, flushing, rushing river, swirling up, down and around. Filling with itself, each crevice of night-time stillness, until another hunted and captured, suffered the same fate - sorely offending his clandestine tranquillity.
His head darkened in concert with his heart because he knew daytime had come. And daytime relished depriving him of any further intimacy. For now only the scorch of its laser-eyed scrutiny mattered, and nothing could escape it. Secretly he mourned, in a bitter state of sorrow because his most cherished, slain once again by the sword of light, was gone. Daytime had come, and had demands and wanted them met, without delay.
As his head filled with the pressure and demand of the day, he hoped that once daytime left, the one for whom he longed would return. His heart hoped further that it might temper its spite and not leave him waiting for hours as it so frequently did. And it was with hope, masked in anxiousness, that he craved its return. An alarm suddenly buzzed startling him. Daytime was starting to get on his nerves.
“Ah! My head!”
Desmond waved his arm indiscriminately. Although his eyes were open, everything around him was blurry and the alarm in its unflinching obnoxiousness continued unabated.
“Ah man! What the hell? Where’s the bloody alarm?”
He squinted, rubbed his eyes and shook his head.
“What the fu- where the hell am I? I don’t recognise this place!”
The alarm stopped abruptly. Silence, having massacred all opposition - and now regally enthroned, sat determined, suspicious and watchful. Desmond kicked the sheets away from himself and sat up in the bed. He started looking around but had absolutely no idea where he was. He looked up and noticed that the walls were dull, dirty, and grey, and that they stretched up to an absurdly high ceiling which sadly offered no aesthetic improvement.
He had no clue what the original colour might have been because the ceiling was horribly stained, cracked and crumbling, with a fuzzy infestation of dusty cob webs covering most of it. In the centre of this dilapidated symphony of decay hung a light bulb, dangling as though for dear life from a spindly wire. However, the fact that it barely emitted any light made Desmond wonder why it was there at all. He shook his head with contempt.
“What kind of damn cheap-assed place is this?”
He kissed his teeth and continued looking around. The floor was covered in junk, loads and loads of junk. Dusty cardboard boxes were piled up, one on top of the other, while bits of faded, crumpled paper littered every surface.
On one side of the grimy, oversized double bed that he found himself on was an ugly broken-down wardrobe. It looked like it had been forcefully hauled out of a rubbish dump, wiped quickly and then pushed firmly against the wall to prevent it from toppling over. On the other side, was a gnarled, splintered wooden bedside table.
At the foot of the bed stood a solid looking dark wooden desk. On top of it to the left was a thin book appearing to number very few pages while on the right side sat a huge encyclopaedic-like book. Apart from these two items, the desk looked remarkably sparse. Something quickly rose through Desmond’s mind but before it transformed from feeling to thought, he saw it in front of him.
“A mirror?” he mouthed...
