The devil is getting increasingly annoyed at my futile writing, along with my persistence to continue...................
Chris Brookes had started life as a happy child, this despite a some what turbulent beginning as he was pushed forth into the world, largely brought on by his dysfunctional mother, leaving the family home as she did at the first available opportunity. It was to be a messy conclusion to the never quite happy family that was never destined to end in happiness for anyone, particularly Chris.
With her latest boyfriend in tow, Chris' mother Flo was gone, her serial cheating had at last come to a head and John, Chris' father had finally opened his eyes. She would only emerge sometime later in frequent fits of violence upon her house visits late at night, but Chris did not want to see her.
John's eyes were opened by Chris' future step mother Terri, who made sure that she had cleared the path away for herself to move in with John, and this happened almost straight away.
Flo and Terri, had been friends of sorts, Terri was a child minder and occasionally looked after Chris. Both Chris and Terri's son Jason went to the same schools, infants and primary, and so the link between them had began.
Flo believed that Terri was a true friend, convinced that she could confide in her, giving her intimate details of all her sordid affairs, not knowing that Terri had very real designs upon John. Armed with the knowledge of all Flo's marital shortcomings, it made it so much easier to pounce, especially as the pace at which Terri and John became closer was gathering speed by the day.
And so it became that Terri moved into John and Chris' modest bungalow, along with her son Jason. Both kids were 8 years old at the time. They would share a room until their teens.
As Chris got older, he would often look back at his life and reflect, he would think about the manipulative step mother who ruined his childhood and his relationship with his father. He would think back to his first disappointment of failing his eleven plus, remembering the hope he had that somehow against all odds, he would actually pass. He remembered his step mother's delight at his failure, more so as her son had passed. The amazing drawing he had down as a child, his fathers excited interest at how good it was, and the disappointment he felt at it being a fluke, a one off, and at how quick the interest then vanished.
Often the nightmares would come, waking up in a frenzy, hot and dripping with sweat, frequently they were centred around the family home.
Chris dropped out of High School, with not a qualification to his name, this brought further untold delight to his step mother, more so as her son was heading for university. Don't leave school without qualifications, if you do you'll hate your life when your older, was a message that should of been bestowed upon Chris at an early age by his parents, but it wasn't. A series of dead end depressing jobs would await Chris as he entered adulthood. His brief triumph came some years later when he went back to evening college to gain a qualification in English language. The class was full of teens, just out of school and Chris was by far the oldest, but he stuck it out to the end and completed the year. He had always had an interest in writing, English had been his best subject during his nightmare time at secondary school. It was the only class in which he wasn't in the bottom group. A shy introverted and awkward teen, with ill fitting clothes including trousers too short for him, he would stumble to the front of the class to give the much anticipated and dreaded weekly talk to the rest of the group, nervously he would ramble on about random topics, speech fraught with terror until at last the torrid twenty minutes would come to a welcome end.
Confidence would often be lacking from Chris' life, even as he got older he struggled against the world and himself, desperately trying to gather enough certainty to get by.
By the age of sixteen, Chris had already moved from the family home in Sussex. After taking on his first job, the daily rows with his step mother had steadily increased and he eventually moved into a bedsit virtually opposite his work place, in the house of an angry senile old lady. All the abuse in the world from his new land lady, was still bliss compared to the scorn he'd suffered from his step mother. He later realised that she had hated him so because of his mother, looking at him and seeing the image of Flo stood in front of her. Chris still couldn't understand the depth of hate for a child that she had so clearly felt, and probably never would.
There was much to think about from the past that consumed Chris' mind daily. You can't get on with the future, if you don't deal with the past, was another banner that featured heavily in Chris' world. He knew this only to well. Relationships had ended badly in his life, it probably wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that all of them had suffered the same fate in the end. He put this down to him, and him alone. In his mind he was much like his mother especially in regards to relationships and partners, and somehow couldn't shake free of her self destroying hold over him. Chris had many ex partners, who couldn't overcome the issues that he had, all of them tried to pierce the barrier that he surrounded himself in, but in the end it was Chris who walked away everytime. He still thought about them everyday.
Chris was now living in Bristol and working in a call centre, the latest in a long line of dead end jobs, and one that took up most of his time, robbing him of precious hours he'll never see again. The long hours took their toll on him, draining his very being, until it was almost too hard to achieve anything else. His relationship with his parents was over long ago. Seeing his father as weak for never taking his side, or helping him in adult life, longing only for the odd phone call to check on his well being, and to Chris, his step mother was the grand destroyer of it all. Flo had come back into his life briefly at one time, but shortly after left again, as her selfishness had not wained over the years and this soon became clear in the few forgettable meetings that they shared. Placing demands upon Chris without the right to do so after so many years. Chris walked away and washed his hands of the whole family affair, content to leave each and everyone of them behind, locking them away in the past, consigned to history, which in Chris' mind was where they should stay. The past however, would often come back to haunt him, if only in his thoughts and dreams.
Chris had seemed to fight with the devil all of his life, to him it was never ending. Even the simplest of tasks appeared to be almost like moving mountains over quick sand.
Chris had reached the age of 28. One day shortly before work, whilst rushing to be on time, fearing he would be late again, he misjudged a van on the main road whilst crossing. The driver had no time to react, and Chris had no time left.
His almost lifeless body was rushed into the nearby hospital in Bristol, as he lapsed into a coma. It was at this time that Chris started dreaming about units in a compound.
TBC
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