FILE NUMBER :- 0023-0007-1953-D

                               WARNING                                 

When you live your life in a world of illusion
it is good to know which door to open
to get back to
reality.

''It's what the sign read on the way in'' ....

        
I don't know how I got to be here ....

I don't know why I am here ....
I have never been in this room before,
why am I here ....

I think the wall in front of me has just changed colour,

it has done it again ... and again ....
why am I here,   

this is not happening to me ....
maybe I am dreaming, asleep .... 
and just about now I am going to wake up,
because I realised I was in a dream .... 
I should just about be waking up now, I know this,
I have done this before,
many times .... 
just as I have dreamt before,
many times ....

I have woken up before,
many times ....

why am I not awake now ... maybe I am ....

no ... still in this dream ... still in this room, 
and that wall has just changed colour again,

there ... it's doing it again ....
I will wake up soon ....
that I know ....
what dream does my mind hold to lure me from this room,
when my mind abides nowhere,
but this room is not so bad,
not like some of the other rooms I have been in ....
maybe for eons,
it has a nice smell ....

smells like Lilac,
I love the sound of that word,

'Lilac'....
and the smell of that pale reddish purple flower,

the white is nice too but it was always the purple flower that did it for me ....

oh ... that wall ... all walls, 
they now have the lilac colour ....
think blue,

now it has changed to blue ....
 think green,

think forty shades of green ....
I now have forty shades of green in front of me,
swaying in and out that I feel I am 'connected' by origin
to the rain-forest with all this green in and around me ....

smells like it too,     
'Connected' .... 
heat and dampness hanging thick in the air,
that I feel I am being,  
suffocated ....

don't like that word, 
'suffocated' ....
feels as it sounds,
suffocating,    
STOP ....  
change that thought ....

Lilac ....
that's better,

now I have smell and colour ....
think red,    
   now I have colour and heat,         

I know what's happening now ....
at-this-time-in-this-dream-in-this-room,
my thoughts become the reality,
reality in the illusion and that I have all my senses ....

have to be extra-extra careful here with my thoughts,
and what could happen,    

my own thoughts could be the 'death' of me now,   

my thoughts are my reality in the illusion ....

as I think there go 'I' ....

my thinking is not done by proxy .... 
it's done by me,
as nothing exists apart from my mind ....

I have always done my own thinking and therefore
'I' feel 'I am' ....
leaving nothing behind, 
this is where thought is useless,     
for there is nowhere which is outside the mind ....

'Proxy',   
sounds dirty, proxy ....

tell me you don't feel dirty when you say it ....

'proxy' ...
for such a small word with a dirty feeling to it,

it carries a lot of power when put into action ....
evil comes to the mind,
but in the mind can be destroyed ....

a nice thought now,   
 before I go down too far on that road
where I might find myself lost and not able to get back
to where ever I came from .... 
but there is nowhere outside of my mind,

now that I know I can do anything and that the only limits are set by my own thoughts ....

this is the action of using my mind to produce thoughts,
or convert symbolic responses to stimuli ....
a broken mind will never reflect again,
unless you cherish an idle thought, 

which brings to mind ....
'Virtual' ....

so can I tell myself that the virtual memory of my mind is allowing me to interact with my thoughts that are producing a virtual image that has the experience of being in a very real environment but created with my, 

I would prefer to believe and do I have a choice, 

my Subconscious Mind ....
for I have forgotten what I have learned,  
but I practice what I will learn,

and that allows me to interact in causing changes,

not just 'changes',
but permanent changes,

as in physical state and mental state of mind

as I see fit .... 
and do I have control over my destiny,

or is this a virtual game we are taken part in
unknown to ourselves ....
The Illusion .... 

I think I can tell myself that,
as best as I see it for now 

but all that could very well change,

like the thoughts that go with the emotions

that can bring on the thoughts,
like the bells that make no sound, 

a virtual revolution of thoughts is having the essence or effect but not the appearance or form of the species

Homo Sapiens,
but that which is you in all it's glory and fullness ... complete,      
The Reality ...The Illusion, 

which brings to mind,   
'Virtue' ....

we cannot have Homo Sapiens walking around without  virtue,   
they go hand in hand,

like Jack and Jill going up the hill .... 

but you remember what happened to Jack and Jill,

they fell down from the hill .... 

was it vice that brought Jack and Jill
down from the hill of Eden ....
stirred by the tempest of delusion ....
could very well have been,   
vice .... if not .... 
virtue had the 'Upper Hand' ....
where we return to our origin,
where all things are viewed as One,
The Reality .... 

which brings to mind,   
'Vice',

the dark side of virtue .... 

destiny could mint a coin with the imprint of
virtue on one face and vice on the opposite face
and for each Homo Sapien
tossed the coin to decide on their
'life's journey' ....

virtue or vice ....
The Reality ....

I have Lilac in smell and in colour all around me,

I can assume I am now in my
'Comfort Zone',   
The Illusion ....

'Zone' ....
nice sounding word,  

has the 'feeling' when you say it,
as if in dragging it out into one long tone,
that you could use it in relaxing the mind
from all it's thoughts ....
zoneeeee .... 
The Illusion .... 

a white dove flew across the blue sky
and I thought how orderly the Universe is ....
 The Reality ....

How did I get here ....

 and where is 'here' ... this room ....

am I standing, sitting or lying down ....
can't tell,

I just know that I am here in this room that's like a box,

no windows no doors ....
will I live for a hundred years of my future life
in this room ... there is,
only-this-hour-in-this-day-in-this-time 
there is nowhere which is outside the mind,
The Reality .... 

so I can assume I am in my 'space',
created by my mind ....
that maybe I am 'dead' to all,
for peace of mind is disturbed 
for no purpose to be gained
the activities of the mind 
The Reality ....
and rid myself of conceptual thought
I can accomplish all things,
like the bird in the cage today
 tomorrow flying above the clouds
like the mind set free
and I am now in a state of transition,
nothing exists apart from mind   
that is where 'I am' ....  
in 'transition',     

moving from one 'state-of-mind' into another ....
eternally changing in this perfect contentment
of my Ignorance,
having no form or appearance,

now I know my physical state is 'dead',
and there is nowhere that I cannot go,
but my mind is 'alive' ....
nothing exists apart from mind,
this pure mind the source of all things 
for there is nothing to be attained outside of the mind,
the result is a state of 'non-being' 
if this were realized or attained 
 then I can call myself arrogant
for I cannot suppress my mind from all thinking
in that my thoughts are controlling the situation for the

'Continuous Transition'
of stepping into yet another  
  'Virtual Game', 
life and death continue endlessly 
within a thousand worlds complete in my mind

and I stepped out from one frame into another
in a flash of thought into the dense mist
and prepare to do battle with the tempest of delusion
and trust my natural responses ...
realise the source
eternally present
it flows through all things
for all things vanish into it
both inside and out and returns to the origin of all 
through it all things are done
like all rivers flow into the sea
with the wind against the wind
 'I go',
beyond the voidness
into the beginning
 and after 
 I return to the origin
and remain where I have been
the activities of the mind have no limit 
for all it's contents are reflected in the mind
the mind is the mind because of this
like the moon in the lake
which has no surface nor no reflection
for no traces are left where I walk
 for everything is mind-made 
are of one-mind and nothing else
understand this fact
and all delusions are removed
for all things are the manifestation
of the essence of mind
 'I can' .... 

                                             WARNING
                   File Number :- 0023-0007-1953-D

Reality is not about putting mankind into the illusion but putting the illusion into mankind .. there is nowhere which is outside the mind .... Enjoy.

''It's what the sign read on the way out'' ....

GUILT OF A MACHO-MAN

The News ....

     ''Did you hear the news that's going on the rounds here today.?''

     ''Hear what news, I only got here now. I got held up in traffic trying to get out in time for that fishing trip we talked about .... and in my mad rush to get here I nearly ran over a stupid dog too, lying out in the middle of the road as if he owned the whole freaking patch .... stupid dog, when I think about it now, maybe he was waiting for somebody to come along and put him out of his misery ..... remind not to lie down in the middle of the road ....

you know how close I was to hitting him ..... I .....''

     ''Hey, forget about the stupid dog or I will help you myself out onto the road ... our 'fly-boy', he has not been seen for the last two days.

No-where to be found ... or that seaplane of his.''

     ''So.!''

     ''So ... what do you mean 'so' ... 

it's not like him. He took that plane of his out after doing some repair work on the engine and he has not made radio contact since he put it's nose into the air, which is not like him and it's not playing the game by the rules. You know that, he knows that and we all know that'' ....

''So .... flew into the deep blue horizon did he.?''

     ''This is no freaking-joking-matter we've got here. The coast guard has been called out, and have, that I know off, reported finding nothing as of yet.''

     ''Ohh shit .... sorry .... 
I thought you were joking. We had arranged to go fishing today, just him and me, I was wondering why he didn't phone to remind me of the time we were going out in that boat of his, he said he would phone me but he didn't. I knew he was working on the plane. He was saying he wanted to take a long trip, didn't say where he was going to me.''

     ''This is not like him at all.
It's a bit if a 'Bermuda Triangle' mystery at the moment until we hear from the coast guard.''

     ''You don't think he really did fly off into the deep blue horizon ... do you.?''

     ''Don't say things like that .. but I don't know. 

That plane of his could have ditched, he could have run out of fuel, lots of things could have happened.

Don't forget it was an old two seater seaplane he rescued and spent all his spare time and cash on from the metal crusher.

Look .. all I am saying here is, he was an experience pilot over thirty years flying from 'dust croppers' to combat to hauling commercial. If I know 'fly-boy' I would put my money down on that he knew what he was doing, he knew so well, and if he did do it,
fly off, it was .... let's say, premeditated.''

     ''What you mean ... he knew what he was doing, how can you say that.?''

     ''Well, he wasn't himself the last month or so,

now was he ... truthful, even you were saying it. 

I thought he would come around and say something to me but  you know how he is, only talks when he's in the mood or has something to say and it will be in that boat of his, if he has anything to say. 

It's like the 'freaking-floating-confessional-box' on water, that boat. Him up front with pole in the water, beer in hand and talking away as if he was the only one in the boat, never looking back to see if you were paying attention to what he was saying, and never asking for your own opinion ... 

like he cared less.''

     ''Yeah ... sure, but that's the way he was, you know that ... how long have we been friends.?''

     ''Did he say anything to you the last time you were out with him in that boat.?''

     ''Funny you should bring that up ...

I mean, him saying anything to me. 

About a week ago we were out fishing in the 'confession-box', you know it has more repairs on it than an old shoe, well he kept talking on-and-on about his time flying in Nam.

Never stopped on about it, but as soon we came on shore again he shut up ...

 no more was ever said about it, so I gave it no more thought on my part. Just at that time he wanted to get it off his chest, real bad like, you know how he is .. getting moody in his old age too.''

     ''Yeah, I know ... what did he say, tell me.?''

     ''I forget most of it now, as I said, I gave it no  more thought.''

     ''Come on man ... remember, try to remember, it might be important. It could very well explain what is happening now to him, the state of mind he might be in too. I know we said we would not talk about those days when we were in Nam together flying. We just got on with what we have here when we got back, trying to keep our own shit together and not going off the rails all together with it.''

     ''Well you know he was flying napalm all that time of his duty out there. He use to say it was just like flying a 'dust cropper' ... it was getting rid of the termites in their 'dug-outs' ...

it was how he handled it. We all needed to justify what we were doing and that was his way with it .... 'justifying' .. that is.''

     ''What brought that shit on now at this time of his life, Christ All-Mighty man ... we can't live forever and who wants to anyway, we have seen and done enough for two life times, I want no more part in it, I will be happy to move on when my time comes.''

     ''I think it might have been some 

in-your-face documentary on T.V. he saw recently about that 'damned-war-from-the-start'. So easy now for them to talk about it in the open, like we are all buddie-buddie about it.

He told me it jogged back the memories like 'real time' clicking in and maybe the nightmares too and God knows what other shit he was holding out on.

It all came up and out like vomit and the bad after-taste was still there in every word he spoke, if you ask me he was starting to lose it altogether.''

     ''That just might qualify for a 'suicide-run' in that seaplane. Might want to go out like his famous name sake, James Dean, the actor.

The right man in the wrong place at the right time for young American adults who wanted their own

'Rebel-Hero'.''

     ''James Dean did not commit suicide,

I have you know. It was an on-coming car making a turn that crossed into Dean's lane and ran into him, head on, bang-crash. That driver of that car was the wrong man in the wrong place in the wrong car. He lived on till an old age but never talked about it, not to nobody. I often think at times how destiny steps in and surprises us when least expected. 

Three movies I think, Dean made and then life pulls the 'joker' .... dead ... what a waste.''

     ''Jeez, now it clicks in my mind as to why he called that sea plane of his 'Rebel-Spyder' and me thinking it was to do with his Ego .... and maybe it was.

James Dean was driving at the time of his death a Porsche 550 Spyder .. 

if I remember correctly now... and his most celebrated movie was ... let me think .. yes ..

'Rebel Without a Cause',

made him a cultural icon, and what was the year he died in now .. remind me on this one.?''

     ''It was September 30th 1955.

Yes ...'55, I will never forget that date,

it was also the year my old man died, fell into the water-well at the back of our house and drowned, poor bastard, drunk out of his mind on bourbon ... 

that's how I remember the date, plus, it was also the year Dean starred in the movie 'Rebel' ...

that's how I know all this stuff about James Dean and about the 'Rebel' date.?''

     ''Our 'fly-boy' .... James Jack Dean told me while we were out fishing in that 'confession-box',

how he was living in the shadow of Dean and using his name and name sake throughout his life to get his way, it was a game to him he got caught up in and he just kept it up to the extent it was hard to tell the difference between reality and the illusion ...

but every man has a story to tell and that's his.''

     ''Pass me a beer .... so your old man fell down a water-well ... that's interesting .... 

my mother walked off a bridge one night leaving my old man to bring six of us up, from eight to six months, and going through the rest of his miserable life blaming himself for it ... never got over it.

Nobody could give a reason as to why she did do it at the time ... but now they can say it was postnatal depression but you can just never tell with people why they take their own lifes ... can be a shit life,
that's my story .... 

boo, do I get my beer now.''

The Story ....

     James Jack Dean Sr. named his first son, James after his own father and James Jack Dean grew up in a some-what happy childhood. When he reached his teenage years he was more 'happy' with-in his life, swapping baseball cards and girls and sometimes not in that order. 

The baseball cards was a passion that will go with him into life.
The girls, well ... they were just there,

like birds can fly. 

 For the girls, they were out on a date with 'James Dean' and when 'Rebel Without a Cause' was on celluloid and showing in the drive-in's, well, life became even more interesting for our 'fly-boy'. He took it on personal-like to live up to his name sake and be 'The Rebel'.

The male homo-sapiens he always came up against in life gave him a more rough time over it .. 

but he could look after himself. They were jealous of 'fly-boy' and most of the time tried to pick fights with him, to rearrange his natural 'Marlboro Man' looks about his face, and you know what, he did look like the 'Marlboro Man' up on the billboards. 

He had that 'cowboy' look, the out-door tan, the cloths, the horse, the cigarette in hand and that silly grin on his face as if he knew the 'secrets' of all life was to be found way out on the open range with a cigarette in hand, horse under your butt and grinning away to yourself ... not a worry in the world.  

How many men day-in day-out looked at those

larger-than-life billboards while in traffic jams wishing they were the real 'Marlboro Man' ... 
free and easy. 

How many men and women took up smoking because of the 'Marlboro Man' on the billboard looked a nice guy, friendly and ... 
free and easy. 

What if the 'Marlboro Man' was a homo-sapien-homo-sexual-out-on-the-range ... 
free and easy, 

well nothing wrong with that, and maybe that's why he was 'grinning' but our James Jack Dean,

'fly-boy', was 'Macho-Man' himself,

one hundred present through-out, the all true American 'Macho Man', no butt

kissing here ... no sir. He was driven with a desire, a real inbuilt passion to prove his manhood 
by doing what all 'macho men' do-do,
 and that was ... flying planes,
like as if there is no fear and no tomorrow.   The word 'fear', no matter how hard you 

try, is not to be found any where in the 
vocabular sounds of 'Macho-Man'.

Confrontation of the moment,

that's what 'macho men' do ....

Confrontation of the moment. 

The girls knew that and the men could see it too,

like hunting dogs smelling the wind for the kill but destiny gave 'fly-boy' the name and the 'looks' to go with it and he did not let destiny down, let alone

'The' James Dean ...

he will not be turning in his grave. 

     ''I rode into life on a horse called Destiny'' ...

is what he would say when he had a few beers, like hell the beer reminded him. You know the funny-thing is, now that I think of it ...

our 'fly-boy' never smoked in his entire life, not even 'grass' let alone rode a horse called 'Destiny', or any bloody horse for that matter, the only saddle he was in was .... well you can guess that one for yourself.''

James Jack Dean loved flying, no disputing that, hence his nick-name 'fly-boy'. It was his 'reason for being' and fishing too, flying and fishing and also 'fishing' in it's broader sense.

Anything 'fly-boy' had a passion for began with the letter 'F' ... full stop. 

It also cost him dearly two marriages. Away from home most of the time flying and what with his good looks and name .. it played on his wife's minds, both of them at the time, that his now ex-wife's had good reason to be concerned. So things soon came apart no matter what was said to try to patch things up ...

but it was the women who were not married to him tended to stay longer.

     ''Good baseball cards in good condition were more easy to find than the woman who could live with me  and understand me'' ....

he always would say it, believing in the truth of his own words.

He never spoke about his combat-flying but he lived with the memories and the nightmares that visited him like old friends as he got older, and as he got older he got worse.

It was all coming in on him. The nightmares became more alive to him, like he was inside a war game. He dreaded dying in his sleep in his bed ... 

he had a real fear about that one. He always wanted to 'go' in 'Rebel-Spyder' his seaplane, he would say this joking with the boys but they knew he was not joking. He said it too often for it to be a joke anymore. 

They knew him too well for that sort of thing not to have some truth in it and it now looks like he made the truth into a fact, and fact into reality and reality into the stuff legends are made off. He became his own hero. He was making the James Jack Dean 'real life movie'. His was his own writer, producer, director and leading macho-man-star ....

he was calling the shots and death was going to be no surprise to him ...

it was not going to take him in one of his nightmares,

nightmares he was living-out into daytime. 

He was now his own God and he was going to have the last say, well at least that's how he saw it as to how he was going to die.

The coast guards arrived back into port with James Jack Dean in a black body bag, all zipped up and sometime late into the afternoon. They found his seaplane bobbing up and down like a cork in the water, empty on fuel and with him still strapped in his seat starting to feed the fish, three days after he took off in 'Rebel-Spyder'. 

There was an autopsy done on the body of James Jack Dean and it was found when they opened him up he was eaten inside with cancer like rust eating away at metal only it was his insides but if that was not enough to deal with and the truth be known by medical science .... guilt too.

Guilt with a capital 'G'.

The type of guilt you can flog yourself with over and over where the scares never heal over, but the doctor's could not find that one, the big 'G'.

They could find the big 'C' but not the big 'G', but his fishing buddies did and knew about the big 'G' a long time ago, well before he knew he had it himself.

It was not the cancer that flew the little two seater seaplane that day but a bigger disease called

'Guilt'. It was 'guilt of a macho-man' that had the controls of the seaplane 'Rebel-Spyder'. It was 'Guilt' that flew out into the horizon that sunny day ...

that day ... September 30th.

By all accounts and these are only other peoples opinions .... James Jack Dean was just in the wrong place on the wrong date at the wrong time ..... 

Or was he ....

The End ....

     'Rebel-Spyder' sank to the bottom of the ocean, the perfect resting place for a seaplane. 

It's owner, James Jack Dean
was put to rest in mind and body in the

'Confession-Box',  

the boat whom he shared his 'guilt' with and did all his 'soul-searching' in. 

   

And the legend of James Jack Dean, 

a.k.a. 'fly-boy', a.k.a. 'Macho-Man'...

It may not go into history like James Dean the actor and become the stuff what legends are made off but it will live on in the earth's 'energy' as his contribution to mankind for the greater good, guilt or no guilt, just like all human beings before him and will do after him, making their own legends and contributions to the world and humanity, it's all about Destiny,

take it or leave it .... free and easy.


''Destiny ...
 is not about getting what you want,
it's about wanting what you have got,
for each of us is the author of our own
Destiny.''

  

THE FINAL REJECTION

                                                         For all who feel ...

Even as a caterpillar, when coming to an end of a blade of grass, reaches out to another blade of grass and draws itself over to it, in the same way the Soul, leaving the body and unwisdom behind, reaches out to another body and draws itself over to it.

Upanishads

   The First Rejection

It was raining heavily with some biting cold sleet mixed  into it just for good measure on that gray winter Irish October Sunday morning when and after agonising days of thinking about it Maureen Roe took the noon city train to visit her parents in the small sea-side-resort-village on the coast. Before she was married she made this journey many times to a job she had for a couple of years now in the civil service in the city. She went straight from secondary school  into this good paying  job that any young woman starting off a working career were trying their damnedest to get into. The country was on the 'up' and it needed an intelligent workforce to 'back it'. The then government was going to 'drag' the country by the neck into the 'real world'. The civil service was the place to be if you wanted to be 'involved' in the making of the  new country. It gave the promise of the  secuirty of having a job for life and a pension at retirement.  At this time men dominated the work force but for the young career minded woman the civil service was the place and Maureen Roe was on the move up, she had a future and she believed in the future .... and then she got pregnant. It was not planned.

The journey from the city takes under an hour along the coast line looking out to the cold gray-blue Irish Sea.  The railway system was at it's best now because people used and depended on the trains ... if you owned a car it was a sign you too were in good 'shape' financially and were on the move.  The train pulled into the small  light gray coloured granite station on the coast ... and on time. Familiar faces were now around her, it was where she grew up, nodding to her with smiles and some hinting on the smile across their faces knowing she was back to visit her parents. It was a small community of people living in the sea-side-resort-village that boasted off it's fine golf course and long clean white sand beaches.  By the time she got back on the return train to the city most of the villagers would have known she was there. As Maureen Roe walked in the rain that could sting over the small hump-back bridge made from the same stone as the railway station and that crossed over the railway line she could see her parents house all of the time and it's light blue front door standing out like a welcome beacon she takes in a deep breath  of sea air realising how much she really missed this place she grew up in and thought she would never get out off.  A small single storey cottage with pebble dashed walls and tiled apex roof ... what was called a labours-cottage, facing a decent green area with the dark green painted water hand-pump that supplied the surrounding cottages with their water for all of their needs. There was no running water or bathroom inside the small cottages where large families were brought-up in cramped space of two bedrooms and like most of the inhabitants turned one of the rooms in the front of the house to make a third bedroom. living space was tight and hard for the women who raised families of up to ten. Water was carried from the outside pump several times in the day depending on the demand in galvanised buckets.  The pump freezed up in the winter months and that brought it's own problems for the inhabitions but this  was solved by each house having their own large out-door water barrels that would collect rain water from down pipes running off the roof of the cottage and when winter came it was just a matter of braking the ice on the top of the barrel and fishing your bucket in to bring out the water. The toilet was housed in a small out-house that needed to be emptied by hand several times during the week and deposited into a dug-out pit at the bottom of a very long garden which all of the cottages had  where vegetables were grown to supply each cottage it's own basic needs and all cottages kept their own hens and some even kept pigs and a cow for milking. It was a time when men did a days work if they could get it on the large local farms that supplied the city with it's vegetables and local fruits when in season before the imported stuff got a hold on  the market and came home to to do a few hours in the garden before nightfall and then most went to the  pub .. there was always money for stout. 

Now standing on the concrete step with it's mat for wiping your shoes before entering at the light blue front door with the key in the lock ...  Maureen  was feeling  nervous. The front door was never locked, it was a time when people just 'knocked' and walked in announcing themselves,  a time when during the summer months the front door was left open all day and only locked at night.

Her mother was not expecting her, they had no phone, none of the houses had land-line phones and communication was by letter or passed by word-of-mouth. For Maureen to be standing in the small kitchen with it's cream coloured walls and it's deep farmhouse-sink where many a child was bathed and all other washing facilities of the cottage was carried out in on a Sunday without her new husband, her mother felt something was wrong and reached for the green pack of  'Major' and another cup of strong tea, one of many for the day ... 'Major' and tea, the 'poor' woman's Valium. Maureen came straight out with it and told her mother she was pregnant after a couple of months of marriage. She was happy with the good news and it would be her third grandchild whom she had more time for then maybe she had for her own children because she hadn't the worry of feeding and caring for them ... but she also could see Maureen was not happy with her new situation in life, and the rest of the day was spent with cups of tea and in mother counselling daughter who did not want to  give up her independence and career. Maureen's mother was a strong willed woman who had seen enough troubled times in her own life what with practically rearing her own family on her own for her husband who worked on the railways was gone for all of the day and when his working day was finished he liked his stout. His time was spent in the company of hard men working on railway lines. From a days work to the pub then to the garden and maybe back to the pub for the last 'one', this was the routine through out their life and the life Maureen was brought up in. Her father was a hard man by the life he lead but would soften to a 'gentle giant' in old age and the past was not spoken about, not even between themselves.

Maureen's mother stood at the light blue front door, her eyes misting up watching her daughter walking back towards the train station to catch the 5:30 back to the city. Daughter turned and looked back at her mother with tears in her eyes, and the fetus in side her body knew it was rejected. It was the 'first rejection' and many more were to come as reminders of the first rejection through out the child's  life and into adulthood.  If a woman could abort her baby by 'thought'  Maureen was doing it and did so till the bitter end. This child was not in her 'plan-of-plans'.  It was not wanted .... not wanted.

  Many Rejections To follow

Simon was born on a hot July night at 2:30am. It was a long and difficult labour for mother and son and Simon so much so that he will be reminded of the 'details' of the birth in graphic detail from a young age right into adulthood even when he himself will be married and when ever his mother got the chance, regardless of who was listening,  she would remind him of the 'trouble' he was and pain he gave her when he was being delivered into this world. 

When Simon finally decided to give up the 'fight' and come 'out' there were some problems and he was placed in an incubator for two days. It was a breech-birth and there was another problem too, his small ears had not opened up. They were like two small pink rose buds waiting to open but only when the time was right for him.  As mysteriously as they were closed they began to open. It was four months before they finally did open and just as well for Simon, because the doctors were advising his parents on an operation to open them for they feared that if  it was left to late it could affect his hearing in the future and besides the skin could graft together. It was not a physical problem that his ears had not opened up but Simon's way of protecting himself in the womb from not hearing the 'words of rejection' of his mother. Simon would not take to the milk of his mother at first but his survival instinct 'kicked in'  if he was going to live but the taste of her milk just added to what he already knew when he was inside her womb, that he was not wanted. The milk was already sour to his sensitive taste  but  the 'harm' was already done,  imprinted like some code into his conscious and subconscious mind for his entire life time, so much so that he would find it very difficult to be in the some room as her without him feeling sick or nausea.

Simon did not speak his first words until he was after two years old and it was already assumed from this that he would be a 'slow leaner' but something he did learn very fast at this time and it would stand to him for the rest of his life from watching his mother was ... 'body-language'.  By the time Simon was one and a half  years old he had a brother and four more siblings were to follow over the space of eight years. He knew from a younger age that favouritism was given to the others and that he was to become the 'punch bag' for his mother both physical and mentally. His father worked long and hard hours in the printing industry. Then got his brake and opened his own business specialising in printing 'bill-boards' and had the new market to himself for many years. The hours were long and hard and extra-so due to the smell of print fumes on the 'print floor' and the noise from the print presses was another problem, but it was the time when industry safety was not in the workers and employers agenda.  Over the years working conditions did improve for the employees but back then people did  die due to their working environment.  Simon's father, who felt he was already doing his part for his family by keeping a roof over their heads and giving them a yearly family holiday in some beach resort in the country that he, and just like Maureen's father before him, left the rearing of children  to his wife.  He was doing his part by providing a good home in a safe district on the out-skirts of the city but was 'blind' in being a 'father' to his children and came later in life to realize it but was too late now in  life to undo what was already done.

Simon, as a child would seek the 'comfort' of his father, when he was at home but who was not there when he went to bed and was not there when he woke up. It was not a relationship where father and son shared 'thoughts' but his father had a 'closeness' for Simon but this 'closeness' would reverse later in both of their lives and would always be coming from Simon till and after the day his father died.

Simon attended a government national school which was over crowded and stressful for the teachers to teach in, in that if you could not keep up you got left behind and Simon got left behind. He left that school with no papers to his credit to show for his seven years there. He failed the National exam and was barley able to read, but he had other talents to his credit. He was good at drawing and a keen eye for color, but these were not provided for in the school curriculum and were not encourage or given any amount of praise by his mother. When he had shown her something he had drawn her remark was that he had 'traced' it from some book. Simon was use to her put-downs of him but he was trying to win her affections and only gave up trying  later on in his life. Simon entered vocational school at the age of twelve ... a school were along with the basic school subjects you got the basic training for a trade. On the first day of enrollment the classes were assigned to each pupil on their National exam results from their previous school. Simon was assigned to the bottom level in all classes. Simon being shy and with-drawn and as regarding his 'safety' he had a better chance of surviving in prison than he had in that school. They were a tough four years for Simon while he was there and he made few friends but the 'bullies' of the school liked him, he was easy pickings and each day was a survival for him apart from trying to learn something apart from avoiding the kicks and thumps from the 'bullies'.  His mother did not want to know about it but  he did make one friend by the name of Owen Doyle. Owen came from another school, a 'posh' school and looked out of place due to his 'good' cloths and even by his good clean looks. Owen seemed to have a better upbringing than the other so-called students but Owen and Simon became good  friends. They recognised they were both 'outsiders' ... you could say. He was the first 'true friend' Simon had but it did not last more than two years due to  Owen's destiny and him trying to 'fit-in'.  Owen, like the initials of his name O.D'ed and Simon was with-out a 'friend'. Simon left this school in the same way he came in ... with nothing. He failed the exams for obtaining any sort of 'good chance' in getting a decent job or moving on to third level education and so moved on and out and into the world as he was, unequipped, and from here on it depended on his faith in life.

His brother got a better shot at life. He attended a semi-private co-ed school in a better part of the city and for most of the kids attending that school their parents were wealthy and he was mixing with a better 'type' of people. He had lots of friends and was already familiar with girls company long before Simon was and because of all of this his brother treated Simon as 'different' and the divide had already opened up between them ... never to be 'brothers' again. It also applied to the rest of the siblings, like a bad dose of cancer on a rampage through the body eating away anything that was 'good' and therefore the family was never close then or ever will be later on in life. Love was never on the agenda, that was a 'four-letter' word. Simon was in and out of jobs to try to make a go of it on his own but he liked the printing and had excellent color-sense  and Simon therefore was drafted into work with the family business. The hours were long and the days were longer and time off was scarce. It was slave labour 'approved' because it was a family business. Simon was a good worker and worked hard for his father, it was the longest and closest time he had ever spent with his father, but it was a boss and employee relationship they had. There were times when father and son relationship did brake the spell but it was rare. The years passed by and Simon build up the expanding business until one day Simon confronted his father as to what would happen to the business if  he, the father, was to die and he was going to die with 'complications of the heart' {what a nice way to say stress}.. the short answer that he gave was ''it will be divided up between with the rest of the family''. Simon was not prepared to be a 'slave' to the rest of the family for the rest of his time, especially to his two sisters who one day will have husbands of their own, and therefore walked out with nothing to show for all of his years of work for the 'family'. At this time Simon's first marriage broke down. She turned out to be a living, walking, breathing replica of his mother. Two 'doors' had now closed in his life at the same time. There was no children and it was easy for them to go their separate ways. He was now on his own ... totally.

As the years moved on Simon remarried and became a self-educated-man in the ways of the world and in all he liked. Read on all topics and subjects and was well equipped to hold his own  place in conversations with people who were highly educated or specialists in their own fields. His love and passion for painting was his 'life-saver' and all his 'free' time was given to his painting. Simon became a 'specialist' too in print and had his own small business that was the favourite amongst the artist's both in his own country and abroad for reproducing their paintings in print ... sometimes it was hard to tell the original from the print that it was said Simon was ahead of his time when it came to reproducing color into print ... but it will all change.

Simon's second marriage for the first couple of years was a long 'honeymoon' until their first son was born and then Simon was delegated to second place. Three more sons arrived and Simon was 'demoted' to the bottom in all things. Maybe a good mother but a bad wife, their was no balance and she forgot who was bringing in the money ... but for the sake of his sons Simon kept it all together, until .....

Simon, like his father before him worked hard and tried to be fair in giving each of his four sons equal time as a father and son relationship. Trying to keep the business running and a 'trying relationship' between his wife who now had other interests in 'new-age things and beliefs'  was starting to show all the signs on the road to another failed marriage. In all of this time Simon's mother was still alive but his father died in his early sixties, to early for him to go, but the mother will live on for another twenty four years without the man she kept reminding people that she could not live without. Over time it all became to much for Simon to bear that he signed everything over to his now ex-wife and left enough for his sons future education that even his solicitor said he was being to generous. Simon wanted no more guilt to bear in his life, he already had more than enough indoctrinated into him throughout his life that left it's 'mark' on him from his mother. It was going to be hard for him to 'forgive'.... and he may never be able to totally free himself ... for the mind has it's own way of reenacting the memories. 

  The Final Rejection

Simon moved on and lost contact to his own sons not due to him not trying to keep in contact  but them being brain-washed by others and by their own mother ... the vicious circle continued. It was not planed by human intention but planed by destiny's 'grand-plan' in all things.  The years passed by and Simon was back on his 'feet' and standing proud in his own achievements ... and then the news came. ''Your mother has died''.  It came by text and sent by a friend who kept in touch with Simon. His 'flesh and blood' family made no contact to inform him of their mother's death, but when it did come to him it came by text by his ex-wife with exactly the same words, ''Your mother has died'' ... nothing more. Not a word on how or anything else related to her death or when the funeral will be taking place. Simon did not return for the funeral, he already predicted many years back that when that day comes around no matter where he was he will not be there ... the past hurt was too deep, even to stand at her grave-side.

Some weeks passed and Simon sent off an e-mail to his father's solicitor in knowing that his deceased mother would not change solicitor, he was a family 'friend' and besides she had no reason to be changing solicitor and starting all over again on old ground.

Simon was curious as to how his deceased mother divided up the 'cherry cake'  though he had his own 'feelings' on it he still had the right to know ... being 'flesh and blood'.  His first e-mail was not answered and two weeks passed and still no answer. He started sending e-mails until he received an answer ... and it finally came, like this .....                           

Simon,

Thank you for your email. This is the first one I have received. I received it yesterday and am now catching up on my emails. My father has retired from the practice and your email to him will not have been read.

I am acting in the administration of your mother’s estate. Ann is the Executor. At this stage, only she can direct whether the contents of the will should be revealed to anyone or whether someone should be provided with a copy. She has asked me to confirm to you that while your children are mentioned in the will, you are not. She is not prepared to furnish a copy of the will to you. Ultimately, when a Grant of Probate is extracted, it will become a document of public record and you can get it from the Probate Office.

I hope this answers your queries.

Norman Friel

Managing Partner

Peter J. Freil and Company

Solicitors

It was the final rejection, the final cut and the deepest for Simon. A 'premeditated message' sent from her grave. She wanted to have the 'last word' and  she got it, but maybe not, for time will tell.  Simon was born into this world knowing he was not loved and he will leave this world never knowing his mother except for the hurt she passed onto him but from Simon's experience of such negative feelings he is conscious of  it's vicious cycle and will not live by example.

''Count your blessings and not another's

 for there will be times when you may think

 you can't have your cake and eat it ...

but sometimes you can ...  
for salvation comes from within.''

daf