book 2 - early write

There was nothing more to John than a cigarette you would discard when split by rain, wet tobacco; thought would remind him of home, those that took their time with him found refuge - but time isn’t given in a robust society lacking awareness, or perhaps not the awareness John deserved.  He sheltered none and neither did he seek.  He had the world coming to him in biblical terms, more so than most, he led the meek.   He was John.  And nobody cared.  And that suited him fine.  

John had loved and lost love like us all, been bitten, chewed and then spat to the curb.  He had enhanced and changed perception, witnessed things unimaginable, where your life would simply, inevitably yet truly never gravitate.  He was John.

'Gremlins keep the mind at bay', Rohna said, her youngest child looked up and relished the passing glance she gave, 'those pigs are everywhere, those who sold and bought the land'.  Young eyes were being taught spite and even when glossy, yet, full of nauseous disclosure; they rose, dew covered like a rain drop slowly slurped by arid land.  A microscopic lake toward a lack of urethral understanding being the case.  John barked, like a dog.

Wisely Rohna didn’t punish this and even through some deafening years from - yobbish counterparts; their flesh and blood, she stood tall and prayed to her soul that her John would die.  It wasn't to be her only cowardly act but tender minds do not intend to forgive, nor forget.

I have heard enough to know John's story, some myth, some truth - of which even his family will learn.  Not one thing from this you could not have asked John or Rohna.  They would speak of the same, yet perhaps Rohna was sent to kill a messenger.

In 1975 John was born, it wasn’t quite the blessing.  He was the sixth boy and his elder brothers ostracised his youth, as their mother fell into a spiral of pain, at not being granted a girl.  Rohna had not wanted more than one child if she were to tell the truth.  Only a girl, Serendipity.  Rohna desired and begged any listening God, yet life did everything to taint her belief in baring her dream.  This was compounded by her husbands wish to call a son John, after his father.  Nathan was their first, she was willing to try again when Tullah came along, Aidan, Liam then Kieran.  She never wanted her father in laws name taken, if only to be petty, more so she didn’t want a John, although by child six, still awaiting Serendipity, and acknowledging she could bare no more, weakly, she submitted to John.  Her chance had gone at the sixth attempt with only one the cause of her indignation and as thus, her mood changed.  John’s siblings noticed this change in mother.  And for all the times the siblings had bickered yet jousted for mothers attention whilst growing older, they unilaterally stopped.  They all had a common hatred.

John didn’t search long or hard for happy memories, he smiled whenever lost, of forgotten, as Hide and Seek had been good to him.  Either his brothers would hide and after he had pulled himself from the shuck, a festering water where he was homed to begin his search, he rolled in the grass laughing at his grateful solitude.  Acknowledging his eternal siblings had run away together, he was never to search.  And serenity would ensue until a latter time.   When not ‘it’ he would pause and observe the directions sought by the other players then take off in an antipode direction.  Over fence and near to the bottom of the family plot, he dove into the festering water and smiled in the shuck.  Time became his, never to be found, as never did his brothers seek, until the game was near over and again John had won.  The brothers broke apart with a prize now available to find their youngest sibling.  Whoever found; owned him for the day.  Yet John was never found.  Even when Tullah came close to examining the shuck, John sank under the water in desperation to preserve his solitude.   As night fell in both scenarios, knowing his absence caused no concern but a haemorrhage to spiteful pride, he could reach the out house tap and wash the dank smell of sanctuary away.  His moonlit arrival, wet and shivering played to his families perception that John had been hiding - and that he had believed they cared.  His dinner had been offered without a second thought to his brothers to share in his absence - a small price for peace.