Shades of boyhood fading

You know... I haven't always been this way.

Confession before beginning: I am drunk. Scotch this time. But the weather made me do it. You see the boiler is broken and the house is autumn-with-walls. At first I tried to envision warmer climes, hoping the memories would act as an anodyne. But now the cool air is inspiring--not frightening--me. I feel clear-minded. The cool air is a tonic. And yet I want to kill the clarity with my accomplice--a Mr. Johnnie Walker, clad in his blue blazer, his finest.

But as I was saying, I haven't always been a wild, opium-addled, absinthe-drinking, pagan-worshiping, house-womanizing, aesthete/recluse. Oh no. I was innocent once (or so I've been told). I have a few memories of my boyhood, but sadly they are no longer vivid; in fact, they are dull-hued and getting duller. I fear they may soon disappear completely. I fear it more today because last night I dreamt I ate my own child.

So, what do I remember? The forest, mostly. It was my place to hide. I sat by the stream and longed to see my reflection in the water. But alas, it was a point of immense frustration: I would look down and all I saw was murky water and some stray twigs. Narcissus I was not: in fact, I was non-existent rather than self-absorbed. But perhaps that was the beauty of the forest. It was a place where I could lose myself completely. I often visit the forest in my opium dreams. Once I dove into the water and stumbled upon Xanadu (but they would not let me in). I digress... Perhaps the forest is what drives me. It pains me that the water was not clear--it was not the water of the dreamy Golden Age.

It pains me that the forest is gone--they have since turned it into a paper mill. I have an artificial replica of the original forest on the estate, complete with a river of glass and a few animals. But it is art; it is not real. And I never should have added gibbons--at night they sound like wailing wraiths in Hell. It's quite unsettling.

I apologize for my disjointedness--my young friend on MySpace assures me it is common amongst bloggers. But what I am trying to say is that Nigel Tewksbury was born in the forest. No no no, sweet Reader, not like Tarzan. What I mean is that the boy disappeared in the forest, thus opening his mind to wild imaginings, and the creature typing these pointless, masturbatory words is the end result. Like Gibbon Forest, I am untrue, unreal. It saddens and thrills me that I have destroyed my simple boyhood and replaced it with myself, the personification of a lie.

I want to cry but can't. Instead I will finish the bottle and howl. In Latin.