Anyway, so here I am trying to live out my twisted fantasy of who I think I am and what I think my life should be. And in all honesty I have to admit that it’s a grotesquely freakish mess. It is – not to put too fine a point on it – an utterly horrendous fuck up. But what else can I do other than carry on? I don’t know what else to do other than to continue acting out this ridiculous farce of who I imagine myself to be. Who I have – somehow – chosen to be.

What a hideous mockery of all that is true and honourable! But as I say I’m kind of caught because I just don’t seem to have any options. There doesn’t seem to be any alternative. Ok, I know some people will say that if I have made wrong choices along the way then I should simply learn from my mistakes and make better choices in the future. That is the ‘received wisdom’ – or whatever they call it. But all I can say is that if someone tells me to ‘try to make better choices next time’ that only proves that they don’t have the slightest clue as to what I am talking about. That only goes to show how immensely superficial and half-witted they are.

It doesn’t matter what choices I make, it’s still ME making them and ‘me’ is just a ridiculous groundless fantasy, as I have already said. ‘Me’ is just a mad notion, nothing more. A florid symptom of the dreadful insanity which I am unfortunately suffering from. Perhaps you may have some idea now of just how lost how I am. All my choices are equally nonsensical just as my underlying fantasy of ‘who I am’ is nonsensical.

“Well, why don’t you find out who you really are?” I can hear some bright spark saying. Sure. As if I hadn’t thought of that. The only problem being that there is no trace whatsoever to be had anywhere of ‘who I really am’. I’ve looked. I’ve done the research. I’ve searched high and low, far and wide, and there has never been the slightest indication anywhere of anything authentic. Nothing I do is authentic and when I search for the authentic me even this search isn’t authentic. It’s as phoney as everything else about me.

Whatever I do it is an affectation, a posture, a pretence. My interests are fads, my enthusiasms are gimmicks, my passions are pastimes. As far as I can see there is no ‘real me’. That is precisely my dilemma. I’m a big fat fake. A joke. A ludicrous clown complete with orange hair and size thirty shoes who nevertheless takes himself with the utmost seriousness. A solemn-faced pathetically self-deluding fool.

But there is more. Not only is it the case that I am completely lost in boxes within boxes within boxes of fantasy lives, it is also the case that there are devils on my tail. Every time I let up on the fantasizing I can feel these devils getting closer and – weary though I might be – I am forced to get up on my feet again to continue the race. The race to lose myself still further, as if I were not lost enough already. Although how I can lose myself when I don’t have a self to lose in the first place is a mystery to me…

Who are these devils? Are they real or are the also fantasy? My feeling on this is that they are ‘real relative to me’. They may not be properly real, but then again neither am I, and so we are on an equal footing there.

These devils are my nemesis. They are the personification of my own hideous irresponsibility and the harder I run the more vengeful they get.

And at this stage they are pretty damn vengeful I can tell you. Pretty damn heavy-duty. Like supernatural samurai warriors in deadly serious pursuit.

In World War One soldiers in the trenches used to say that there was a bullet out there somewhere with your name on it. A bullet that you can’t dodge. A bullet that is meant for you and you only. Well, these guys are my bullet. Or bullets. They probably have a platinum dog-tag hanging around their necks with my name engraved on it. Which they never take off. Not ever.

These guys exist for the sole purpose of tracking me down and bringing me to justice. They are the Avenging Furies, the Erinyes.

Perhaps you will agree with me now that I am indeed pretty screwed. “Yeah buddy,” you might say, “You’re not wrong there. You’re screwed alright.”

Well I’ve got news for you. You’re screwed too. In exactly the same way. The only difference is, you don’t know it yet…