When I was younger I invented a machine that I called ‘the supertron’. It wasn’t like any other machine that you have ever seen – for one thing, it was completely useless. It didn’t do anything; it didn’t have any function at all. You couldn’t tell me that, though! Boy oh boy you couldn’t. No way. I created the machine out of old bits of circuit board, lengths of copper wire, diodes, resistors, rheostats, and strings of capacitors all connected up in parallel. And various other bits and bobs. It was an absurdly tangled mess of unruly components, half of which weren’t even working. I was constantly redesigning the machine in accordance with ever-more complicated schematics which only I could understand. The symbols I used were my own invention and described arcane functions that I couldn’t even begin to explain to anyone else. They wouldn’t get it.

Whenever things went badly for me or someone hurt my feelings I used to retire to my bedroom and play with the machine for hours on end, convincing myself that it was performing these incredibly advanced esoteric operations that I was somehow in charge of. Eventually, in this way, I would start to feel better about myself and so I suppose you could say that there was some point to the machine after all. I remember it all as clearly as if it were yesterday. I think I must have been in my early fifties at the time.

I have matured a lot since then, I guess. I don’t live in my own little bubble any more. I’m less avoidant, less neurotic. I can deal with my problems without resorting to fantasy. Or so I tell myself anyway…

It’s better this way. Living life without the comfort zones. Toughing it out. Feeling the sting. Taking it on the chin. Keeping it real. I’m better off this way, I guess.

I’m trapped in my own head and I can’t get out. Trapped in my own head. Trapped in my own head. Trapped in my own head. And I can’t get out. That’s why I’m always telling myself stories all the time. Stories about this, stories about that, stories about the other. Stories like the one I’m telling you right now. I tell myself stories about what I might find if I ever do manage to escape from my head. Stories about what that might be like. None of which are even remotely true, by the way. They’re all just pure fantasy, same as everything else that goes on in my head.

I’m only pissing against the wind, really. I’m standing on a cliff top pissing against a Force Ten Atlantic gale.  I’m forever pissing in my own face – that’s the type of fucking ejit I am!