Back when I was eight (again) I slept awkwardly one night, twisting my spine
so it ran from left to right. I spent many minutes seeing specialists, and
all of them advised me to stop being a whiny bitch and cope with the pain,
then to sleep reversely awkwardly to send it back from whence it came. My
horizontal spine is but an agonising memory deep in the recesses of my
troubled mind. My back muscles are slightly less agonised than the spinal
memory, but far less recessed, and reside in the bit of my mind about 3-5
inches nearer the stem from the amygdala that is just that smidge less
troubled than the rest. My poor darling back muscles have had to stretch as
far as they could without snapping, and then traipse sheepishly home to
suffer the viscous glower of those they left behind.
Back when I was nine (again) my back still hurt. Back when I was ten (again)
my back still hurt. Back when I was eleven (again) my back still hurt, but I
had fear of a European war weighing heavily upon my mind. Back when I was
twelve (again) my back still hurt, and I had taken to sleeping on golf
courses because my bed stank of piss. Back when I was thirteen (again) my
back still hurt and I'd been moved on from every golf course within walking
distance of my house - a year's worth of golf courses at least: I was a
rather speedy walker when I was thirteen (again). In search of a urine-free
sleep I was having to travel further than I realistically could sustain,
both economically and temporally, but I had the backing of a mysterious
criminal who had taken a fancy to me before vanishing off to Australia to
become Vice-Pope. He would send me money, sweets, and pictures of him naked
bar a saucy little cockmitre; once he sent me a time machine which I didn't
abuse and implode all those continuum things, I just used to get me to golf
courses around the world quicker than a plane or my feet would. The money
paid for time machine fuel, and of course I sold the sweets and pictures to
unsuspecting computer game designers and spent that money on sweets.
Back when I was fourteen (again) my back stopped hurting. The 17th green at
Sioux Clay Pot City Falls City Municipal Whites and Blacks and All People
Only Even Women Golf Course (Scpcfcmwabaapoewgc for the phlegmy and
impatient) fitted my back perfectly. Sleeping there was like sleeping in a
bed made by Jesus just for me. Front when I was thirty-seven (for the eighth
straight year) I discovered that Jesus hadn't been the course designer at
Scpcfcmwabaapoewgc, nor had he been the one doing all the digging and
sculpting, nor the turf accountancy and mowing, he'd just been taking the
credit for it; it sowed the seeds of doubt about religion and I've never
looked back... front... front but back, y'dig? One night of sleeping in that
back-shaped dip leading up to the pin just melted all my years of pain out
of me. After years of hoping my pillow would absorb all the pain out of my
head that dripped freely from me in my mind, but remained firmly ensconced
deep in my mind, I had found something which actually worked, and which
soaked my whole body dry. I slept well that night. I woke up for the first
time in ever feeling refreshed, feeling content. I gave my sweets to the
security guards who paraded the greens at night in their big heavy boots,
and with their loose-bowelled guardhorses, and they let me sleep there all
the time, except when I had to be awake and doing real life stuff.
Back when I was fifteen (again) information posters were posted all around
Scpcfcmwabaapoewgc informing the literate about the decision to rip up the
golf course and replace it with affordable housing for those that needed it.
Even at that naíffff age I knew this was very much a good thing, and as much
as it pained me to do so, I would be happy to see my greensalve chopped and
buried if it meant poor unsuspecting poor people could sleep soundly in
their beds without having to fight rats for the damp patch. To say I wasn't
worried at all about my back, about the unending pain I was about to begin,
would enrage me and I'd scream and scratch and eat your heart and steal all
the money you were carrying with you; that'll learn those snotty rich fucks
to belittle my trauma. I was freakin' loaded back when I was fifteen
(again).
Back when I was still fifteen (again again) I took my big sweaty lump of
money and paid people to do things for me. My green was dug up, my green was
shipped - at great expense to the taxpayer I might add (rich people wangle;
I was rich, I wangled) - to my bedroom, my urine-soaked mattress was dug up
and shipped to the poor people who now had affordable housing but still
needed affordable mattresses. My floor was dug up, my bedroom fell through
to the ground floor as something else has done before, my new bedroom floor
was dug up, foundations were chipped at until we hit paydirt, then my new
bed was laid down, watered, it took root, and all that other grassy stuff.
At further great personal expense to the taxpayer, my cupboards, wardrobes,
desks, armoires, armouries, aromatherapists, aromatic spices, Aramatheas and
bookshelves, were shipped out to the poor people who stank of piss because
they clashed with the green. I was out of money, and I had nowhere to store
my clothes and other impotent items, but at least I had my bed.
Back when I was still still fifteen (again again again) I had filled my
bedroom with a golf green which fitted my poor back perfectly. As tempting
as it was to roll around as I slept, the rest of my bed, my room, my green,
wasn't as good for my back, and I was always a little wary of snapping an
ankle in the cup. I just cracked out in the middle where my beautiful dip
was and slept happily ever after.