1: Utter Shit

Punch him in the face. They kept telling me to act like a man. I was getting nervous as each pair of eyes peered down on me like birds perched on a telephone wire.

He said, "Its time to start growing up, time to throw out your childhood."

There's no time, there never was. The longer I stood there the more I just seemed to sink into the ground beneath me. It kept banging away inside of me, the little organ that has kept me alive for so long. It's always counting down, 3, 2, 1, repeat.

Twenty years, I told myself. It took me twenty years to finally realize it all began when it ended. All these people all of everything, was made from me, or I from them. The dial was still turning, but with the speed of the sun it went black.

I woke up in a ditch, a hospital bracelet around my wrist. I stood up and looked around, the whole world looked like it was going to shit from here. A pain reached up my spine and grabbed the back of my head. The hair on my neck pricked up, and I knew I was back.

Events started to rewind and play back in my head. Cycles of memories each as important as the next, all showing how I got to where I now stand. My childhood, my job, my parents, those people I've met and pretended to like over the years flooded into my conscious. Nothing was left out not even the day I died. My name? I remembered it, but what purpose does it serve me here.