Finding My Way Through Life's Follies

By Matthew Byer

Finding My Way Through Life's Follies tells the tale of Michael Falmon from childhood to his college years where along the way he finds love, friendship, betrayal, perseverance and courage. Written as a modern day myth, set in an everyday setting, the novel immerses the reader into the story through its first person perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Byer
• Release date: Sep 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301768936

Matthew Byer

Matthew Harold Byer was born in Canada and grew up in the National Capital Region. In the 1990s he obtained a Bachelor of Social Science with concentration in Economics, a Diploma in Applied Information Technology with Distinction from iti Information Technology Institute and a Bachelor of Arts with concentration in Classical Civilization.Matthew has, also, been a professional artist since his high school years and worked for the Government of Canada for over twelve years while he was in Ottawa.His writing work can regularly be seen in articles for canoe.ca’s SLAM! Wrestling and the advice column ‘The Male Perspective’ for secretsofagoodgirl.com. Matthew is also a published poet.He currently resides in British Columbia, Canada.Finding My Way Through Life’s Follies is Matthew’s first novel.

Book preview

Finding My Way Through Life’s Follies

Written and Edited By Matthew Harold Byer

Published by Matthew Harold Byer at Smashwords.

Copyright 2013 Matthew Harold Byer

Cover Art By Matthew Harold Byer

Dedications:

Dedicated to my mom, Barbara Joan Byer…I miss you and wish you were here to see this.

Table of Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Appendix

Questions and Answers

About the Author

Chapter I

You are as strong or as weak as you choose to be. It is simply a matter of deciding what you wish to be...

Slowly things come into focus. As I become aware of my surroundings I notice all the myriad strands of color swirling around me. An electric blue twists and bends around my left leg and nudges my big toe. A richly textured purple slides down my chest to rest at my torso. A blood red drapes itself across my chest. I feel the urge to raise my left hand, and as I do I discover that all these colors are in essence me. I see them all intermixed, making variations of all the colors of the rainbow, in the little strands that make up my left hand. I look down and see a well spring of light bursting from below that is rushing through illuminating me. Yet, this causes no panic because somehow I know that the well spring is a part of me too.

I next look out beyond myself, but see only darkness. So I reach out with my right hand this time and try to discover if the darkness has any texture. As I do I feel something reach out to me, but I do not feel it touching my hand. It touches my heart, my very soul, and even though I cannot see it, I almost know there are some strands of the color, that makes up my very being that is connected to whatever is reaching out to me.

Finally, I see her, and she is so vibrant, so alive, and she is composed of color and light like I. She reaches out her hand and I grasp to touch it. Desperately I strain my arm to touch her, and when I do, I feel alive, whole and at peace. For the next few moments I just look at her with such a feeling of contentment...., but I sense something is wrong. I notice that I am having more and more trouble focusing on her, and all the colors are blurring and blending into a white haze. I lose my grip on her hand and she slowly begins to fade into the darkness around me. I feel a part of me pulled away as she vanishes from my mind's eye until there is only white.

Slowly I notice a warm pink color in front of me. It seems to flutter in and out. I feel the air fill my lungs, slowly at first, but shortly my chest heaves a little faster and smoother. The warm pink disappears from view to be replaced by a startling sunbeam. My eyes slowly start to focus and the room around me is slowly defined. I notice the metal bar across the window through which the sun is shining in; the crack that slithers across the ceiling of my room; the thick purple and blue cover which hugs my lower body; and the sound of my mother calling me to come eat breakfast. Her yelling builds in intensity and urgency telling me how I’ll be late to get to school today. At last I answer her, if for no other reason other than I’m tired of having someone yell at me. I tell her I’ll be down in a few minutes and that I have to get showered and dressed. She is not amused, but relents and ceases yelling.

I let the covers brush through my fingers, clench my hand in a ball, and pull the covers away from my legs. My muscles feel sluggish like they are meant to lie straight and still forever. As the minutes pass they start to loosen and flow. Before I know it I’m in the shower rubbing a bar of soap down my back.

I immediately feel the coldness of the air as I step out of the shower. It cuts through my legs and it feels as if the water that is still in my hair is about to freeze solid. I take a towel and stroke my hair with it, rubbing it against my head more rapidly to get it dry. I saunter back to my room with the cord of my bathrobe dragging behind me. Once I’ve reached the room I pull out the first pair of pants and shirt in my closet. I pull on my underpants and roll my socks up my leg finally straining to pull them as fair up as they’ll go. Thankfully, every second button on my shirt is done up so it only takes a little while longer until I’m fully dressed. I bounce down the stairs and when I reach the kitchen table instantly mom says the shirt and pants don’t match. I kind of scoff at the suggestion, after all, I’m only in grade school and how important could it be to look fashionable. I finish off my breakfast amidst the criticism and rush out the door.

As I walk to school the dream I had from the night before crosses my mind. Does it mean anything? Is it some kind of omen? Does it really matter? I put such thoughts to rest as my friend Scott Halpiton runs up the street trying to catch up to me.

Michael, wait! Wait! I’ve got something important to tell you!!

I stop at the side of the road, resting one foot on the curb. What could be so important? Scott isn’t the type to start yelling in the street and especially on a Friday morning. At long last he reaches me trying to put coherent words together, but pauses to catch his breath. After some moments, his nostrils stop flaring so rapidly and the red fades from his face.

Michael, something really bad happened last night. You remember that gang of kids that have been showing up in the neighborhood? Well last night they beat up Dan. He’s got a black eye and they took the five dollars he had on him. They’re saying that everyone better give them money or we’ll all end up the same.

I took a deep breath. I had heard about this from a few of the other kids at my school a couple of weeks ago, but I thought it had stopped.

The gang that was doing this had built a kind of mud hut out in the field behind my house. From some of the stories I had heard they would sit back there and drink beer and smoke cigarettes. I related this to Scott and I could see he was getting more and more agitated. For a while he stood there for a moment uncertain what to say.

After some time he suggested we should meet with some of the other school kids at the far end of the soccer field to work it out. I figured it was a pretty good idea and agreed with Scott. We decided we would do it at lunch hour.

We quickly trotted to school and just got inside before the school bell rang. I just couldn’t get what Scott had said out of my head. What were we going to do? This gang were made up of kids all at least three years older than us. Before I knew it, it was time for lunch. I slowly made my long trek to the far end of the football field. Waiting for me there was of course Scott, Johnny, Richard, and Micky.

Micky was my best friend. We were the perfect complement to the other. While I was more organized, he was more free-flowing. Somehow, though, when we were together we evened each other out so both of us were more kind of in the middle. Today I saw Micky with an expression on his face that I hadn’t seen before; he was grim. For quite a while, the five of us stood around discussing what we should do. Richard said he had heard that there were about ten kids doing this and that the leader was name Todd ‘Killer’ Krefekrek. As we stood around talking another boy slowly walked from the side of the field in our direction; it was Dan.

Dan’s left eye was red, and the skin around it was a sick shade of lavender purple. His hair was thrown from one side to the other and there were red marks around his neck. There was a large scab to the left corner of his mouth and as he went to speak you could see the expression of pain fall across his face. Slowly, the words came as he told us how he was walking home from school and as he turned the last corner of his house a bird flying by his left side caught his gaze. Unfortunately, he wasn’t paying attention to what was in front of him. He walked right into what he described as a large scruffy looking boy; Todd Krefekrek. He described Todd as the ‘meanest thing he ever saw’. He said that Todd’s cloths were all faded colors and the knees on his pants were torn.

Dan stopped for a bit, obviously still shaken from what had happened, took a deep breath, swallowed, and after some time continued. He went on to say that the next thing that occurred was Todd grabbing him by the throat and throttling him. From there the story Dan told got progressively worse as he told us how Todd held him down with one hand, while winding up with the other, and repeatedly driving his first into his face. After several minutes, Todd let Dan go, but not before taking his money. He said the one thing he remembers Todd saying is if anyone wanted to challenge what he was doing they were more than welcome. As Dan was telling us what happened tears started to stream down his face, and his whole body started to shake.

We all sat down on the ground not knowing what to say until it occurred to me, what Todd had said. Todd had essentially said if someone could challenge him, and beat him in a fight, they would take his place as head of the gang. Why if one of us could do that, afterwards, we could just order the gang to be abolished and no one would feel threatened or be attacked anymore. I sprang to my feet flushed with excitement. I was having trouble getting the words out of my mouth, but the others caught on. The only question was who was going to fight Todd? Nobody seemed sure how to answer, but after the passage of a couple minutes Scott stood up and said he would do it and to meet him at his house after school and from there all of us would go to the mud hut in the field.

Everyone slowly nodded in agreement, but me. Scott didn’t notice and briskly ran back to the school. As the others started back, I grabbed Micky’s arm and pulled him to the side. He had the same thought I had. That Scott could get seriously hurt.

We had both known Scott for about four years. He was a short kid, a little bit pudgy around the waist with arms like thin tree branches. On top of that Scott had asthma, which was why he was gasping for breath after he had run down the street to catch up with me earlier in the day.

Micky and I both decided that we would stop Scott from fighting Todd before meeting the others after school; and that one of us would have to challenge Todd. We both looked at each other for a while and I could see the fear in Micky’s eyes and he could see the fear in mine. Slowly, we glanced back to the school and walked back carefully placing our footsteps as we went.

The afternoon passed slowly. First, fractions, next, the geography of Canada, and lastly, conjugating French verbs. The bell finally tolled and I rushed to the hallway to find Micky. He said he had seen Scott heading to where the janitor’s closet was. We found Scott sitting in a ball against the wall to the right of the closet. We both tried to tell him it was okay if he didn’t want to fight. He said he had to go through with it and that he didn’t have a choice. As Micky helped pull him up he passed in front of the doorframe of the closet and we pushed him into it. We quickly slammed the door shut and Micky leaned all his body weight against the door.

You’ll have to go Michael. I’ll stay here and let Scott out when it’s okay. It’ll be all right. Who knows you might even win.

As I looked back Micky gave me a bit of a meek grin, and with those passing remarks, I went to meet the others at Scott’s house. I found Johnny and Richard at the corner of where Scott’s house was, but they weren’t the only ones. All in all there must have been about sixty of my fellow schoolmates there. They had all come. Some to offer support others just out of curiosity.

I quickly told Johnny and Richard what had happened and how I was going to take Scott’s place. They understood and so we made what seemed like the longest walk I had ever made. As we approached the edge of the field, you could see some of the unwieldy grass still sprouting through a layer of snow that was on the ground. It had a pale tint of tan to it. There were infrequent piles of dirt cascading across the ground. The dirt path we walked down still had frozen ice patches on it. As we walked, Richard actually slipped on it and some of the other kids let out a nervous giggle. After about ten minutes of walking along the perimeter of the field we made a ninety-degree turn to our right. As we went deeper and deeper we found we had to duck under the twisted trees that had sprouted up over the years. Eventually, we passed through a swampier area full of bulrushes and I could feel some water seeping into my boots. Finally, we started to walk up a large hill and as we got to the top we could see broken beer bottles littering the other side. We made our way through the shattered glass and at last had arrived at the mud hut.

The mud hut was built into the base of the hill. Some planks of wood had been used to make the walls, and some of the bulrushes and leaves for the roof. To the left side of it a hole had been dug in which to pee. When we had walked down the hill some of girls who had tagged along were frightened and started chattering amongst themselves. As we approached the mud hut we could hear talking from within it intensifying. At that point one boy staggered out of the mud hut, and another and another until ten in all stood before us. Finally one of the boys stepped forward and said simply; Who want to get killed?

I mustered up what I could of my courage and stepped forward. It was Todd just as Dan had described him. He had a low sloping forehead. His eyes seemed to sink back into his head and his mouth was pointed into a devilish sneer. He had long brown hair, which was thrown to the left side of his face. He wore a faded leather jacket, white shirt stained with dirt, jeans with the knees ripped out and blacks boots covered in mud. He snickered and let out a light laugh. Before I knew it he lunged at me. I took my hand and scratched at his face hoping to get him to back away. He did so for a moment and taking advantage of the opportunity did something I never thought I would do. I lunged at him. He was so surprised that I was able to strike him on his left knee. He let out a curse, spit, and drove his fist into my stomach. I felt all the air leave me. I thought my lungs were on fire as I tried to recover my breath.

Not giving me an instant to recover Todd seized me by the neck and dug his fingers in; and as he was still holding my neck he pushed my head into the ground. I felt a cracking sound and light-headedness. I next noticed a sickening dark red liquid flowed down my forehead. Slowly it dawned on me that it was blood coming from me. After that the last image I saw was a fist with blood and dirt splattered all over it getting larger and larger and then nothing.

The nothingness seemed to be without time and length until I noticed blurring shaped slowly fading in and out. I tried to focus on where I was. I could hear Micky’s voice, but he was saying the most unbelievable thing I had ever heard.

You did it Michael! You beat Todd!!

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