Breaking Good (Breaking Good #1)

By Giorgos Kazoulis

Is life a theatrical version of a much truer, darker world inside our minds? What is a friend? Why care for someone you don’t need? How can someone even consider walking the straight and narrow path in a world that anyone could be lurking in the shadows, ready to walk over you if he was to?

The boy begins his mental journey and finds happiness, sorrow, peace, fear and danger. Real, physical danger...

Will the boy win against his inner demons? Or will he decide that his inner demons are in fact his guardian angels and his only chance to a better, safer life? What would be the cost of such a victory?

One thing is for sure - Breaking Good is damn hard to do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Giorgos Kazoulis
• Release date: Nov 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310321818

Giorgos Kazoulis

Giorgos Kazoulis is a damn shy author, with bad to none marketing skills, terrible patience and an insane sleep deprivation. He dreams of a world where everybody writes and reads and nobody works. Most of the time he either curses his laziness, or enjoys it.Outside of writing he declares himself a software developer, a Greek island enthusiast, a football lover and wants to one day break the record for most movies watched.

Book preview

Breaking Good

Giorgos Kazoulis

Copyright Giorgos Kazoulis 2013

Published at Smashwords

The cold, dirty wall kept me from falling down as I received the suited man’s first punch. After that, a barrage of heavy, unforgiving punches followed.

Have some sense the man said. And it was as if that man was me, at least the old me. The beast that was hurting me was hiding his eyes behind a pair of sunglasses and that made my belief that it was me punching sense into myself all the more real.

Don’t get me wrong, I am no one special, just a common Greek kid who just happened to have some bad luck. If you expect a story of constant action and violence, stop right here. I just tried to do things in my own way, that’s how I would describe it.

"And look where it ended", I imagined the guy saying as he hit me one more time. You want to feel something real? This is real!

I must be dangerously insane to be able to turn this beating I was receiving into a meaningful allegory about my life till then, but then again it was a way of escaping the otherwise undeniable truth.

If man’s instincts were as I had them figured I had to act now.

I had to understand how serious this really was and do whatever possible to survive.

I was in true, grave danger.

Chapter 1:

A simple-minded nobody

My name is Stavros. I don't like that they call me Stavros, not that I don't like the name itself. I just don't like that someone decided I would be called Stavros. Since dad's father was called Stavros this logically results that I should be called that too, right? I do not see the logic in that.

I am eighteen years old and I haven't celebrated my birthday since I was ten. I am so totally bored of organizing a party, I hate calling many people for this special occasion and most of all sitting around a damn cake, behaving like total fools, all of which is done to make me feel the illusion that I am that special for just one day. I am bored of this shit. I am a grumpy and boring fellow as you might have guessed.

Right now I am sitting on my desk, writing whatever comes to mind, probably without a point. The songs of my mp3 player that accompany me now sound dull. I am pondering and writing. Haha. Pondering! I don't think I am capable of doing that. I do not have the brains required to do it. I am a complete failure. That is me, in a nutshell. You can ask someone of my age who knows me and he'll say Stavros? Good kid. But he's a nobody, no success in his life, nothing special about him and I can't see him achieving anything in the future. He's a simple-minded nobody.

In a way, they are right. Oh yes! That's exactly who I am to the world, a nobody. Once, I was dreaming of discovering a million things and becoming famous as a genius scientist, just because I did well at math and physics. How stupid I was. Now I know my place. I know I am just an idiot.

I am happy to be writing, I don't know why. I am happy that nobody will read this, that I am talking to nothing. So, since I like this I am gonna tell you a story. We will begin with convincing you that I am a nobody.

I am Greek but I watched so many english speaking movies I decided to write in English. That way I can pretend it's Morgan Freeman's voice that's talking to you. Being Greek could mean two things: One, I could be talking for hours about the beauties and problems of my country and two, I could suck writing in English. I sincerely promise I am going to try my best to prevent these from happening.

I live in Nea Smyrni, on Megalou Alexandrou street (translated Alexander the Great street). That's where I was born, that's where I live now. It is a rather nice place, there is some flora which is rare to see around Athens, it is close to Nea Smyrni's famous square and it is near Panionios' football stadium. I am considered a fan of that team, but I won't shed a tear if they lose.

When I was little, I liked two aspects of my town. The room I could find to play football with my cousin along with a random occasional friend and the video game stores nearby. Oh yes, I was a kid of video games first and football second. I still do those things to be honest. But now I mostly pass my time letting the people around me be glad they have a loser among them. Success is relevant to your environment. People around me must be very happy to measure their success compared to mine and find it so satisfying. Whatever one likes.

End of the parenthesis. Back to the main story. As I was saying, I spent my time kicking a ball and playing gameboy. We had fun with kids sharing our interests, they were my gang. I would call them my gang and not my friends. I believe somewhen between primary and high school I started worrying about making friends. I remember the essays of primary school, we would say that a friend is the person we can rely on our hardships and share our happiness and sadness with. I wonder, when did I really think about that? It must have been the last year of primary school. And at that time, I didn't know exactly what a friend was but I started calling the two kids that usually