The Alchemy of Happiness

By Ian C. Dawkins Moore

The Story of Aloysius Williams and his search of happiness, from the shores of Albion through the Land of Garlic, the Land of Two Books, The Land of No Books, Cherrywood and PeraltaLand, and what he found there.

"Aloysius Williams was a happy man, and if it hadn’t been for his refusal to accept his brown skin as inferior, he wouldn’t have had so much trouble. For he had been taught as early as four years old that dark skin pigmentation was the curse of Cain, and was written in god’s ‘Good book’ and there was no arguing with the irrational thoughts of an extraterrestrial being."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian C. Dawkins Moore
• Release date: Sep 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311039590

Ian C. Dawkins Moore

Ian C. Dawkins Moore was born under the sign of Aries in the year of the Tiger. He survived a British boarding school, the jock world of football hooliganism, hitch-hiking across the Sahara desert, and the two-tone culture of American racism. He is the published author of over 20 books, and he can still see the funny side of life- Be Well & Enjoy!

Book preview

FOREWORD

Wo/Man is free, the moment s/he wants to be

Voltaire

PROLOGUE:

Jasper Williams was a happy man because he had an irrepressible belief in his love of happiness. And if it hadn’t been for his refusal to accept his brown skin as inferior, he wouldn’t have had so much trouble. For he had been taught, as early as four years old, that dark skin pigmentation was the curse of Cain, and it was written in God's Good book – whatever that was – and there was no arguing with the irrational scribbles of an extraterrestrial being.

Raised around light-skinned people, who burned in the sun when they tried to become tanned, Jasper distinguished himself – aside from his natural advantage of color augmentation that caused such duplicitous envy from his rivals – by being remarkably excellent at all things sporty. His opponents complained that he had a natural disposition towards jumping, catching, throwing, and running because of his animal ancestors.

When Jasper showed them a Scientific American article that showed that all Homo Sapiens originated from one female in Africa, his friends were hurt, pained, angry, and not amused!

They argued into the night about the definition of homo and finally decided to pass an amendment against Scientific American magazine for the use of such a word as Homo because it was not generally used in everyday speech – and they suspected that it had nefarious connotations. They would have succeeded if it weren’t for the fact that they didn’t really know what an amendment was.

Throughout his childhood, Jasper endeavored to be happy. He was aided in his task by regular beatings at the hands of men in long black gowns who wore diamond-shaped hats on their heads at his school.

That these people talked on behalf of an extraterrestrial being, who they claimed loved him and wanted him to be happy, confused Jasper. For how could he be enjoyed if the price of that love was beatings? When it was explained that the blows were administered because of some evil Jasper had done to a man 2,000 year before, Jasper was perplexed.

But this didn’t stop Jasper from endeavoring to be happy, because happiness was part of his DNA, and he knew that the umbilical cord to his soul meant for him to be happy.

I-HOW JASPER CAME INTO THE WORLD

Jasper’s father Archibald (Archie) Leopold Williams was not a happy man, but he was handsome, proud and contentious like a bull somebody said, but mostly he was a mean drunk, a bully and a hedonist. And as Jasper grew up with fragments of pictures of his father – who had been thrown out of the immoral sexual pre-marriage bed soon after his parents’ one and only coitus – he looked like some African tribal chieftain, regal and black, a warrior who recognized nothing, except his own self-interest.

Jasper’ mother, Hildegard Mary Baumgartner, was a small, fastidious ash-colored woman, of German extraction, who was thrown out of her father’s home when it was discovered she was pregnant. When a black baby popped out of her hitherto unacknowledged womb, she was banished to the big city to live out her life in loneliness and shame.

Guilt and shame were thus the only two qualities shared by Jasper' parents. His father, after that, returned to his tropical, not-so-paradise island, and ended his days in the white rum bars while his mother measured out her remaining days in disillusionment and tears.

That such a beautiful night of love-making in the summer heat, after the end of a terrible war, should condemn them both to lives of pain and sorrow was too much for either of them to believe in a God in the sky. Consequently, they did not seek happiness in the Churches of hope that littered the streets of their poor neighborhood, where they eked out a living.

Their middle-class incomes separated them from their poor neighbors and blocked them from the environs of the rich. So purgatory was, for them, here on earth.

Jasper’s most special memory of his mother was when as a very young child she would put him to bed and read him the story of Haysus, the man Jasper was blamed for the killing. Jasper wanted to be like sweet Haysus so that one-day people would feel wrong about Jasper when he died.

But Jasper felt particularly close to the birth of Haysus because Haysus was a bastard – just like Jasper!

However, Jasper’ life did not resemble the fairy tales of Haysus’ adventures because Jasper’s mother, who sought advice from a social worker, rejected any rights of Jasper’s father over his son and sent Jasper to the first of many foster homes before he was five years old.

One of the advantages of having dysfunctional parents, mused Jasper, as his journey through life began, was that he would not be damaged by his parents’ misdeeds and failings.

He became aware very early in his life through a peculiar form of osmosis – before he even knew what osmosis meant – that he could sense whatever his parents were thinking about him, also when neither of them was in the same room.

He’s an irresponsible ingrate, mused his mother, and telepathically his father would comment instantly, He takes after your dopey brother!

Jasper consequently realized that he had a rare opportunity – that many children would love to have – pick his own parents!

For how many kids have woke up late for School and wished that their parents would just disappear or turn into turtles as they lectured them about the merits of education and foolish things like potty-training.

It’s every child’s wish! So, as Jasper shuffled through the next fifteen years of his life, he got to meet many different foster parents that he was able to pick and choose from, and took advantage of every opportunity.

II-HOW JASPER GOT TO CHOOSE HIS PARENTS

Jasper felt fortunate, after the rigmarole of the courts protecting him from the ravages of abuse, to be shipped off to the South-east coast of Albion, away from the grime of the city and surrounded by the bracing sea air, to a home with a multi-colored collection of other foster kids.

Sam and Norma were the parents Jasper should have had from the beginning. He appreciated that the God-spirit in the sky had finally got it right. He was grateful and reassured that his belief in happiness was real and that everything comes out right if you wait long enough.

Sam and Norma loved all the kids and gave them a solid grounding in love and respect for each other regardless of race or gender. Thus, Jasper’s first five years of life far from his troubled real parents and the evils of the big city allowed him to matriculate as a healthy, happy child of five years old. His surrogate parents, Sam and Norma, were the salt of the earth.

III-HOW JASPER Survived HIGH SCHOOL

Jasper’s next two years were not so pleasant, being full of sudden changes that flooded his heart with constant heartaches and tears. This unexpected disruption, without warnings, away from one home to another, conveyed the unspoken message that Jasper must have done something wrong for this to be happening to him.

It happened every time he was developing a new relationship or stabilizing himself in a new home, suddenly, he would be picked up and deposited someplace else.

These changes came to a jarring halt when he arrived at The School at the age of seven. This would be his home for the next ten years. On the first morning when he was shown the large playgrounds, the broad green grass sports field, and his new uniform, and he saw his fellow students running excitedly across beautifully manicured lawns, he thought he had found a little piece of heaven where everybody had a Haysus story, and everyone would be loved by a heavenly father.

The School was a place rich in deviates. From the abandoned kids who were sent there by irresponsible parents, and law enforcement agencies unsure what to do with unloved kids, to housemasters and teachers who sought to escape from the world of their own misdeeds by working out their alienation and neurosis on the kids. The institution was worthy of the name it had been given in the 19th century – The Debtors’ School.

The kids were the debts paid by the floundering citizens of the