Lowlife

By Jon Jacks

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea basing a tarot deck on The Book of the Dead.
Because they all seem to be alive.
And they all want me dead!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Jacks
• Release date: May 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311794871

Jon Jacks

While working in London as, first, an advertising Creative Director (the title in the U.S. is wildly different; the role involves both creating and overseeing all the creative work in an agency, meaning you’re second only to the Chairman/President) and then a screenwriter for Hollywood and TV, I moved out to an incredibly ancient house in the countryside.On the day we moved out, my then three-year-old daughter (my son was yet to be born) was entranced by the new house, but also upset that we had left behind all that was familiar to her.So, very quickly, my wife Julie and I laid out rugs and comfortable chairs around the huge fireplace so that it looked and felt more like our London home. We then left my daughter quietly reading a book while we went to the kitchen to prepare something to eat.Around fifteen minutes later, my daughter came into the kitchen, saying that she felt much better now ‘after talking to the boy’.‘Boy?’ we asked. ‘What boy?’‘The little boy; he’s been talking to me on the sofa while you were in here.’We rushed into the room, looking around.There wasn’t any boy there of course.‘There isn’t any little boy here,’ we said.‘Of course,’ my daughter replied. ‘He told me he wasn’t alive anymore. He lived here a long time ago.’A child’s wild imagination?Well, that’s what we thought at the time; but there were other strange things, other strange presences (but not really frightening ones) that happened over the years that made me think otherwise.And so I began to write the kind of stories that, well, are just a little unbelievable.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Why do I feel lost?

So confused by the things that happen around me?

Things I have no control over.

What have I done to deserve this?

Am I really so bad?

I don’t really feel at one with this world.

Sometimes I don’t even know who I really am.

I feel like – as crazy as it sounds – I’m not really me.

I feel…like I’m from another time.

A better time.

Maudling thoughts, that’s all they are.

Self pity.

Foolishness.

I splay out the cards before me.

Looking for answers I don’t even know the questions to.

‘The tarot?’

It’s the new boy. The new boy everyone’s going crazy over.

The boy who can’t really have any interest in me.

What’s he want? Has he been put up to this?

To make a fool of me?

I glance about me nervously.

Nervous that anyone might be watching.

Giggling at the ineptness I feel and show whenever a good-looking boy makes an effort to talk to me.

I nod. Sullenly.

‘Perhaps it’s not true what they say about you then?’

‘Say about me?’

I’m curious. Even though I know it will be bad news.

‘That you’re a loner; that you’re…sorry, these are their words, not mine…a little bit boring?’

Yeah, that’s what I’d figured they’d say.

I look back towards my cards. I’m not going to cry.

I’m not a wimp.

I don’t care what anybody thinks anymore.

They’re the ones at fault.

They just don’t understand me.

‘I don’t think they really know you, do they?’

That’s him; not me.

But it could be me.

I’ve said it to myself often enough.

I glance up at him, eyeing him suspiciously.

‘What do you want?’

‘Could you read my cards for me? I watched you dealing them out; you look like you know what you’re doing to me.’

‘Why, what am I doing to you?’

I don’t want him here.

Sure, he’s gorgeous. The leader of the pack without the pack to lead. But give him time; he’ll soon have his following. His gaggle of excitedly clucking girls. The boys who want a piece of his magic to rub off on them.

Me, I’ll never be allowed to be a part of that pack. I might as well show right up front I’m not going to be fooled into thinking I might have a chance of being invited into the in crowd. The cool, effortlessly beautiful kids.

He ignores my rudeness, tries another tack.

‘I like your hair; is it natural?’

Sure, dark red runs in the family, going way back!

‘Yes; it’s hair.’

You might think I’m blowing this; that I deserve to be lonely if this is how I talk to everyone.

But I don’t talk to everyone like this; just the guys who’re quite clearly out of my league. Guy’s who’re just playing around with me for a bit of fun.

‘They’re not the usual kind of pack, are they?’

Hmn, so he does know something about the cards.

‘They’re my own set: I painted them, cut them into shape.’

‘Really? That must have taken ages.’

‘Computers: it helps you replicate most things. So you’re not constantly having to paint the same things over and over.’

‘They’re beautiful. Amazing colours. Could you read mine for me?’

Why would he need his future reading?

It’s pretty clear cut isn’t it?

A life of few problems; especially when it comes to making friends, getting out on dates.

The boy who could have anybody he wants.

Why’s he wasting his time on me?

Thing is, he’s obviously not that interested in the cards. Otherwise he’d know I was already setting out the cards to see how he features in my life.

And how can I tell him this?

It seems he needs to stay away from motorbikes.

*

The way he dresses, like he’s wasting his life watching too many James Dean and Marlon Brando movies – they’re old hat now, didn’t you know? – it, well, interests me.

Like he sees himself as living in a different time.

Not this one.

And my interest, of course, has got nothing to do with the fact he’s got hair that could sell a g-zillion bottles of shampoo if he ever got into commercials. Which, going by the easy way he carries himself, like he hadn’t got a worry in the world, isn’t actually that inconceivable.

So, once again, the cynic in me – and boy, does she play a big part in my character – has got to ask that sixty million dollar question: why’s he pestering me? When he could be pestering Helen Golsworthy or Rebecca Frond and they’d be lapping up every second of it. Like the cat who’s got the cream, and is going to let every other poor stray know about it.

‘I don’t do cards for just anyone, you know,’ I say to him even more sourly than I intended.

Give the poor guy a break can’t you, sourpuss?

He’s being nice.

You’re the one being offhand!

‘That makes sense,’ he replies, still managing to keep the smile in his voice despite a relentless rudeness that’s beginning to irk even me.

Maybe he’s genuine. Maybe he really is interested.

Not everyone wants to set you up for a fall, to humiliate you.

Just because you’re different.

Just because you don’t want to blend in.

Don’t want to play the game of ‘let’s all look alike’.

Let’s all do exactly the same things

Let’s all like exactly the same things.

Let’s make fun of anyone who doesn’t.

Like they’re some weirdo. Some idiot who doesn’t understand the latest fashions. The latest music.

Hey, don’t you