Going Back Twenty-Five Years: with a Paranormal Twist

By Julian Black

Imagine being able to go back in time through a door opening up in our minds and going through a time travel warp to re live our youth a second time around but this time around doing things differently to the way it was first time.

This is a tie in to my memoir: I was screaming Inside but nobody could hear me now the world listens. I have

• Language: English
• Publisher: STAMPA GLOBAL
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781951585358

Julian Black

I grew up in a very small town and working class family where every penny counted and money was tight. Fear has been within me since a small child and it grew and grew within me as I got older and even into adulthood. I knew the taste of fear and the smell of fear on an every day basis. As soon as I opened my eyes in the morning fear was there and it was there as I went to bed at night I was shrouded in fear. I was petrified of planet earth and the people in it. I had nothing in common with planet earth and I became Isolated. I was a complete loner and I had absolutely nobody I could talk to or relate to about my problems. I was walking anxiety and petrified of every day. I knew I needed help when on more than one occasion I would leave my house only to find that my body would freeze up and my legs turning to jelly and I would become a walking anxiety attack. I spent many years in and out of therapy and through therapy I got to understand myself and my fear's. It was all down to painfully low confidence, self esteem and self worth and my fears of my sexuality. I thought nothing of myself so why should anybody else and I was psychologically bullied and laughed at even into my adult life. I did not live like other people and I was painfully shy and very reserved and Inside myself I was screaming for help. I can only thank god for my creative abilities which I was born with to tell and share unusual stories. They say write what you know and put yourself into your characters which I have done and it has helped me to the point of keeping me sane and maybe even alive. Fear is a huge part of my characters and I have put them in fearful situations simply because I fully understand what driven fear can do to the human mind and body over many years.

Book preview

Copyright ©2018 Julian Black

DEDICATION

For my mother and my father; my version of what could have been.

PREFACE

To be human; what is that all about? 

Why do I grow from a baby and into a man? What is that all about?

Why do I get through this life by living some days good and some days bad? What is that all about?

Why do I see all the seasons come and go and yet survive them all? What is that all about?

Mary down the street gave birth to a baby boy weighing 10 pounds 3 ozs; what is that all about?

The baby will grow up from a boy and into a man; what is that all about?

He will, like me, see seasons come and go and survive them all; what is that all about? 

He will walk planet earth just like me and age every day; what is that all about?

He will, like me, one day die; what is that all about? 

A new baby will be born to experience planet earth just like we did; what on earth is it all about?

INTRODUCTION

Twenty-five years ago I was the tender age of fifteen years old. Even back then I had no friends or social life, or any life at all, really. I was a very anxious and very unhappy teenager with a million worries on my mind when it should have been a time of fun and finding out about myself with confidence and oozing self-esteem, with fear playing no part in my life at that age. But I was none of those things and fear was a huge part of my life at fifteen years old; in fact it dictated my entire body inside and out. Fear robbed me of my youth and the first forty years of my life.

I had no confidence or self-esteem or any self-worth. Inside, I was just a small boy, petrified to live in the ‘real world.’ I was confused and extremely lonely and isolated from the world and the only people in my life were my family. Wherever they went I went, and from this I guess I learnt to speak as they did and live as they did with me being young and them being a lot older with opinions and values they kept from their times. They were not only my family to me, they were also my ‘friends’. Looking back now, it was a very unhealthy way to live my life socially. At the time I could not even imagine being with people my own age or being around ‘strangers’. How my siblings dealt with going on holidays or days out with their partners’ families was confusing to me because I could not imagine myself being with any other family apart from my own. (I guess in a way they were my safety net for me not being myself).

I adapted and learned not to be myself but to live a false lifestyle that would keep my family happy and it would keep me in their good books. I was very mature and disciplined for my age and I was able to pretend to be a million other people rather than be myself and on the outside I looked very much in control and content with my lot, but inside there was hurt, frustration, envy and anxiety that was through the roof simply because I lived a life that was not my own.

Fear engulfed me and the only way I could control my life was to live it as a routine, which I did for over forty years and with this came the bullying and intimidation because I learnt to obey what other people told me to do and when they said, ‘Jump,’ I said, ‘How high?’

I have suffered and I have hurt and I have missed out on a healthy, happy quality of life as I did not even live a double life to ease my pain and tension because fear had a firm grip on me and I did not want it to let me go. I only knew one way of life and it was the life I was used to and I was petrified to live any other way. If anybody ever cornered me about my life or upset my daily routine or got in the way of my ‘safe’ environments, then my tension and anxieties would flare up and through my nerves a person would come out of me that was not very nice. My defences were sky high and I was not letting anybody in; my body armour was pure steel, at least on the outside.

I am not afraid of death; I am more afraid of living.

Julian Black

GOING BACK TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

My new life in a paranormal dimension:

How my life might have been if I had been brought up in a non-dysfunctional family.

It was a Wednesday morning and I woke up in my old bedroom with my younger brother sleeping next to me, snoring as he always did and my other brother fast asleep and snoring too, on the other side of the room.

I just lay there staring at the ceiling in the early hours of the morning, wondering how I was so alive in my dream and how I so much wanted to be back in my own bed and an adult again as I hated my youth so much. I thought, I will just go back to sleep and awake in my own bed and in my own house as an adult, not back in time as a teenager.

The morning came and I once again woke up in my old bed. The house was alive with banging and shouting and everybody rushing to get ready. My mother walked past me in her pink robe.

‘Come on, you’re going to be late for school,’ she said.

I could not believe what was happening. I was not in a dream, or a nightmare come to that, but I was wide awake and I was back in my old home. I must have gone back about twenty-five years, but how could this be? How could it happen?

I walked out onto the landing. Mother was fully dressed now and once again she urged me to move myself.

‘Come on, get dressed. You have to catch your bus. Your cereal and tea are on the table downstairs.’

‘But you look so young and so thin,’ I replied.

‘Did you bang your head last night, or something?’ she asked me.

I said, ‘Well, maybe I did, but something’s not right.’

‘Look,’ she said, ‘go and get dressed and have your breakfast with the family downstairs and tonight your dad and I are taking you all out for a mid-week family meal as usual.’

‘Dad?’ I was puzzled. ‘What dad? He does not live with us.’

‘Oh dear,’ my mother said, frowning. ‘Let’s look at your head for any bumps or swellings… something must have happened to you last night.’

‘I will get ready for school and go downstairs for my breakfast,’ I agreed.

‘Yes,’ Mother said, ‘well hurry up then!’

I put on my school uniform which was hanging in my wardrobe as it always was. I was filled with dread and anxiety because I never liked school very much at all and here I was re-living those years. I walked downstairs and into the kitchen to see my family around the table; my two brothers, my sister, and my dad, all of them laughing.

My father said, ‘Oh, here he is at long last.’

I very quietly sat down to eat my breakfast, thinking this is absolutely insane as my parents are divorced.

My mother looked at me. ‘You’re very quiet this morning, are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘yes, I am fine.’

My dad rose from the table. ‘Right, off we go then. I will give you three a lift to the bus stop and then I will come back for your mum and we will take the baby to Infants and off to work we go.’

My stomach was aching with dread as I did not want to go back to that school at all and I could not believe this was happening to me.

I boarded the school bus and just as it was years ago, kids were shouting at each other and there was just utter chaos. I looked around me and saw people I had not seen for years but they were all so young, just as I remembered them.

I had my school bag on my lap and inside were my books and pencil case. My writing looked terrible as it had improved tremendously with age. My timetable was also in there of all the lessons I was to be having on that day in school. I thought, why am I being punished like this? Why should I have to go through all of this again? One of the guys came and sat by me.

‘So,’ he said, ‘done your maths homework then?’

‘Oh, hi,’ I replied, ‘oh, oh the maths homework. Oh yes, I have done the um, the maths homework. Have you done your homework then?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said, but the difference is mine is right and yours is wrong.’

‘Oh, and how do you know mine is wrong?’

‘Well, Dumbo,’ he said, ‘yours is always wrong,’

He then moved away from me. I remembered him straight away and I thought, this has got to be a nightmare and I must wake up before I enter the grounds of the school.

Enter the grounds of the school we did and the bus came to a stop. Everybody got off the bus, ramming each other, and suddenly this very attractive girl walked past me.

‘Morning, my darling,’ she said.

I looked at her and it was the girl I fancied like mad when I was in school but I thought, I am in school and I am young again and she is young again and the feelings are still there. Why I am reliving my youth?’

Another boy walked over to her and said, ‘Morning, gorgeous girl, how are we today?’

‘She replied, ‘Not that it has anything to do with you, but I am fine.’ She looked at me and smiled and I was determined to smile back, something I never would have done twenty-five years ago.

The other boy came up to me and said, ‘Hands off, Toxic Face; she’s way too good for you and she will be mine!’

‘Oh, good luck with that one,’ I replied. I never would have defended myself like