Shreds of Gorak: 41-50: Short reads of Gorak, #5

By Lemmy Gorak

Memoir, anecdote and meaningful other: Shreds 41-50

 

Going for Gold: A yearning for approval from my mother finds me excelling with Olympian-like focus on school sports day.
I Wanna be Sedated: Surrendering our mental faculties is never talked about as a viable life-style choice - if only there was somewhere to do this safely, where we could pursue our chosen reality…
Tech Support: A tech-support man arrives, and I suspect he is not human.
Crossroads: At an impressionable age I fall in with the wrong crowd and find myself faced with a moral dilemma.
ADVERTISEMENT - Vaccine: A fictitious advert for a board game.
Wedding Photography Pt2 – The Shootout: The day of the big shoot arrives and it becomes clear that I am not cut out for wedding photography.
Hanging Out: A snapshot of a traumatic event.
This Ol' House: A fabricated story about integrity and the commodification of music, based around the idea of Shakin' Stevens as an icon of authenticity.
Fray Bentos: Days before Christmas, I despair of people, but later witness an act of goodwill, restoring my faith.
A Christmas Glory: Fuelled by sexual energy, I question the concept of good and evil through graphic and depraved fantasies involving the Queen.
Static: After a traumatic relationship break-up, I start over from a static caravan in the wilds of Cumbria, choosing to seize it as an opportunity for growth.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lemmy Gorak
• Release date: Jul 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201835934

Lemmy Gorak

After a short time spent sleeping on London's Circle Line, as a child I toured the capital, staying in a succession of refuges, tents and narrowboats. Although traumatic, it was a time rich with experience and freedoms most don't enjoy. Left to create my own life-map, I relied on nothing but hard-wired survival skills to get me through the many schools I attended, leaving with an O Level in Art and a handful of cardboard Sports Day medals. Picking up a guitar - along with recreational drugs - I found therapy through an anarchic yet unsustainable lifestyle. After numerous shitty jobs and spells of unemployment, I cleaned up my act (a bit) and rediscovered a child-like wonder with the natural world - a connection that has ultimately been my saviour. Seduced by mountains, I headed for the wilds of Cumbria, where with a Blues Harp I busked and played in local bars, before a virus with a household name had its way and a shocking end of an unhealthy relationship left me facing homelessness. I love to amuse myself and make sense of things, and have always kept a diary and scribbled on the back of envelopes; caught in the flow. Now with head and heart aligned, I write in earnest, most mornings while it's still dark.

Book preview

Going for Gold

I wasn’t looking forward to sports day. I just didn’t understand what the purpose of it all was. The bean bag race and the egg & spoon seemed like a total nonsense, and yet preparations were being made as if the school was hosting the Olympics.

The other kid’s parents were all going to be there to watch, and I spent the days that led up to the big event trying to convince my mum to come along too. But she was too busy and also had my younger brothers and sisters to consider – not that I had any sympathy for the position she was in at the time – to me it was rejection, plain and simple.

On the day of the games, wonky track-lines were sprayed on the grass, and the teachers unloaded from a van what looked like every piece of equipment from the P.E cupboard. The kids excitedly gathered in a group, while I stood on the fringe. I looked at the mums and dads on the side-lines, smiling proudly as they pointed out their child to the other parents; and it hurt. When the rules of the games were explained, I watched and listened intently. I was going to give this my all.

In a controlled and intense explosion of energy, I passed and received batons, jumped in sacks and balanced eggs on spoons while running at speed. With the exception of the three-legged race (I carried him), it was as if I was the only one competing, and I remember crossing the finish line again and again