Retro Ride

By Darren Charles

WHEN Robert Bailey finally achieves what society expects of him (model citizen, good job, family, etc.) he realises he still has no sense of fulfilment or purpose and embarks on a journey of self-discovery to seek answers.

As Robert plunges into a mid-life crisis, he replaces his proposed Bucket List with a Retro Ride, a list of tasks and scenarios designed to reassess his past decisions and relive key experiences of his life. However, he also has to tackle the darker side of the Retro Ride's probing into his demons and their historical context. It is an emotional journey of extremes as he experiences the highs and lows of questioning his past to answer his future.

Is this just a mid-life crisis or has Robert discovered a pioneering opportunity in the Retro Ride to bring him purpose and shape the fulfilled future he craves?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darren Charles
• Release date: Feb 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9781739231200

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Copyright

Copyright © 2022 by Darren Charles.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except as permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, contact [e-mail].

EBook:  978-1-7392312-0-0

Paperback:  978-1-7392312-1-7

The story, all names, characters and incidents portrayed in this production are predominantly fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings and products is intended or should be inferred, unless it is clearly stated. 

Acknowledgements

The biggest thank you is to you for selecting this book to read. Whatever brought you to Retro Ride, I hope it is cherished, as a journey of self-discovery will, perhaps, start for many you after you finish these pages?

Thank you to all those who have assisted me in the preparation of the book, including those who have proof-read it and friends who offered constructive feedback about items in its content and pathway of the narrative.  

Special thanks must go to my wife, Kathy, Basil the Labrador and my family and friends who have supported me throughout, even during the days of doubt and believability in both dreams and my creative ability. 

Yes, writers are indeed artists.

Preamble

Picture this, a straight strip of freshly cut turf surrounded by green acres of rolling grass neatly cut at length and gleaming under the daylight sun. Strategically placed white rails are in place to guide our valuable equine beasts down towards the starting point, in their bid to become a winner. In the distance a silhouette of a horse is bucking, frantically moving sideways, rearing up and desperate to get the determined jockey off its back. So headstrong, so unmanageable, so out of control, so random. A rearing of the hindquarters before the beast kicks into a straight gallop, at speed, towards the packed stands where spectators are starting to jeer and cheer in anticipation.

The jockey, a young apprentice with little experience and dressed in the rich owner’s silks, simply doesn’t have the girth in his arms to hold it back and before long the side door has opened and his vehement attempts to hang on fail dramatically despite his gallant efforts. With a thumping fall to the turf and subsequent bounce, he lays on the pleasant smelling turf and starts to check his credentials. Groin first, then the pain really starts.

Galloping on, the free running gelding reaches a quiet corner of the racecourse and the majestic beast stops. Peace at last and the lush grass tastes delicious as he surveys the area. The crowd noise is in the distance now and of no concern. Time to reflect in solitude and consider the options available. Years of being an average chaser, a mediocre competitor but not really good enough to be challenging for the blue ribbon gold cups or grand nationals that so many members of his syndicate owners dream of.

In front of him is another jumpable small perimeter fence and then acres of green fields to explore, no obstacles or threats seemingly for miles. Perhaps to a new way of life? Freedom to graze and be at one in making choices and accepting of the level of achievement, bowing out as a fond memory for many. However, this means being out of the comfort zone of his familiar world and the safe pathway back to the sanctuary of the warm stables where he will be guaranteed food, love, care and the rightful adulation he has earned. That is hard to give up and having to fight and fend for himself is not that attractive proposition all of a sudden.

As several handlers jump out of the racecourse van to catch him he now has to make the choice that will shape the rest of his life, the future versus the past. How could he leave behind such a comfortable life with safety and security? Has his past achievements really been enough to justify running back towards them or is it time to experience new adventures? As his past can be considered, learned from and potentially help shape his future, surely that accumulation of evidence outweighs the uncertainty of making a run for it with no guarantees of anything? The concept of looking back and learning from his previous races is surely the only way he can relive future glory, returning and revisiting those racecourses to test his ability and see if the moments of happiness and achievement can be recreated.

Just like our gelding, we all have critical choices to make at different points of our lives, but for any species, past experiences will always influence the final decision taken at any subsequent future moment in time. This integral and key pattern of life underpins the whole concept of the Retro Ride and despite this behaviour never changing since the creation of human beings, only now has the concept of a Retro Ride been made real and brought to life for all people to consider for themselves.

Chapters

Chapters         Page

Chapter 1  Soul Crying Out      6

Chapter 2  Let the Day Begin      22

Chapter 3  See the Lights      32

Chapter 4   Once Upon a Time      56

Chapter 5  Honest Town       68

Chapter 6  Someone Somewhere in the Summertime  80

Chapter 7  Walk Between Worlds     91

Chapter 8  Promised You a Miracle     96

Chapter 9  Street Fighting Years     103

Chapter 10  Our Secrets are the Same     110

Chapter 11  Let There Be Love      115

Chapter 12  Home        123

Chapter 13  Don’t You Forget About Me     127

Introduction

Retro Ride has been the only way to save my sanity. It has provided me with an opportunity to present a concept that has tormented me for over twenty five years; however, it has also acted as a therapeutic deep cave within which I could explore my own thoughts and take shelter within the smaller mental caverns of both contentment and satisfaction.

Writing this book has given me true purpose for my own life. Through designing the Retro Ride I have felt real enthusiasm in wanting to present the idea for others to consider and utilise. I don’t claim to be an excellent storyteller but this narrative is so etched in realism that if you are looking for a fantasy novel set in a faraway fictional world, then this tome is definitely not for you.

Our imaginations should always be drilled for adventure, as should our past lived experiences, and it is this combination which helps provide the framework for the Retro Ride concept. During the writing of this book, I have battled with an incessant torrent of thoughts and emotions that have forced me to examine my own happiness levels and ask probing questions as to whether decisions and actions I have taken in my own past should have been different. Had they been at key junctures of my life, what difference would that have made to the way I am now as a person? It all hinges on the premise of asking a simple question: What if? These two words have been the cornerstone used for the mapping of this book’s narrative and are woven into the fabric of our protagonist’s outlook on his current and past life.

We are constantly reminded by peers, experts, family and most of the world’s political leaders to always look to the future. However (and perhaps controversially), I have always urged caution in this regard. Two of the two biggest world events in my lifetime, 9/11 and COVID-19, have resulted in subsequent societal change that has dramatically dismantled and reshaped our outlook and views of both future optimism and potential. We add blinkers to our outlooks in the hope the future is rosy, but we have emerged into a corrupt, uncertain and unfulfilling global vision belonging to a few elite groups with enormous influence. In response, many people have looked for comfort, happiness and safety within their own smaller networks of family and locality rather than, historically, the organisational structures that we used to believe protected, rewarded and enabled everybody.

Our thought patterns are shifting towards questioning many of the traditional approaches that generations have previously heralded, in areas such as work, leisure, perceived status and lifestyle. The bigger picture suggests these act as distractions from taking a step towards understanding our real sense of purpose and value to the world. The Retro Ride has a key part to play in this process and will potentially be a helpful piece to complete the jigsaw of life for many of its readers, as it was for its author.  

I have tried to make sense of life rather than just live it. The character I have created to encounter and demonstrate the very first Retro Ride is Robert Bailey, formulated through a blend of my own real life experiences and fantasy. This is predominantly a work of fiction and I would urge you to be responsible should you decide to take on the premise of this book and create your own Retro Ride, but make sure you enjoy it! 

I tell Robert’s Retro Ride as if it is my own. His world is so familiar to that of many of us, but his search for answers and understanding will be a new destination, which will change his life forever and take him on a rollercoaster of adventures that reshape his life and future outlook.

My question to you, dear reader, while following Robert’s story, is to consider your own Retro Ride, explore the concept and use it to trigger ideas and apply the criteria to mould your own Retro Ride journey.  

As you browse the pages you will laugh, cry, think, ponder, anticipate and hopefully be motivated. You can make your own Retro Ride as risky, horizontal or as multi-dimensional as you want. The Retro Ride concept is a vessel for escapism, chained with an anchor of realism and I make no apologies for that. I want you to enjoy it and laugh, mock, shake your head and perhaps be a little jealous if your own lifestyle doesn’t provide you with the opportunity that our protagonist Robert discovers he has access to.

I passionately believe that in life you have to carve your own path to fulfilment, which can come in many forms, but Retro Ride is an option to consider for achieving that. A Retro Ride is the opposite of a Bucket List, yet so similar in both spirit and potential.  It explores what you have already done, rather than what you would like to do. The cultural objects and references which underpin so many elements of the Retro Ride are an integral part because we can escape into them during our lives. They act as marker posts along the path of our lives, reminding us of times, feelings, people and locations.

For our protagonist, life starts to crumble around him when he begins to question his own role in life and true purpose. Like millions of others, he has suppressed these gnawing inklings of thought but as the generators of his mind have spun quicker with age and anxiety, he finds himself unable to ignore their influence on his own bodily grid any more – the pumping thoughts, emotions and drivers for change cannot be suppressed as they are very much flowing inside of him and won’t slow down. Robert’s only way out is to find true happiness, but if he cannot find it in his present life, and doesn’t know what the future holds, then he has to force change and deviate from his normal day-in, day-out behaviour and work backwards.

Retro Ride was 90% scripted before COVID-19, and the global pandemic has reinforced my belief in the need for a Retro Ride for us all. Retro thinking is not new, although it wasn’t until the noughties onwards that it really became etched into popular culture and grew as our world changed dramatically, driven by technology and acted as an enabler. Too many of us are dismissive of the past and the decisions we made, justifying them with statements such as, you can’t change anything, it’s done etc. Yet, for me, that past pathway contains so many of the answers as to how and why we currently feel, think and act the way we do as individuals. That stance could be underpinned by regrets or positive/negative events, but on everyone’s carved path there are stories from key time junctures which, for many, need revisiting – narratives that are either unresolved or deliberately buried. Retro Ride simply asks, why should they remain so?

My frustration with how elements of our society and world now work will clearly come through in Robert’s story. To communicate these via the platform of Retro Ride has been both a blessing and a curse. I write simply and bluntly, which is deliberate as I want to reach out to as many audiences and individuals as possible.

For some, it may be a tough read, both in structure and tone, but you may find your own emotions and feelings spike and dip just as much as those of the main character. Remember, life is short, nobody is going to get out of it alive and there really is no guarantee of tomorrow. So enjoy the Retro Ride and if you decide to make your own, go for it! We should question what our purpose is, not in a René Descartes manner, but in terms of one that is embedded in reality. Your own missed ambitions and visions for happiness from the past will gnaw at you unless you address them, and they should be hunted down and faced at all costs, which is exactly what the Retro Ride can do. A Retro Ride features cosplay, realism and opportunity for those who accept and believe in the concept. 

An old boss of mine, who had recently retired, sat on a bench in a park with me one day, explaining how he didn’t know what he had really achieved. He judged being successful according to the house he had bought, his car and pension pot. But he admitted that he felt, what had been the point? What had he done to make a difference? When I asked why he was telling me this, he said because he just wanted to tell someone and then forget about it. It was like a confession, and it was these suppressed feelings that I wanted to tap into – he was a prime candidate for a Retro Ride.

My favourite chapter to write was Soul Crying Out. Perhaps that tells its own story but it sets the context for what is to unfold and will be an environment which many find familiar

We live in an uncertain and unpredictable world, which is not showing any signs of improving. That millions of people are now left isolated and lonely in an information-driven, interconnected world shows us the paradox we all must deal with and process.

The Retro Ride is not just about looking back and reflecting; it’s also about dealing with visions, thoughts and scenarios lodged in our thought patterns, which have been left untouched or buried away for long periods.

This is what makes Retro Ride an enabling tool, designed to explore and help set individuals free from the past, not to be chained to it. Please do shape your Retro Ride to be your own and, more importantly, shape it so that it serves you and is beneficial for your own life and others.

It will empower some to be in charge of something nobody else can control; the ability to think deeper and drill into the closed secrets untouched for such long periods. The pen is the most powerful weapon I have in the war with my own mind and it was time to let battle commence in writing Retro Ride. Perhaps the Retro Ride was just my way of making sense of my own life. These are my thoughts, this is my therapy; it’s been my saviour and it could be yours.

Darren Charles

October 2022

Chapter 1 – Soul Crying Out

We all need an antidote; every individual in this room and outside of those doors in the whole wide world does. To first of all recognise, then fight the toxins and poison that we’ve let into ourselves, otherwise there won’t be a future for our children and their offspring and so on. Ponder that, comrades over your spring rolls. We need something to make us stop and think, about our lives and how to get rid of those pesky demons, the things that plague us, so we can become better people and refocus once we are all content with ourselves, as individuals, and then our true purpose in life will flow. You can’t all be happy with the way the world is going. Can you? Just silence and bewilderment. Well, thank you for listening. Carry on and I recommend the prawn crackers.

I was more than tipsy but sat back down with a physically contented thud, then I laughed out loud and poured myself even more wine, a small waterfall of which escaped onto the table in an accidental spillage, which may have just undermined my otherwise solid and thought-provoking opening gambit, or so my own mental review recorded.

Sitting down and continuing to drink was all I could do after suddenly blurting out something so unorthodox, and completely out of context. The truth was, however, I wanted everyone sitting in that restaurant to hear it, and by the declining volume and subsequent silence post speech, most certainly had. As I submerged myself in the temporary hush of perplexed expressions I raised my glass and called them to heel once more.

Please, enjoy your overpriced meals, as much as your under-priced souls.

One rebellious diner interrupted. I’m not listening, you fucking drunk – just let us enjoy our meals. Sit down. Can’t hear myself think.

Do you know why you can’t hear yourself thinking? The noise isn’t coming from me or the people around you in this room; it’s coming from the governments, the institutions, the professions, so many lies and so much deceit being forced onto you every second of the day. That is why you can’t hear the cogs of thought whirring – they’re jammed with oppressive terror pornography, to breakdown your independent thought processing. It’s harder than ever to think differently, against the expected norms we comply with. You’ve proved my point in how you responded. That is why we need an antidote, as they have got into our minds and souls. They’ve poisoned us. Just like how you treat a snakebite, we need that antidote to stop the poison in us, as time is running out. It’s who finds it and administers it – that is the question. We can find antivenin for the most poisonous snakes in the world, but not for those who we let run our lives. Someone will still make money ... hic ... if we find this antidote ... could be in any one of you in this room... hic ... public announcement over. Mind how you go. Cheers.

It wasn’t long before the noise level rose again and I had provided the chattering classes’ cross-sample with a momentary opportunity to rethink their current lifestyle, although it probably had evaporated into the red and gold lanterns and sakura pictures within seconds. Someone had to say it; times were never tougher and such creative thinking out loud, to challenge convention, was rapidly becoming a dwindling and scarce resource. Sat at the evening dinner table in a Chinese restaurant was, however, probably not the time to exhibit the final tipping point of decades of pent-up anger and frustration at the way I was living my life. It was a tipping point in the sense that I had been suppressing a pressurised pipeline of probing thoughts which were asking me how I could be part of a society enabling so much injustice, inequality and unfairness. To change and make impact, you need influence, networks, strategies and a vision. At this stage of the evening, I was just about getting the wine glass to my mouth, drifting in and out of the digestibility of the passive and mundane dialogue from my table guests.

There were some in the room who were still perplexed, folks with forks half pivoted in mouths, eyebrows raised, and several now submerged in thought after my impromptu and unannounced soliloquy. Here I was, Robert Bailey, at breaking point under the microscope of life because I had finally snapped and the truth stream was starting to emerge into a full torrent.

I was still agitated as I grabbed hold of the wine bottle again and shook hard the remains of the Marlborough grapes. I addressed my own inner circle around the table, who by now were all stony-faced and silent, not happy at all being under the gaze of so many. To my left was my beautiful wife and soul-mate, Kaitlin, and sitting opposite, our long-time friends, Richard and Anne. A foursome out to talk about the usual mumblings of the world we lived in. We did it once a month and they had become boring; they normally consisted of myself and Kaitlin listening to how our friends were looking to purchase an even bigger TV to cover a whole wall or something else ridiculous that would offer an excuse for them to justify their alleged happiness, which never seemed genuine to me. I sat and listened to how material possessions were driving their enjoyment of life, I just couldn’t get my head around it. We had been absorbed for thirty minutes in a verbal drool fest about a missile warning sound that went off as they reversed their Mercedes – accompanied, of course, by a high-definition image from their phone of the gap to the remaining wall space. I had become immune to being impressed with these things; I was getting older and assumed it was me becoming a curmudgeon. Anyway, I had to be nice, we had known them for a long time and Kaitlin was very fond of them both.

My issue was that both of them only spoke of happiness in terms of material possession, not much else, and I interpreted that as a one-dimensional, shallow existence and outlook. I respected their stance but it clashed with my own viewpoint – one I was starting to buy into more and more and one that I felt increasingly passionate about – which was that humans had been fooled into thinking that in order to achieve happiness and perhaps, purpose and contentment, it had to be purchased and then consumed.

Here we were as a collective, supposedly enjoying a nice meal together, but I was a million miles away from the conversation, inside my head. My mind’s eye was pitting me against a clock, to do something with my life and locate both an environment and a reliable source to generate happiness. Maybe I was meant to enjoy these moments of relaxation but I just couldn’t any more. I continued to struggle to achieve a real sense of understanding of life’s context and find answers to the questions as to why I had done things a certain way, which had led me to this point in my life: of being unhappy with no sense of purpose. All this was in a melting pot within my burning cerebrum, pierced consistently by the normality I seemingly had to comply with to survive and raise my family.

Shhh, I whispered. It’s all under control. There’s a kink in the jet stream of my mind and I’m on the wrong side of it. It’s causing hurricanes, tornados and all kinds of shit in the head. Whipping everything up and all you can do is watch all of these thoughts just spinning in the air, unable to cling on to them. It’s unsettling, so forgive me, but it is nice to share these thoughts with those closest.

Anne looked at me, as confused as ever. And those wider friends of yours in here tonight. Perhaps it’s not weather but the amount of wine, giving you some sort of brain fog.

Anne was patronising at the best of times, and the events of the night were providing a treasure trove of ammunition from which to choose; we were never the most aligned of humans in our outlooks, actions or values.

Her sniping would not stop me continuing. You know the thing that dictates our weather? The jet stream? Well, imagine my brain is the world and the changing flow and direction of thoughts, the jet stream, is getting in the way of how I think and act; it is causing me a serious problem.

It was the closest metaphor my brain could harvest and reveal about itself while submerged in alcohol. Even just saying it had brought some instant relief. I scanned the room again as the diners continued their meals and anaesthetising alcohol. I was still part of the herd, but I wasn’t sure for how long as I was clearly struggling with the conventions of my current existence and daily living. Tonight was the start of its formal unveiling.

It was as if my life was unravelling in slow motion. I looked down – my chicken chow mein dish resembled a snake-pit, and it put me right off it. But this what I had to deal with, regularly. I had a very powerful brain, which questioned everything and created images and perceptions alongside a drive to question and probe traditional patterns of existence and the routines of real life. It was exciting to some degree, but also alarming and disturbing in a strange synchronised way, as it never left me. I could hardly tell anyone but it was becoming harder to stay in control of myself and this was the motivation for the sudden outburst – perhaps a cry for help. I needed to do something, anything. Perhaps this was a spiritual urge to do something to help others? These mental forces were exerting a power over me and it was becoming harder for them to sit behind the buttress dam of my own perceived normality. They were not normal thoughts I could just tell people about – I had to carry them around with me while sleeping, commuting and resting, at mealtimes, eating out in restaurants and so on.

There was no doubt that my soul was crying out for change. I suspect when you realise and accept that within yourself, you have to find a way to channel the surplus energy and mental strength available to you.

My wife and friends were used to my quirky manner but the outbursts had become more extreme in the previous nine months or so.

As the dull conversations continued in the background, it was obvious to me that there was a growing chasm between myself and the people I cared about most. I was becoming impatient with petty dialogue and wanted to hear something constructive on how they could make a better world for themselves and others, rather than get hysterical over a couple of extra couple of inches on the width of the goggle-box.

My wife was excited at Richard and Anne’s purchase of another car for our clogged-up roads, and I knew this was now going to be an agenda item for our drive home. Of course we would have to keep up with them, as this was the societal competition for the materialistic minions – the only winners being the corporate global bodies who laughed at us through selling false visual dreams and creating anxieties of desire.

I couldn’t hold back any longer as I absorbed the monotony of a monologue from Anne on her new Mercedes.

"Just having that