Chapter 1

Who is he? You can be he or he can be you. He is a lot of different people at different times. You work it out. He always felt different, always felt that he was somewhere else outside the pack. But he always felt destined for something else. A vision of perfection burned in the chip buried deep in his membrane. A chip that was often visible on his shoulder. A good kid. Not perfect, sometimes mischievous and sometimes cruel. Just like any other kid. Somewhere along the line, perhaps between conception and the earliest memories must have been the time it happened. Nobody knows when but we can certainly have a stab at why. That’s just the way the world is. Play nice, don’t talk back, be the best, be the toughest, never cry and god forbid never show weakness. It’s them against us. Us versus the world. And we know we are better than the rest. At least, that’s the way we need to appear. Be ashamed of failure, do your best to never be wrong. Go to church with the decent people in society. The worthy ones. Sing your heart out to a hope in the sky and revel in how good you are with you like minded friends. All the time trawling a heavy chest of dark secrets behind you. Locked tight and it gets heavier by the day. Never open it. Don’t let anyone else peer in or you’ll never be accepted as one of the good folk. Behind closed doors? That’s a different story. Charity does not begin there contrary to popular belief. Build a hierarchy and control every move, every thought - if you can. And of course you can! It’s easy when you learn how. Unleash furious rage, verbal assaults, get physical if you have to, and sow those seeds. Nurture every day with a bit of ridicule and rule setting for good measure. That’s how we thrive and keep the cycle going. It’s Scotland’s way. The way it should be. We’re trash - the alkies and the drug addicts on tv, the nation that are so stupid we sat in the corner quietly rather than set our own agenda. We could have faced up to our own fear and took our chances. He sometimes got lost in thought.