Adam, was visibly a fully grown adult man, but nonetheless at heart was still a boy. Deep down he retained an unwarranted affection for that free spirited, impulsive, yet shy boy, he felt persisted within his psyche. The boy who would with unabashed confidence, wish for things to be different. Even though life as it had so far turned out, had not proved very receptive to the influence of such magical thinking.
As a child he'd wished for quite simple things. For it to be sunny so he could play out. For it to rain so heavily games period would be cancelled. For the bully boys not to be waiting for him on the way home. When he entered his teenage years, he dearly wished to be different to how he was. Less insular and withdrawn, more outgoing and extroverted. Better at sports than he was, more confident, with taughter muscles, luxuriating in chest hair, more vigorously masculine, braver, fitter, a better fighter, with long flowing hair like a heavy metal rock star. The list of traits he did not possess grew endless.
He knew what he was expected to be like, and in him, inevitably, there was this distinct short fall. And yet the wishing for himself or the situation to change, never appeared to translate into overt action. Passivity took charge of his life's direction, and over his body for that matter, which remained slightly flabby around the edges. To which going to a gym would be anathema as a solution.
Some things did, of course, change. Though he had a sense that this was more coincidence than any godlike ability he possesed to adjust reality, to make it conform to his will. He did, however, hide a special secret, that he was gay. Initially he hardly understood the full consequence of the word, but he never felt the need to wish for this to go away. He was really relaxed and OK with it. Everyone else was simply wrongheaded.
The wishing would then refocus on imagined erotic encounters. With the boy next door, or the man who regularly walked up the side alley to the Working Men's Club, whoever the latest love interest, slash voyeuristic obsession, was with. And if he wasn't imagining being ravaged by a greasy car mechanic, he dwelt on the trickier question of who he wanted to be career wise, what to do with his life overall. The answers to which, infuriatingly, eluded Adam's imaginative reach. These all seemed frustratingly beyond wishing's remit.
In the midst of indecisiveness, he tended to settle for just getting by, without too much effort being exerted. He knew that this 'easy life' was a huge failure of ambition and initiative on his part. Yet in the quiet and undemonstrative private realm of his imagination, he continued to see himself as a writer, a poet, a pop star, an actor or artist, practically any creative pursuit you could think of. He tended to treat these as oracles. Ones he hadn't the foggiest idea how you could ever forge a career in. As he entered his twenties, wishing no longer felt like it had that necessary fizz anymore. That was never going to be enough. So what the fuck was he actually going to do? He couldn't be this naive day dreamer all his life, could he?
Adam allowed himself to drift, surrendering himself to an sea of possibilities of chance meetings or random events, to direct movement in his job prospects. These filled in the time until the big opportunity would turn up. Then there'd be no oracle to announce its arrival, though he'd have to be ready to act instantaneously, or risk missing dame fortune as she'd sweep imperiously by, like a drag diva.
Alongside all of this there was also finding 'the good man', the man he'd want to spend his life with. This was proving so much harder than he'd imagined. Though he placed much of his vision for the future upon it. Imaginatively pushing for this to happen, despite the spasmodic and disappointing dalliances, the casual pick ups and the all too short lived affairs. Surrounded, as these were, by rather too vast an ocean of celibacy. 'The good man', yeah, he'd waltz in, one day.
But as is often the way opportunities and 'good men' turn up when you're least expecting or are prepared for them. Adam was temping in a call centre, selling home insurance. This was already showing signs of being unlikely to last above a few weeks, before a rebellion would break out. It paid the rent, but provided little else.
Today he was on the loo, smoking a cigarette, already wondering how much longer he could swing being away from the phones, with this really bad case of diarrhoea. When some one thumped loudly on his cubicle door.
'How much longer are you gonna be mate? Yours is the only loo not already clogged with shit and paper. Unless, of course your...... blocking another one as we speak."
'Oh...sorry,....just finishing off ... be out in a... trice'
'Yeah, I bet you say that to all the guys'
And with a final perfunctory wipe, and making sure he was leaving the toilet in a respectable state, he gathered up his trousers, put on his jacket, wondering who the guy outside the cubicle was. Did he recognise that voice? Nope. Would he be young or old? Tall or short? Slim or pudgy? Hipster or nerd? With a sharp intake of breath, stealing himself with - lets hope for handsome and fit - like in a horror film he opened the creaking cubicle door. This was when he first met Gideon.
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