Thursday, 7 August 2008

My father

My first act on entering this world was to kill my father.

Such was his excitement upon my arrival that he departed the house on his yellow bicycle with a box of cigars in the wicker basket hung from the handlebars and headed for his favourite bar to wet the babies head. Such enthusiastic head wetting had not been seen before in our little village; even the teetotallers gathered at the window to admire the debauchery.

when the bar had been drunk dry my father set out for home on his yellow bicycle much to the amusement of his many friends. 400 meters from home the wheel of the bicycle caught in the tram track alongside the canal, my father was pitched head first onto the cobbles cracking his skull open and rendering him unconscious. He then rolled into the canal, where he was discovered the next morning, face down and most certainly dead .

The yellow bicycle and the empty cigar box were returned to my mother by the gendarme who had been instructed to inform the widow. It was noted that the gendarme was smoking a cigar as he broke the news.

My mother naturally enough laid the blame for her husbands death squarely upon my new-born shoulders. I have carried that crime like a back pack ever since.

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