The 3 Little Pigs

Once upon a time there was a village in the east where people were free and all had their own sense of awesome. The days were long and warm and the nights had that light breeze that makes the heat bearable. Every day was greeted by a generous smile or a wave. The people were happy and content with life. On the hill lived three little pigs who were the popular people of the time, all their house built from a material that best suited their personality. They were best friends and always had wonderful dinner parties or pool parties. A invite required event that everyone wanted to attend, they were best friends with a little wolf, but when little red riding hood made a huge stink out of a wolf eating her granny, all wolfs were banished to the woods to live a life in the dark. Slowly he was forgotten, yet he still watched from the shadows, and lives vicariously through the pigs and village folk. 

Deep in the woods there was a house made from candy, colourful, tasty with an air of mystery. In this masterpiece of creation lived a wolf, a one man wolf pack. He did his own thing, kept himself company with no-one to speak to because of his exile to the forest. In his home hung the pictures of his favourite memories, all his old friends, the good times that made life fun and happy. He so missed those pigs. He sat and pondered his banishment, why was he cast out of the tribe, then it dawned on him, he did nothing wrong. It was the word of a few that made his departure a reality, he was not told to leave, he was made to feel unwanted, so to save himself from a life of regret and self pity, he left, walked down the long path into the forest, the three little pigs never looked back, they continued to sip their cocktails and take in each other’s awesomeness.

One day while watching from a tree, he noticed the pigs throwing a huge party, the whole town was invited, the bears with goldilocks, jack and Jill, snow white, the whole village came to play. The day was bright and sunny, the music was blaring. The wolf sat in this cabin eating a cookie, the music vibrations got louder and louder, felt like the walls were closing in, the wolfs temperature began to climb, then, BANG, his temper exploding into a violent rage, the clouds became dark and filled with rain and thunder, he rushed outside and began running though the woods, breaking trees, trampling plants and flowers until he reached the end of the woods. The rain began to poor, the guest fled to their house, the pigs all went into their houses to avoid the weather. The wolf watched.

The House of sticks stood upright. A nice simple design. The pig inside was the wolfs longest serving friend, one since back in school. One that cared and worried about the wolf. He was the wolfs best friend through thick and thin, the good and bad. Dress up party buddy, tequila drinker, supporter of anything the wolf did. But a pig that always keep his own emotions to himself, never sharing with the wolf. Kept the wolf in the dark through the pigs very own darkest hour. The wolf tried to knock down the door, but it was barricaded. The pig and wolf drifted slowly, yet both knew if the one really needed the other they would always be there, or so the wolf thought, he was wrong. The wolf snuck from the forest to the doorstep and began to huff and puff, he blew that house down, blew the sticks back into the forest, there the pig stood, shocked. His little pigs ran to the house of straw. The wolf let his run. 

Following the pig steps in the mud the wolf walked straight up to the door of the cute pig. This pig emerged from under cover into the wolfs life back in the day, in the rain they chatted and noticed they were similar, they had a bond that was strange. Not one fight to date, they were always happy and always there. Whether it be rocking a dance floor or trying new things, she made the wolfs life happy. The wolf introduced the 3 pigs, he was the root of their friendship. The pig of straw was the kindest, sweetest, truest friend the wolf ever had. Whatever happened to them? Like a ghost, it faded from the day in the live of. Distance creeped in. She was an awesome piggy. In the house the stick and straw pigs gossiped about the wolf and how he is on the hunt. They were greeted with a ring at the door, too late to respond, the wolf huffed and he puffed and blew that straw up into the sky. There the two pigs stood shivering and clutching each other. They ran to the last remaining strong hold, the house of brick.

In this house of brick lived the princess pig. The funny, loud, witty crazy people, who people either loved or hated, She was the wolfs best friend. They knew each other’s secrets, they never judged each other, they did wild things, they helped each other out, and they were always there. Then one day it all just stopped. It’s like if a river gets rocks in it, it stops, yes there are a few leaks of premeditated happiness, but the river had stopped. And the wolf was banished to the outskirts to roam alone without his best friend. While the three little pigs sat pretty. The 3 pigs were now all together, locked in the brick house as they became accustomed to. There they sat in anticipation to the wolfs next move, the spoke quietly amongst themselves, pondered what he would do. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and a thud. Then the sound of running footsteps. The Princess of brick peeped through the keyhole and saw a present on the doorstep. She opened the door, grabbed the present and slammed the door. Together they stood and were baffled by the gift, scared to open it. Eventually the stick pig began to unwrap the present, there was a box. They opened the box, they found the wolfs heart. Cut into three section, one with a straw, one with sticks and one with bricks. With a note. ‘A piece of me is in you’. The pigs slumped into their seats, their friend the wolf was gone, all they were left was his broken heart. 

Less Yada Yada, More Wrap Wrap.

The iconic christmas we see in the films of age. The velvet snow that lays peace to all where it lands, the snow men with carrots as a nose and buttons for eyes. People having a giggle making snow angels. The turkey that took the day to prep and roast, the crackers laid to await a good pop and crack. the finest dining set spread out and ready for the food to fill the hungry faces. Those beautiful homemade sweaters with a snow man or a snow flake knitted into the fabric, adorned with the wearers smile. Christmas comes around once a year like a birthday but everyone gets gifts. Did you hear that Rudolf's nose is only red because he is a cocaine addict or that santas beard is fake. The  man with a red fluffy suit and 8 charming reindeer. Is Christmas the festive day we all want, what's all the fuss?

Shops crowded with people all trying to get their hands on that game or that dvd. The last promotional item as they have sold out, queues that transcend the once peaceful magazine walkway. Decorations everywhere. The so call 'Santas helper' that offers alot more than a quick wrap, apparently she was oprah. i offered a donation, she offered her opinions on my gift choices. She told me that, Lady Gaga has demons in her music and most people don't know that. When you are at a club and her jams come on, all we want to do is dance in the dark, she says we are possessed and demons are in us because all her music has subliminal backtracks that make our minds cloudy with bad thoughts. She then told me how she watched paranormal activity and then went to church to ask the priest to pray for her. I'm sorry, but when did shopping and getting my presents wrapped get turned into ' Hi, and next on Dr Phil a possessed kid thanks to the Lady Gaga', this Christmas adventure was shaping up to be an interesting gift bonanza. 

During the wrapping of my awesome gifts i learnt alot about this elfish creature from lord of the rings. She told me her life story, where she was from, what she was studying, to which i acted intrigued and decided to see how much help a santas helper was. I asked if she was the only one manning the station to which i learned. She comes from a promotions company, she hates her outfit and refuses to wear a the hat, so she bought a clip that resembles a santa hat. She then began to tell me she dislikes her fellow santa helper because she is just out of matric and she is annoying, and and and. I thought to myself while watching her wrap. This Santa's helper is obviously seeking alot more than santas help. She would tell me her bra size if i asked her I'm sure of it. She then went further and told me her friend was coming so she was just going to sit on the roof and chill as they not busy, well then who would wrap the gifts. While wrapping my gifts she began to judge my spending ' you bought way to much'. i said yes, Christmas may be commercialized and made for making money, but i love to give gifts to special people in my life. She then told me how her and her family doesn't  give gifts as this holiday is more about the religious part. I thought, ah crap, religious banter, I'm the last one you need to speak to about this. I then began to get a little irritated and urged her to wrap quicker. Less Yada Yada, more Wrap Wrap. 

The people i encountered on my shopping trip were entertaining. The child and parent, child only wanting to be home on the couch or drunk, and the parent who irritable, tired and just wanted this trip to be over. The big spenders, the lookers, the window shoppers, the price hunters, the bundle buyers, the spontaneous mega consumers. Christmas time is an interesting time, where all the walks of life come out to play. I could sit and watch all the people move from store to store, like cattle laced in ribbons and bows walking to become less of the cash cow and more of a milk maid. Then comes the thought of what to buy and for whom, this person likes this, that person likes that, what to get granny, what to get mom and dad, what to get the siblings and what to buy the someone special in your life. i wrote a list, i never used it. I saw something and bought it, i really don't like shopping. Then you decide, i have the presents, then you see something else that will bring a smile to a face, so you buy it, a box, a card, wrapping, bows, ribbons, so much of sparkle. Then you become creative lets put all their presents into one big box, so it confuses them into thinking its one present, so much of fun to confuse the gift receiver. Wrapping presents is like wrapping a body with clothes and undies, when is it to much or going over board. After getting my presents i decided to get them wrapped as I'm to lazy and so badly coordinated i would just let the Santa's helper do it, and as i have just said, they help a lot more that they think. They made writing this blog fun, so thank you strange girl from behind the counter, your much sought after advice, just went global, no no, its a pleasure. 

Baked Cupcake in a Wooden Oven.

From birth people and their personalities and comfort zones begin to form and play out. In kinder garden you start to experiment with who you are, play in the sand and get muddy and dirty, or climb a tree and look down on the child in the sandpit, or the indoor child busy playing with play dough, making shapes, or baking a cake in the wooden pink cake oven. These are the days of our lives, ones without a care in the world. Paint in the lines, out the lines, one colour, hand paint, nose paint, don’t paint. Learn to speak, learn to count, learn about the little things that help us plenty in the aged state we are in now. Within those early days, we see the ‘cool kids’, the naughty kids, the quiet dweeb kids and the plain out right strange kids. But we are all an original artwork.

 From the beginning we begin to shape into the people of today, with a little less responsibility and a lot to learn. In primary school the true reflections of how people are start to emerge, the smarty pants that always got the awards, and the jock boy who did all the sports that made him cool. The slightly over friendly girl who is always with the boys. These start to create a stigma, one that stays with us throughout our growing school phase. These groupings of people begin to shape the perceptions of the ones outside that group. Why can’t I be cool, why can’t I be smart. The clicks in school start to create the alienations of certain people, the black sheep. These black sheep go through life expecting the worst from people, never wanting to accept that life and people can change. They start to lose interest in the things people are doing, they withdraw from society norms, wanting to go unnoticed and just fade into the background. But they are noticed. Bullied and cut down to the point you believe the verbal abuse that is thrust upon you like a weight falling on your face. The physical abuse that leaves marks on your body as a constant reminder that you are different. The emotional abuse, the most torturing of all as this abuse stays with you for life. You think about those people and what they said and in some cases what they saw in you, is true. But when young and in that bullied environment, you couldn’t be what they said.

 I know from my days in school, I always wanted to be popular, yet was always on the outside. I wanted to become a star in everything I did, but there was always someone better, or someone who didn’t want to take a chance. So I told myself when I was in my last year of primary school, when I go to high school, I become someone knew, unfortunately  the people you hated, landed up in your high school and this already created the knee jerk upchuck reaction. So I just coasted by, playing some sports, never wanted to stand out or draw attention to the pimple faced person I was.  Yet, the bullies pounced like a ton of bricks, making me hate going to school, moving classes because they were in them, faking sickness just to not go to school. They made me want to not be here, so for years I took the verbal, physical and emotional abuse, digging deeper and deeper into a sea of black loneliness and sadness. Keeping it all inside, I never wanted friends to know I was the victim that would make me seem weak and further lower my self esteem. So I merely just existed.

 Varsity came, and was like a whirlwind, all these people, different types, races, personalities, all chucked into a creative black sheep blender and sprayed across the walls. I was home. I could be myself. I started to explore the hidden caves within myself, became more outrageously attention orientated, wanted to show myself off like a dog at a show. It was awesome. Meeting new people, making friends, losing friends, making art, photographing, writing. I was in heaven. These people made me see, taught me, helped me, guided, and creatively stimulated me. I could be myself and not have to deal with the insecurities that once plagued me. It was awesome. That Kyle was a distant memory, but as we all know memories are never forgotten, they are always there, just like the past.

 And now we get to now. I am loving my life. It’s funny how people come into your life at different stages, the awkward best friend in kinder garden, the one who shoved sand in your mouth, or the little dwarf friends  from primary school. The teachers that helped you all the time. The high school friends that never left, the friends who left and came back and became your best friends. The new friends you picked up in varsity that have stayed close and never gone anyway, but will go anywhere to make you happy. The friends you met through friends who have just become better friends than the ones who introduced you. It’s funny and strange how people can fix the little things you were made to hate back in the day when you thought that peoples gossip and false opinions mattered. And now, I am able to open up to people a lot better that before, but that’s because with every day you learn more about your friends, the things you like, the things you don’t, they things that hurt, the things that heal. Every day I wake up with a smile knowing that everything is okay. And if it’s not. It’s not the end if the world. It can and will be fixed. People make people tick for the good and bad. Whether it is someone special making your break out of your shell and trying things you would never do, that is learning in itself. You never believed you could or would, but you did. Because someone make you so comfortable you would literally get shot in the face by a paintball, or sail a white rapid that makes you shudder at the thought of it. The people who even though you don’t see or speak to them as much as you used to, I can see they are having a good life, and that is all that matters. If I can go a day with making someone smile. My mission for the day is completed.

 I have learned a lot, from being the kid who know one wanted to play with, to being the bullied kid with a tough skin and ever present hard beating heart. To the guy who people loved having around for a quick joke. I have become a better person, because of people who helped shape me along the way, and I’m not done evolving. Watch this space.

il google it

Artificial intelligence, cosmetic surgery and history. Where did all that we see and touch come from? From the great pyramids of Giza, to the Mayan Temples in the Americas, across the bubbling volcanic seas to the cradle of mankind. It all started with a big bang in Africa, and I’m not referring to the mating rituals of cave people whose idea of fun was painting rocket ships and alien beings on the rock walls to confuse the people who discovered it. The dinosaur’s phenomena, such huge beasts that literally could most probably defecate an elephant. The concepts of the ages, the change in religious practices, the challenging of movements, creating the technological boom that makes stalking a china man on the pot easy thanks to Google earth. What made all of this is what I ask.

The whole secret of the race of Homo erectus than spammed from the pages of a religious hard cover paperback book. Adam and eve who are what many people believe are the birth parents of the world. Then you get the argument of evolution due to climate change, years of development. So let’s be frank and just bare with the ramblings of a twisted mind. Lets say that Adam and eve are the birth parents of life, how does this explain black people, white people, Indian people, within in that, eye colours, noses, heights, hair colours, branch down even more health problem, hereditary illnesses, fit people, healthy people, break it down to the fact that we are 70% water yet, yet we have the ability to interact, communicate. Have you ever heard real water speak? What defines the human race, what makes us the only known life forms in the universe? If we did apparently come from monkeys, lets call them Adam and eve, how did the world become 7 billion people. As far as I am aware incest is frowned upon. And if we did maths, 2 people make another person, maybe two, from there how did 2 people make the earth. Or in today’s world, we grow a person in at test-tube and wham. Human.  The whole debate of evolution from apes to people is a strange tail because if true, why are there still apes today, if we are made from the same genetic base, why are they still primitive and roll around at the sight of a free banana. Is Gucci the new banana, or brands in general.

That’s my point. Branding and brands has created a unique human, one that is equipped with artificial intelligence, gardened by a creator. We learn what is good, what is bad, what kills, who kills, what’s in, what’s out, trends, fads, accessories.  Who to be, where to be, what to be. The 21^st century Adam and eve is more like I robot on crack with a pair of gold encrusted sandals, and a manicure. Heterosexuals, homosexuals, heterosexuals. Transsexuals, so many sexual aren’t they. Within themselves are sub categories, stereotypes, the good the bad and the ugly. The question I pose. Whose image have we been created in. Based on past, whether we come from apes, or made from an almighty being, who or what have we become.

Take a look at yourself. What are you wearing, what phone do you have, is it in’? Did you go to gym today, did you eat some healthy bar after. What music are you listening to? What shows are you watching? What celebrity are you like. Who do you look like? Questions questions questions! While writing this. I looked, I have Levi on, because it’s an awesome brand, I have an iphone, because it is smarter than any other phones, and because people have told me sold. Word of mouth and gossip is the untapped advertising space. When people speak, what is she wearing? Seriously a nokia, and why that hairstyle. Now think about what I just said. Have you done that? Adam and Eve are still here, making their own rules, creating their own individual Eden. Today has become can I stand, how do I stand out. IL Google it. As Google has become a digital god. Or Wikipedia the best place to find the real facts, magazines to show us lifestyles to buy into, TV shows to make us think. How did we become people filled with less history in their bones and more radiation due to the technological age?

I am who I am because I was shaped by schools, then shaped further by rebellious varsity days, and now I live the independent dream. I like a pair of shoes, I buy, because it’s branded. I have iphone, because it is a pretty stylish modern phone. I drive a mini because the brand has created a mini image, and now one must adhere to this brochure atmosphere. I don’t hate today or what we have become, I just wish I could remember where I came from. The family tree has now become a digital Google maps facebook  nation. And yes, this is blog, on the internet which I would not of had if eve didn’t eat that apple and monkeys didn’t decide to stand upright and speak.

The Cookie Cutter

Carved from bone, constructed with a unique pattern, each bone fitting into a spot, like one big map. From the bone, muscles, organs and skin shape the skeleton. Defining the features, enhancing some areas, making others less bold. What’s left is an anatomy sculpture. A beautiful creature, a being of essence and spirit. From this walking figure, emerges a personality, one that smiles, cries, is happy, can become sad. The emotions that make up a human are unstable. One day you are up and next you are down. You fight, you make up with yourself. At peace, at war, what is clear is we cannot willingly leave this form. If we are angry or happy, they are moods not set in stone, we have the compassion to forgive, the capability to make peace, and the energy to make anyone light up like a sun. Self balance is what we strive for and when we do not find it, like a bomb we explode, either into a monsoon tear river from India, or a sunburnt happy smile from Gabon. How do we make peace with ourselves?

There are things that happen to us, at the time, they are the most painful or happiest time in our life, and when we are young to us they defined us, they made us or broke us. But when we get older we realise I am more than a broken heart or a marriage, success and failure make up my story, but they do not define us. We are we are, we write our own doodles every single day. When we come to realise this self affirmation no one can tear our spirit. We write the script, and yes our family and friends have large contribution and you join books from time to time but it’s still your story. It is a part of your humanity. For every scar you get it remains forever, but as with everything they heal. A really bad skunk style mullet hair cut, your hair will grow back. I live my life like a story, every day I write a new letter into my book called Kyle’s life. It’s a good thing.

Remember when we were kids and we helped mom bake and we had awesome shaped cookie cutters, a closed defined plastic shape, was it a heart, was it a tree or the awesome gingerbread man. A cookie cutter, you ever think about it, add flour and butter and salt into a bowl mix and stir and shimmy and shake until it is cookie dough you can make things with. Now add this to a shape, shove into an oven, set to heat and wait for the outcome. Life is like this cookie cutter. Our parents came together, and made us. From there they raised us as best they could, we grew and grew. We went to school and go accessorised with the learning’s of education and life, and we continued to grow, we faced dangers, we dated, we experimented and faced all the heat yet we grew into adults. And now we were removed from the oven and let to run loose in the world. We are like the cookie cutters, moulded and shaped. But now we live our lives, our way in our time. I’m an awesome ginger bread man and my shiny jelly tot buttons are awesome.

With us making our own life’s we are left to make decisions, and sometimes people cannot face life anymore, to them they have done everything they wanted to do. They have written their story, and they turn to suicide. Their self balance has tipped into the scale of abyss, they do not want to write another dot in their book, instead they weep openly onto the pages, smudging the good and the bad, blurring the line between what is real and what is not. A suicide is not the way to go some say, it is selfish. But before one passes judgement, do you know their story, do you know their life. Simply you don’t. One truly never knows what another person is thinking, or what they feeling. Because we have been shaped to feel a certain way.  A person’s core is a difficult one to balance. Why I am writing a deep memoir about ones true self is because it’s how I feel and how things in my life have made me understand what life is, how people are and how to carry on being.

I have faced a lot of things at the tender age of 23, yet I’m still here, still writing, still living and still making a name for myself. But like us all, I am still on the quest to find true self balance. Fighting off the pass demons and skeletons with an iron fist shoe, not afraid to take leaps to get to the other side.  My life quite simply is not over, and I will outline each letter, highlight the good, cry on the and bad and frown in the uncertain.  My life is not the easiest read when I go back and read the chapters, but they shaped me, they never defined me, so if you feeling off your rocker and need a hug, or you are questioning yourself, and what life will bring. Stop. And just live day by day, we are but human. And human are still evolving and so must your lives. Evolve into a higher place of self acceptance, mould into a better person every day, and life will happen on your terms. So smile and cry, grow and prosper in love, in your career, in friendship. You make your cookie cutter, so cut your path in life.

Peace and Love,

The Box

When we were kids, we couldn’t wait for Santa to come, we would put out the cookies and milk and hope we have been good boys and girls just to get the best gifts. The biggest box, or the one with the prettiest wrapping. A lot of effort was put into making us believe the bearded man existed and we would only get these magical presents if we were on our best behaviour. Once a year if we were fortunate enough, we would celebrate our birthdays, people would give us gifts or cards to make us feel special for turning one year older, oh how excited and special we felt when we received that present which took up half the room, or the gift that sparkled brighter than a clear starry night. Imagine we got a box that was empty, and the card read, it’s the thought that counts. Could a thought be tangible in that tiny box? Or was a box made to be filled. And made to fill what? A diamond ring that announces to the word that two people have committed themselves for life. Or a Barbie doll wrapped in shocking pink paper with the purpose of making a little girl smile. What’s in a box I ask?

With the passing of a Gran, the pain before the death and the anguish after, what are we left with? The tangible being is gone and what is left is a lifeless person. A person that was once smiling or joking. Was walking or running. Was planting new beautiful plants in the garden or removing the weeds that constricted life.  We all must die one day. But what are the people here on earth left with. A tombstone we can visit occasionally and feel the somber sad cold feelings of a cemetery. Leave flowers at the site of the dearly departed. Or in my families case. We are left with a box. My mind is finding it hard to deal with the fact that, the ash is the box is really her. How is that possible that an entire life can be summed up by one pink wooden box?  All the memories, thoughts and past is nested in that tiny box. For someone whose personality was bigger than any mountain, they were now known as a box. And what of the inside? Is it the thought that counts, the final remaining tangible assets of someone moved on. It’s really true.  The hour class of life once tipped, all the sand rests at the bottom, lifeless. The final candle expired and now the sand of time rests in the box from the crematorium.

A box to me is a gift, something we keep dear. When I receive a present wrapped up, ribbons, cards. I smile and the thought that someone has gone out and bought me something, a special something. This box however, is it a gift, is it a person, is it a life gone. The post funeral dispersing of ashes is one where you go with the family to lay them to their final path of life. Whether you do it in their favourite garden, or stand on rock and throw the dust into the sea. Once the thoughts of that box are rained out into the wind. They are gone. There will be no sign left that they once were physically here, sure we have photos, we have our own minds, but we all know past fades.  Soon enough my family will embark on the final journey and last chapter of Oumas life. But where to lay her to rest. Me, id keep the box. That little gift is the last present she left us.  

A box, something we may actually not recognise as being meaningful, but remember this. That special moment when you open that box to find a ring, or get that awesome new pair of jeans you have been eyeing out, that happy feeling is one you must cherish when you are alive, as we all know how short life is. Make the most of it, make new memories, and just be. As one day when all is said and done, your family saw you as a gift and will choose to hold you dear. It’s the thought that counts.

Romeo and Julian

The hate of two houses, the swords of the crest locked in translation. Two lovers, hell bent on making a statement, while giving the finger to the man, no pun intended.

Romeo, tall, dark and handsome. Eyes as clear as day and a smile that shatters hearts and mirrors alike. Dressed to impress, Levi Jeans, Gucci boots, Prada button down black collar shirt, revealing the gentle chest hair, teasing the eyes. The iconic star on the modern age, the James Dean of the 21^st Century. Romeo, oh Romeo, where art thou Romeo. In the house of Bolshevik he dwells, captured by his parent’s generous materialistic affection. In his loveless tower, he nests and dreams of the outside world, what is behind those castle walls?

Julian, mystic baby blue eyes, dirty blonde with a laugh that captures an entire genre.  A causal dresser, will wear a shirt from days ago, picks it up and sniffs it, if there is no B.O., he will wear it. Not content with being cooped up in and shelter, he is one with nature and lives day by day to the fullest. The legendary rebel, the dangerous being. In the House of the Tsar, he defies the elders, he defiles the rules of communist household, he selfishly confides in himself and lives for himself, and he believes he is the only person who cannot hurt himself, naive. Blissfully sits on a rock and salutes the sunset. A new dawn will come.

Romeo disputes that he must attend the annual Bolshevik ball extravaganza, yet is forced into it, enticed by the family heirlooms’. He slides on his mask, a pale black shimmer less facade. A limber smile peaks through the open mouth piece, he climbs into the black bronze car, and is escorted to turgid affair. Julian, excited for the chance to cause a stir amongst his families debacles with the Tsars, he attaches a glittered up, sparkled head piece, bound to attract attention and cause a riot in the minds of the family’s opposition. He gladly strides the family’s prized black stallion and gallops confidently towards the ball.

The music blaring, the masses caught in an alien dance, grinding and shaking to the beats of a music box. The glasses cheering each other on, the people laughing and conversating. Enter the dramatic unimpressed son, Romeo, a hint of a fake smile greets his square jaw line. He strides straight to the fish tank, he is like the fish, beautiful and idolised, yet he is trapped in a blue world much the same as the glorious goldfish. He wallows in misery. A sparkle to the left catches Romeos eye, Julian has graced the party with a grand entrance, he slides down the immaculate policed staircase railing straight into the centre of the dance floor and is greeted with a jeer of admiration. He owns the spotlight. Unknown to Romeo the masked bandit is none other the enemy, a Tsar.

The night transcends into a greater darkness, yet by the centre piece the water filled treasury called the fish tank, a lonely Romeo stares blindly into the glass, he places his hand on the glass, and proceeds to stroke the glass. He stares at his hands reflection as they follow each other up and down the water tank. He notices that the hand is larger than his, magnified by the water, he then takes on finger and slides towards the exit, and bang, the glass shatters, water, fish and glass invade the packed ballroom, yet, he is greeted with a smile from the now barrier less room. Who is this masked bandit, and why does he smile at the devastation. Romeo turns to run from the destruction, yet he hears the faint footsteps following his in the darkness. He turns and he greeted face to face by the bandit Julian. Quietly they stand and stare into each other’s radiance. No words uttered, only a connected understanding. They peer into each other’s souls. One loner and one rebel. Julian begins to untie Romeos mask, he falls to the floor with a silence. Julian shocked at the sight of the enemy, Romeo removes Julian’s mask and takes a step back and falls into a crystal clear pool, the splashes pierce the emptiness, he comes up for air. Thinking the enemy has fled, he is dragged out the pool by a worried Julian, lying on the shallow drenched steps, they begin to giggle at how dramatic the pool incident is. Content to sit there in each other’s grace, they sit, and ponder running away together. But, a loud bang is heard, a warning shot the master of the Bolshevik house stand with a gun pointing at Julian. ‘Jail this son of a bitch’, the guards surround him and pull his from Romeo. Romeo stand motionless is the pool, the raging insults run off his like water off a ducks back. He stands defiant, ‘Jail me to father’, the master is silenced by the request. ‘No, you will live a life locked in a tower like that harlot mother of yours ‘. Shackled, he is waltz up the stone stair case, to await his fate.

The next day he is greeted with sounds of an angry mob in the courtyard, he looks out the window and is faced with a terrible sight, Julian is tied to a post and has mountains of hay lying at his feet. The Master Bolshevik stands with a long, thick cigar, smoking and saying a speech of how Julian invaded his palace in attempt to defile and corrupt his only son. Julian and Romeo make a strong locked eye connection. The sadness of an untaken journey is felt in the air. The master see’s this and drops his cigar onto the hay, Julian goes up in flames. Cries and screams rain out of the marbled garden. Romeo see’s Julian in pain and leaps out of the window and falls to his tragic death. The lovers die together with a future unlived, a death made possible by other peoples ignorance and moralistic depravity. Love knows no bounds, let love live.