Chapter 1

Crawl

One

It is 1989 and I am born in Madras, or Chennai, the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu: a hot, humid, coastal city by the Bay of Bengal. My mother and father opt against a particularly unimaginative tradition that would see me named ‘Mathew Mathew’ like my father and his father before him. So I am given my own name: Nikhil. And by age 1, I am already more talkative than Mathews Senior and Junior combined, so perhaps this distinction is important.

Two

I am 2 for a time, or so I am told, for I have almost no recollection of ever being 2 years old. I must have acquitted myself quite well, because at age three, when the memories start bubbling up, very little ill will appears to be directed toward me.

Three

Here I am at 3. A moment ago I was sitting quietly on the boot of this parked car. Now I am falling off it. I meet the bitumen swiftly, and it breaks my arm. My uncle Ajith gets in a lot of trouble for allowing this to occur, though it seems quite likely that I was to blame for my own descent. When I cross the ocean to live in Australia, I do so with my arm at a straight-angle and encased in a blue cast. Such humble beginnings.

Four

For a short spell, we live near Maroubra, an eastern Sydney suburb known for its famous beach and infamous beach culture. My best friend is a girl named Kelly, a fellow preschool attendee, and we are as thick as thieves. Watch me now as I accidentally destroy one of her father’s potted plants (both pot and plant) when it leaps out in front of my bike. He takes the incident rather well. Years later he will win a tidy sum on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire so I expect the loss of a pot and a plant did not affect him too adversely. Kelly goes on to become a police officer. I continue to cause trouble and break hearts, pots and plants.

Five

After years campaigning for a compatriot, my brother arrives when I am 5. He is a great disappointment. See how fat and pink and incapable of doing anything remotely fun he is. It will be many years before we really get along. I submit to my parents the name Bubbles (in honour of a cartoon monkey from a children’s book) for this new brother of mine. I am summarily rejected. They name him Varun. These days he is a hard-working university student who fastens too many buttons on his shirts and mainly calls when he needs me to look over his essays or to pick him up at unearthly hours. He would have made a great Bubbles.

Six

When I was 5 my father decided to start reading The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, and for reasons no-one is entirely sure of, he decided that he would read it to me as a bed time story. So here we are with me aged 6, finishing The Lord of the Rings. We have been reading it almost every night for the past year (unless I was in trouble, in which case everyone missed out), with me constantly asking questions and him (generally) patiently answering. In true Benjamin Button fashion, we go on to read Tolkein’s The Hobbit and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, books far more suitable to children, now rendered far less interesting.

Seven

When I arrived in Australia with arm in cast, the doctor who removed said cast was my uncle Mana. We became fast friends and he spent a great deal of time with me – just a couple of young mavericks. You will note how exceptionally well dressed I am here, as pageboy at his and Tina’s wedding. They will go on to have busy lives and two lovely kids. I will go on to have considerably less dress sense.

This is me at the reception, where a young woman is asking me to dance. Were I aware that such opportunities would be few and far between in the years to come, I might have said yes. But at this very moment, the prospect seems embarrassing, our age difference seems insurmountable, and the Pink Lemonade waiting for me at my table seems far too enticing.

Eight, Nine

Watch me sign up for the school band with the intention of playing a small, sensible instrument like the trumpet. See me walk out with a euphonium, an instrument that resembles a small tuba and seems almost as tall I am. I will wheel it around strapped to a small trolley until I am large enough to carry it. And then one day I will put it down for good and pick up the horn.

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Chapter 2

Walk

Ten

Here I am arriving home,
Late one rain-soaked afternoon.
Hear the car doors slamming shut,
And the footsteps that draw close.
They say their names, but I’ll forget them.
They show their badges, I nod wide-eyed.
They tell me I’m to come with them now,
Their unmarked car – I get inside.

Now to the hospital we’re driving
And clouds loom thick and grey outside.
They try to keep me always talking
By asking questions all the time.
The lady turns to hand me something
“You can hold the flashing light”
Sympathetic, reassuring,
I don’t say much; I’m very quiet.

A driver driving far too quickly
Hydroplanes on rainswept lanes
And with new path and with new bearing,
Finds my Mum’s car in his way.
And on the bridge there are no options,
Mum could see the deed was done,
She in those final futile moments,
Reaches back for her young son.

By chance my uncle Mana’s working
So he’s there by my brother’s side
And save for seatbelt injuries, my–
Brother will come out alright
In days and weeks that are to follow
Aunts and uncles give relief
In months and years, my mother heals, and–
I return to giving grief.

Eleven

I once had a whim and I had to obey it,
To buy a French horn in a second-hand shop.
I polished it up and I started to play it,
In spite of the neighbours who begged me to stop.
Michael Flanders and Donald Swann Ill Wind

Twelve

This is me, my brother and our dog Max on the afternoon he arrives – a surprise but welcome addition to the family. Max is a golden retriever, less than a year old, but already massive. See how fine and soft his white-gold hairs are? Soon they will be on every item of clothing we own. For 14 years he will eat anything offered, jump on any available stranger, bark at every dog he sees and quickly lose interest any time we try to play with him. For 14 years he will lie close by as I clamber through High School and University, as I stay up night after night writing my thesis and finishing assignments, as I start my career and leave home. And even in his final moments, while I sit beside him and write The Prolix Post, he will be a warm, calming presence – breathing loudly and dreaming deeply.

Thirteen

Here I am at 13, the Juvenile Horn Champion of the State of New South Wales. Supposedly this means that I am the best player in the state under the age of fifteen. In actuality, it means that I played some Mozart reasonably well, exceeded a baseline score and no-one else turned up to compete against me. I suppose it taught me that showing up and doing something different to everyone else is a reasonable and legitimate strategy.

Fourteen, Fifteen

For a couple of years life is simple: I play horn and piano, I study and read too much, I do well enough at school and do not cause nearly enough trouble. These are the dark years.

Sixteen

The rarest and most wonderful feeling for any music lover is the moment that something new speaks to you. When the breath catches in your throat and a deep stillness descends around you. Each note threading its way beneath the skin and drumming gently on your heart. This is my 16-year-old self in that moment, listening to Roy Khan of Kamelot for the first time. I have just discovered metal and over the next few years my tastes will change dramatically as albums fade swiftly in and out of rotation. But Epica by Kamelot, will enthral me over a decade later in the same way it did at 16. The first of two concept albums inspired by Goethe’s Faust, Epica suspends the rich vocals of Roy Khan over tight drums, guitars and orchestration, all while telling the tragedy of a man who sells his soul to the devil. Along with its follow-up The Black Halo, Epica will be a high water mark for Kamelot, and a lasting musical influence for me.

Seventeen

I am 17, and my English teacher Ms McAlister is handing out a photocopied short story. It begins thus:

Katagiri found a giant frog waiting for him in his apartment.

The story is Super-Frog Saves Tokyo, a Kafkaesque piece of short-fiction by celebrated Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. It is a poignant reflection on the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake filtered through the lens of absurdism. I don’t fully understand it and it is possible I never will, and that is part of its charm. That there may be more left in the well for future visits. This is but one in a series of small but significant kicks that Ms McAlister will deliver. She will read an 8,000 word short story that I have written, despite not being my teacher for the subject, and she will critique it heavily, telling me that I can do better. I will start again from scratch and she will be right.

Years later when I begin attempting to write seriously, I will try to seek her out. To thank her for being both encouraging and dismissive when I needed it. But I have left it too long. She had retired while battling cancer, and it has since claimed her.

Eighteen

I am an 18-year-old engineering student sitting in an apartment shared by twin brothers Pete and Dave. It is the night before our first major engineering project is due and things are not going well. We will narrowly avoid starting a fire with a soldering iron and we will dance to PNAU’s Wild Strawberries to celebrate some small, but hard-fought victory with analog electronics. The final demonstration will go poorly, but we will learn from it and more importantly we will become friends. During my time at university I will be stressed, sleep deprived and only start to figure things out right at the very end. But I will also befriend some of the most brilliant and interesting people I am likely to ever meet.

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Chapter 3

Run

Nineteen

This is me at 19, sitting with my friend Joseph and listening to one of my favourite authors, China Mieville. He reads from his latest book, answers questions from the audience and then I wait in a queue so he can sign a pile of my books, writing in each the name of another book to seek out. Mieville appears thuggish: tall, bald and muscled, his ear riddled with piercings. His intellect is entirely incongruous with his appearance. He speaks eloquently and surprisingly gently, drawing from the most expansive vocabulary that I have encountered. Perhaps there is a lesson here regarding books and their covers.

Twenty

I am 20, and soberly if sombrely dressed in black collared shirt, black pants and black dress shoes. I am also in the centre of the mosh pit for Canadian post-hardcore band, Alexisonfire, clearly overdressed for the occasion. Minutes earlier my friend Leon sees me walking to the bus stop with my horn after a band concert. He knows the girl at the ticket desk – do I want to see a show for free? So I coat-check my horn and Leon immediately throws me into the mosh. I have been struggling this year with my studies and things are threatening to fall apart. But this moment is just fine. It’s sweat-soaked and surreal, here in the fray.

Twenty-One

21 is an age so fraught with expectation. It is built-up as a turning point and a transition. But you are no more an adult at 21 than you were in the year, or years prior. In fact, if you are anything like me, it may be a few years more before you grow up in any real sense. Of course that’s not how I feel here at 21, under a blue sky and a hot sun, looking out over the Grand Canyon and listening to The Killers. I have plans.
I have it all figured out.

Is there still magic in the midnight sun,
Or did you leave it back in ’61?
In the cadence of a young man’s eyes.
Out where the dreams all hide’
The Killers A Dustland Fairytale

Twenty-Two

I am in Florence, Italy with my friend Dave. This is a different Dave. He is not a twin, but he was also there at 18 struggling through that ill-fated project. In fact the two of us have worked together on assessments all through university. And now, having submitted our theses and left for adventures in Europe, we have just found out that we passed. This may be the freest I will ever feel – university is over, I have a job lined up for when I return and I finally have the time and money to travel. Over the course of this trip I will be awestruck by how large the world is as I hurtle across a frozen lake on a dog-sled in Lapland, and I will be reminded how small it is too, as border security officers randomly stop and question me at nearly every border crossing.

Twenty-Three

Here I am at 23, standing with my friend Tim and peering into the windows of a broken-down, manual 1988 Toyota Celica that I just bought on Ebay. I have recently watched the Nicolas Winding Refn movie Drive and learnt that its star, Ryan Gosling, rebuilt the Chevrolet Chevelle used in the film. And having shown no prior interest in cars, I have decided that if Gosling can do it, how hard can it be?

We will soon discover that half the Celica’s engine is under the bonnet and the other half is in the boot. And as it turns out, rebuilding cars can be quite difficult indeed. After months, and thanks largely to Tim’s father Mal and his mechanic friend Brendan, we will eventually get the Celica running. With incredible patience, Tim will teach me to drive manual, and in the brief periods between screeching or stalled starts, my life will be an 80’s movie. And then I will forget to check the engine oil and things will go horribly wrong.

Twenty-Four

This is me, standing on a chair, apologising as I remove a blaring smoke alarm. I live with two housemates now: James and Arran, and we spend our evenings watching television, playing boardgames and videogames, and removing the smoke alarm every time I try to cook a steak. When we moved into the apartment I barely knew Arran at all. Then one day I bought a flat-packed chest-of-drawers from IKEA, and attempted to carry all 23 kilograms of it home. I made it onto the train, but was forced to call Arran from the station when my arms stopped functioning. And just like that – we became friends.

Our time living together is short, Arran will start eating healthy and exercising. He will meet a lovely girl named Sarah, they’ll move in together and eventually get engaged. James, on the other hand, will move into a new apartment with me, somehow having not learned his lesson. The smoke alarm will go off slightly less frequently.

Twenty-Five

Consider my friend Tim. See how tired he is? It is my 25th birthday and I have just made Tim walk up a mountain at the Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, Japan. After a couple of hours walking under the thousands of orange and black torii gates that line the trail, we have taken the wrong exit and we are now in the next town. Tim is very tired. This is supposed to be his holiday. Unfortunately traveling with me is not the sedentary experience he might have hoped for. Over the course of the trip we will party with people from around the world at a share-house in Tokyo, we will soak in the hot spring waters of Kinosaki, even as snow falls from above, we will fall asleep in the tiny bays of a capsule hotel in Osaka, and we will be silenced by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. We will also walk a lot and Tim will tear two pairs of trousers by the end of the trip. And somehow, despite everything that he has had to endure, the long-suffering Tim will remain my friend. In the years that follow, he will propose to his girlfriend, Clare, and will start to make strides in his career. In the year to come, I will be there when he marries her, as his best man.

Twenty-Six

Here I am at 26, lying in my bed and staring at the ceiling. I have left a job in which I worked with great people on complex and interesting projects. Now I am trying to become a writer and haemorrhaging money in the process. Life is exciting and terrifying. And yet I struggle to get out of bed. It turns that it is difficult and depressing to be on your own all day. To try and find motivation and momentum within yourself. A friend named Ben will encourage me to run regularly, and I will find that the only way to stay sane is to exercise and spend time with others as often as possible.

I will also discover that there is no magic to writing, or running or music or anything. There are magic moments, of course, but you encounter these just by showing up regularly. If you are there trying every day, it is no surprise when the world is suddenly at your feet or fingertips. And it is no great disappointment when the moment passes. Because regardless of how today goes, you will be there again tomorrow.

Twenty-Seven

It is 1989, and a mother has just given birth to her first born son. In a few years she will migrate to Australia to raise a child that will prove to be arrogant, argumentative and frustrating. Yet still she will have a second one. She will nearly die in an accident, and a large part of that which will keep her going is her desire to watch her children grow.

And she will.

She will watch even as her eldest leaves a stable career for an absurdly improbable one, and she will try to be supportive, failing occasionally, but always trying. Because even as her son is learning to be a person, she is learning to be a parent.

All of this is ahead of her. Right now she is just exhausted. See her in the hospital bed, a newborn in her arms and so much yet to come.
She is 27 years old.

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Epilogue

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