The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J Walker

Author:Adrian J Walker [Walker, Adrian J]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Published: 2014-06-26T20:00:00+00:00

Some memories of my childhood.

I had a collection of Star Wars figures which I played with endlessly. My parents couldn’t afford to buy me as many as some of the other boys in the village, so when I was treated to a new one, I spent a long time deciding which one to choose from the display in the toy shop. Lacking the appropriate vehicles and combinations of characters to recreate scenes from the films, I created an entirely new universe in which Yoda was a vengeful dictator, Stormtroopers defected regularly and Darth Vader helped Han Solo overcome his terrible disfigurement at the hands of his deranged Wookie and joined him in his ceaseless fight against plasticine Kraken in giant seas.

My favourite figure was the Gamorrean guard. He was a green, hog-like creature with large upward-pointing tusks, steel armour, animal-hide clothing and a thick, heavy axe. In my universe, he was vastly more intelligent than his clansmen and questioned the system to which he belonged. His disillusionment forced him one night to abandon his sentry and head off for the sand hills of Tatooine, where he lived his life as a recluse. He was my friend and I took him everywhere with me.

One Saturday morning, I was halfway on my way home for lunch when I realised he had fallen from my pocket while playing at the stream that ran through the village. I ran back in panic and began wading up and down in my wellies, searching through the rocks and small rapids where I had been crouched. I became more and more frantic, this being the worst thing in the world my eight-year-old self could imagine happening at the time. I stumbled about, letting water into my boots as I trawled the cold water and scrabbled about in the stones beneath the surface. I couldn’t find him. He had been swept away.

Deep, deep loss. I ran home crying and fell into my mother’s arms with bubbles of snot popping from my nostrils as I wailed at her, explaining what had happened.

I was inconsolable for the rest of the day and most of the next. But, on Sunday evening, after my bath, I found a paper bag wrapped up in my pyjamas. Inside was a brand new Gamorrean guard figure with a little note from my father saying “Shhhhh! Dad.”

There was a tree in the village - a gnarled, ancient Yew that stood on a small green by the school. It was easily climbable with a natural, deep seat where the trunk split into its two main branches. One day two other boys and I found a pornographic magazine hidden in the seat. As young boys, there was no other option available to us but to read it. We were just reaching the end of a spread featuring a hairless couple having intercourse with their vests on when we heard a noise from the road below. We looked down to see a girl called Amy looking up at us. Amy was fifteen and deaf.

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