Recursive History

Latest RHP Prose competition is over, and I placed a miserable joint 7th (out of nine :(). The subject for this competition was 'Life Story' and I think I may have been a bit clever for my own good in my interpretation of that theme. Let me know what you think:

Recursive History

“Excuse me, young man, might I have a quiet word in your ear?”
His eyebrows arched briefly at the unexpected question, and then he remembered his friends and it turned into a sneer, accompanied by a contemptuous remark.
He turned his back to me and, with a sigh, I wondered how I could ever have been a surly teenager like this.
I left him and his friends and walked away, hoping I would be able to get through to him when he’d had a few years to mature.

“Can I buy you a beer son?”
Again, those raised eyebrows, followed this time by a shrug and a grin.
“I've never turned down a free beer in my life, nor can I see myself ever doing such a foolish thing. Thanks.”
“Never turned down a beer eh? You wait until you're propositioned by a sixteen stone gay man in Benidorm.”
“You think that’s the sort of thing that’s likely to happen to me then?”
“Oh yes.” I said, and turned from his bewildered look to order our drinks.
Without really thinking, I ordered two pints of my favourite ale and passed one to him, forgetting where I was and who I was with.
“I don't normally drink this sort of thing, but what the hell. Cheers” he said and took a long draught.
“Bloody hell, that’s gorgeous.” he said, and threw back another mouthful.
It was then that it hit me – I remembered this meeting. I took another sip of my beer – the beer, it occurred to me, that the old man had introduced me to in the meeting as I remembered it. It had been that meeting that had changed my life.
My hands shook slightly as I began to explain my purpose. I told him of the choices I knew he would have to make. I told him of the choices I had made and why he should make different ones. I did my best to impress upon him the importance of not getting caught by the trap of being the same as everyone else, of living life to the full and doing whatever makes you happy.


“So, you made mistakes in your life, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to change them?”
“Yes, I can’t live like this anymore.”
“Well, I can help you with that, step this way please.”
It was a desperate measure, for sure, but I had to do something. I had to stop that meeting with the old man in the pub. The choices he convinced me to make, they landed me in this situation.
An old man myself now, I had had to endure a life of abject misery – all thanks to that old man telling me to ‘live life to the full’, to do ‘whatever makes you happy’. That’s fine when you are young, but what happens when you suddenly find you’ve frittered away all your money and are left with no career, no house, nothing?

End