The Gift

By David William Kirby

A play about a man's descent into madness. A young man starts collecting dead bodies in his small flat and does not understand why, based on the killings of Dennis Neilson but not about him, this is a horror story for modern times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David William Kirby
• Release date: Apr 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311338129

David William Kirby

If we create our own reality then you may find mine within the words of my writing. If art reflects life then shouldn't it contain joy and grief, gain and loss, good and evil? All those hidden depths we do not like on show, those parts of ourselves usually hidden away far from public sight. Real art is sometimes obscene, Art is sometimes confusing, obtuse and obscure but it must also be full of light and happiness, great insight or intrguing puzzles; it must show us a way to look at ourselves more fully and understand what we see with greater clarity. Over the years and years of my life I have put to paper what has moved me, what has opened my eyes, what has shocked me to the very core and what it is to be me. I was a very lost soul for much of those dark days, months and years and tried to shine a light into the darkness with artifacts of oblivion; still today my consciousness drifts between the fluid and fixed, the focused and obscure. It is open like the books I have created, Let's face it, I am no Dickens or Shakesphere,. But considering I was virtually illiterate when I left secondary education I've not done too bad. The pen kept scribbling, not making much sense at times, and over that time (with careful editing) a line was been drawn from 15 to 59. Give it a go, you may find the growth and progression stimulating; all it may cost is time.

Book preview

The Gift

By

David William Kirby

Smashwords Edition

© The Dogbreaths Publishing 2011

All rights reserved

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The Gift

From the original Apr 86-87

SCENE ONE INT DAY

We find ourselves looking into the glazed eyes of our subject.

Narration

I’m quite normal, really. I’m just a shy man, yes, a man with few friends, no local relatives and no-one close.

I could be your neighbour, the man across the street. In this big city of little people, where people’s lives come and go, start and end and no-one knows or cares.

They march on to their inevitable end silently. They go un-noticed; people like me are invisible. We may walk past you in the street, sit next to you on the train, serve you in a shop; then we are gone. We are almost faceless shadows; just nobodies. I am just an ordinary guy; except, I have the gift.

I was born into a normal family, with normal everyday parents everything was sweet until dad died. I was seven. Good old Mum, I miss her so much, she didn’t cope so well after he went.

She came to me and said he’d gone to a place called heaven; as if I knew where heaven was. I knew this might not be true because I could still see him.

He was on the table, in a box; surrounded by sweet smelling flowers, he looked so relaxed there; the best he’d ever looked. I peered into his face and remember thinking that he’d never looked so peaceful; and there was that smell.

It was a faint musky odour that clung to the air in memory of him. It was a smell that hung about the room, thick in the air, for a long time after he had gone; to remind us of his peacefulness. He was reminding us that he was still there.

Laid out in his Sunday best, looking like he’d just won the races; whenever I smelt that smell in the future I knew he was there with me.

My schooldays were shit, of course, like most people like me. I hated the boys in my year and they hated me. As my parents were older I was always dressed in a style that they thought appropriate; this made me an outcast with my peers and left me lonely and isolated.

What a lonely world that child lived in. The only contact I got was on the rugby field when their boots would scrape down my shins and cold fists would smash into my face. They’d laugh at my bloody nose, my reddened ears; spit in my sullen face and enjoy my tears.

I’d lay in bed at night thinking of ways to get back at them, how I could hang them up on a cobweb and tie them with spider silk; pulling their arms and legs off; imagining ways I could make them suffer.

My thoughts were of boiling vats of oil and hot pokers; how I’d like that. Their muffled screams ringing out in the