Young Jamie: Portrait of the Artist as a Wee Bastard – Part 1: Merlin

Have a read at this story I wrote when I was eight-years-old, and then wallow in the pointlessness of it all as my 35-year-old self tries to provide some context.

MERLIN

It all starts off very innocently, like Enid Blyton meets Tolkein with a homeopathic splash of Clive Barker. A bunch of lads on a quest for treasure, facing adversary, fighting foes and helping each other out along the way. Aaarrgghhh, a wolf! Never fear: you can always bet on karate Callum and his sharp sword of lupine vengeance! Yay! Aaaarrrgghh, a canyon! Never fear: we’ve got bridge helmets! Ya… wait a minute, we’ve got what? You know, bridge helmets; it’s not phallic or a horrible medical condition or anything, it’s literally a helmet that shoots out a bridge to aid safe passage in times of trouble! Oh well, in that case… YAY! ‘Mon the bridge helmets!

Aaaarrrgghh, a pit of snakes…It’s at this point where everything becomes a little bit Tarantino-y. A new cast of characters from my class is introduced, who are all summarily dispatched in a series of increasingly brutal ways. Oh, Hi Brian…KABOOM! Brian? BRIAN? Hey, Kenny, how’s it goi… AAARRRGGHH! Into the pit with you, Kenny, and you’d better not even think about inexplicably finding a sword in that pit of snakes! Oh, you’ve inexplicably found a sword in that pit of snakes, have you? Well, I haven’t got time to ponder the ridiculousness of that plot contrivance, for I am about to ENGAGE THE BRIDGE HELMET, AN INSTRUMENT OF MERCY THAT I DOTH REPURPOSE AS A WEAPON OF WAR! SAY TOODLE PIP TO YOUR NECK, YOU SWORD-FINDING MOTHERFUCKER! Any more baddies want to try their luck? Oh, hi James Dick… I Hope you’re a fan of… face-punching! Biff! Boof! Badam! As if it wasn’t bad enough already for the poor boy having to suffer through primary school with a surname like Dick (subtlety and compassion are rare bed-fellows indeed among the male under 20s), he gets put into my story and further brutalised by enduring a murky, open-ended fate at the hands of a gorilla.

‘A gorilla found him.’ It says so much without really saying anything at all, leaving you, the reader, to imagine for yourself the specifics of poor James’ treatment at the hands of this savage bipedal beast. I’m leaning towards a biblical interpretation of ‘found’. I always imagine a gentle ‘tap tap’ of the shoulder followed by a blood-curdling scream, and an angry, whispered warning from the gorilla that ‘what happens in the dark, dark forest, STAYS in the dark, dark forest, son.’

At least Craig gets the kind of quick death that can only come from being ‘found’ by a comet (it’s too weird to consider a biblical interpretation of ‘found’ in this instance, although feel free to imagine a frightened boy being fucked by a comet). Thankfully for my band of merry goodies, and the wider planet, the comet only seems to scorch a one-human-sized area of ground, leaving me to doubt that what we’re dealing with here is actually a comet. They’re not renowned for their precision. By my young self’s comet-related reckoning, the dinosaurs should’ve been able to harmlessly header their comet back into space and get on with lumbering about and eating things.

The ending’s a bit rushed, in the sense that there’s a fire, the all-too-convenient discovery of WATER HELMETS and a whopping one-hundred-grand pot of prize money. I dunno, death, murder, cold-heartedness, greed. It’s clear I was a child growing up in Thatcher’s Britain. All that was missing from the narrative was a magical poll-tax riot.

A lot of elements in this tale that are ripe for Freudian analysis: extending helmets, helmets that spray liquid, a pit of snakes, a boy called Dick. This story was clearly about my own penis.

I love my teacher’s red-pen critique at the end, which boils down to: ‘Loved the story, Jamie, really loved it, right up until the bit where you murdered all of your friends, you fucking sociopath.’

1 thought on “Young Jamie: Portrait of the Artist as a Wee Bastard – Part 1: Merlin

  1. Pingback: Young Jamie: Portrait of the Artist as a Wee Bastard – Part 2: Culloden | Jamie Andrew With Hands

Comments are closed.