Larry Lizzard (pt 1.)

Larry's mother had never said 'you are what you eat', as she felt it was misleading. To her recollection she'd never seen someone turn into a hamburger, or a carrot dipped in humous per say. She deemed instead that men (and women) were defined by their actions, that they became what they did, that in fact, you are what you do. This ethos was drilled into Larry from a tender age, through to his early pubic years and through to where we join him now, at a less tender and more (if not fully) pubic age of 21, lying asleep in his university house.



A pleasant 8-bit chirp sounded in Larry's room, it was the exact sound you would've heard when Mario jumped into a box containing a coin back on the super nintendo. Larry had set this noise as his text message ringtone, finding it to deliver a welcomed, albeit feint, injection of nostalgia and peace with every text he received. Unfortunately, nearly every text he received was from his mother, which was in part due to him only having few friends, and in part due simply to the sheer number of texts he would receive from his mother each day. Larry lazily turned in his bed to reach for his phone, a brief though happy image of a jumping mario faded from his mind and his eyes glazed across another message from his mother, "just a gentle reminder", it read "...You are what you do".

Larry's mother was clearly insane. Perhaps having had numerous failures in her own life, she'd felt the need to project them upon her only son, where here the constant messaging and scolding comprised some vein effort to drill an attitude into him that perhaps she had lacked during critical moments in her own life. However, if insanity is not hereditary, it is at least environmentally triggered, and living in it's presence for so many years is sure to leave it's mark on it's guests. Larry had been somewhat of a guest in the house of his mother's insanity for near 22 years now, and there could be no doubt that he too was beginning to show his quirks. One can only wonder now, looking back, if given the choice to have lived a normal life, would've Larry taken it? Or would've he opt again for the path he eventually travelled, a path filled by rejection and isolation, fuelled by an unsurpassed belief, and resulting in one of the most peculiar tales in human history. I'd hope he'd pick the latter, the world is not short of everyday people, instead the world needs individuals, people who are a little different and the stories that come with them, and when it comes to Larry, perhaps his story is the most extraordinary of them all.

to be continued...

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