Well now. Schnitzel my turkey bratwurst, Rudolph, and pop the top from a can of pop cos it must be the festive yuletide season once more. Not that Christmas is any better, or worse, or has more importance, or less, than any other religious or non-religious, or binary, or non-binary – period of celebration, or non-celebration. Whatever. Go sit in a dark room and twat your twitter with more cancelation labels. Don’t joke. Don’t even smile. They’ll hunt you down. The thought police. The laughter police. The secret po-po that shall descend in their masses to denounce your very soul as evil for daring to snort a snort of merriment at sumfin that just ain’t allowed to be funny no more – which, ironically, is more policing than the actual police do. Miaow. Cos unless you have actual video evidence then it’s not a crime. The police told me that.
A bad man attacked my disabled GSD Bear in his wheelchair. Then a week later the bad man tried to punch me in the head… at 6am on the beach. I have photographs of him doing it. Then a week later he tried to do it again. Then he spent every morning of the next few weeks waiting for me to come along so he could do it all again. All of which, apparently, are not signs of a seriously f*cked up individual that is gonna stab someone. Noooo. Not at all. Cos the police said so.
WOOOHOOOO! LET’S PURGE MOTHER F*CKER!
We can rob some grannies – they’re old, they don’t know how to use smart phones. Or we could burgle some churches – they’re too broke to instal CCTV. We can do anything – cos Hampshire Constabulary Resolution Crime Unit said… And I quote… without video evidence there is nothing we can do. Which is totes different to how I used to police during my 22 year career. When we’d take a statement from the tax-paying, law-abiding, former police officer with multiple commendations and not one single upheld complaint and now a successful author (and who has no reason whatsoever to lie) – about the non-working, heavy drinking, multiple-previous-convictions man that is super well-known for attacking strangers and, oooh, you know gather some evidence, interview the guy under caution, and then present the findings to the CPS to see if it passes the threshold of being in the public interest to prosecute…
But nope. Why do that when you can just tell those law-abiding, hard-working citizens to fuck off and keep paying their tax. I even emailed my MP, Bob Seely. I’ve never emailed an MP before. He didn’t reply.
Sorry. That wasn’t very festive, was it? Okay. Let’s start over.
Soooo, Happy Festive Holidays! It’s been a grand old year, hasn’t it. Oh how we rejoiced at the two lots of Isle of Wight builders that took money and didn’t do the work.
One of whom threatened to smash his way into my house and beat us all up – and then proceeded to contact people I knew to continue the threatening behaviour, Cos, you know, we’d dared asked for the thousands of pounds back that he’d taken and not done any work at all.
But hey. The police were on it! My gosh. We felt so safe when they emailed and said…. without video evidence there is nothing we can do.
Darn it! What rotten luck the offender wouldn’t just hang on a sec and let someone unlock their phone and start recording.
Ah well… ooh, but you know what that means, right?
WOOOHOOOO! LET’S PURGE MOTHER F*CKER!
But seriously. 2021 can go blow a goat. I got ripped off. Assaulted. Threatened, and my gorgeous GSD girl Milka died. Meredith in the Undead was based on her. It broke my heart. It broke all of our hearts. Then Bear, her son, had a limp. We took him into the vets for an X-ray. During which he slipped a disc and couldn’t walk after. He hasn’t walked since. The vet said fuck it, these things happen. I know bad things happen. But dude. Show some empathy. Two MRI’s and multiple trips to a specialist centre later and he went in for spinal surgery. He’s recovering now. He still can’t walk. He’ll probably never walk again. But he’s happy and he can get out in his wheelchair – when he’s not being attacked by bad men and their bad dogs during THE PURGE.
And there’s been that pandemic. Yeah. That pandemic. Plus, of course, the toxic politics of our own and every other country saturating our news. Lies. Mistrust. Deceit. Wear a mask. Don’t wear a mask. Lockdown. Don’t lockdown. Stick a needle up your arse every Wednesday to boost the profits of big pharma so you can stay vaccinated, cos you will literally die the worst most painful death if you even think about not getting jabbed. Who do you believe? Who should you believe?
Everyone I know is suffering from mental health. Depression. Anxiety. Stress. Isolation. Confusion. People can’t get to see their doctors. The police don’t respond. Taxes are going up. There’s hatred in every direction and at every turn.Trans. LGBT. Black Lives Matter. Jews. Muslims. Christians. Left wing. Right wing. I thought it was cool that statues of old slavers were taken down. How is that a good thing to have statues of people that did that? The world rejoiced when Saddam Hussein’s statues were ripped down. The world rejoiced when the Berlin wall came down. Both were symbols of hatred and oppression.
I thought it was awful that those 27 immigrants died in the English Channel. Some of them were children. Tiny kids freezing in a shitty little boat and those poor sods called the British and French coastguards and got told to fuck off and phone the other country for help. What the shit. And the politicians all said thoughts and prayers but did nothing to stop it happening again. I thought that was wrong, as so many of us did.
But apparently, it was wrong to have that view, and it’s wrong to have any view that differs from anyone else. So what do we do? Those of us that have those views? We go quiet and we have no view at all. But that’s not true. Because we do have views. We all do. And for the most part, us hard-working people sit in the middle and see things through the lens of kindness and decency. We don’t like labels. We don’t like titles. We’re able to think that all lives matter, while at the same time as not being racist and while still recognising that people of colour in the UK and the US have suffered terribly, and still do. The other thing is there are more of us than any of those shouters because we are the unseen masses who get up and work and pay taxes because we know it’s right to do that. There are millions of us. Tens of millions. And when those masses people don’t get the health, or the policing, or the help they have paid for, when they see constant injustice, and greed, and suffering to the extreme then they rise up and countries implode. You don’t think that’s happening? There’s been more riots in developed countries in 2021 than ever before. It is happening.
WOOOHOOOO! LET’S PURGE MOTHER F*CKER!
Seriously, 2021 can kiss my arse. 2021 is the worst fucking year ever.
But…
Although Milka died in my arms, which was heart-breaking, life is finite and it’s how we live that matters. And Milka lived well. She ate good food and had good walks and she grew old with her sons around her, and at the end, she lay down in my arms while I told her how I much I loved her.
And Bear – despite the narcissistic vet – has had one hell of an adventure and he’s still smiling. He doesn’t give a shit about his back legs not working. “Whatever. Get over it. Strap me in the chair baldy and let’s go!”
And as for those builders that ripped me off? One of them is an alcoholic with some serious issues. His life is shit and far worse than mine, and as for the other guy, the threatening guy. His life is even worse. He’s a walking shambles of a human being who stood in front of me and had every opportunity to fight, but he bottled it and instead gobbed off to everyone else with a good old hold me back! I’ll do it. I will. I really will. Any minute now and I’ll do it… He’s a bully and a coward and he’ll lose in court. The system is a shambles, but I won’t let that go.
As for the dude on the beach. The dangerous one. I spent 22 years policing public order to an advanced level. I’ve done the right thing and walked away and sought help from the authorities, but with no help forthcoming I have the lawful right to defend myself… and that new rule the police have…
If We Don’t See It Then It Didn’t Happen
That works both ways. We are the masses. The quiet people. But when we rise, whole countries implode.
These are dark times, that’s for sure. And I’m sorry this hasn’t been the most positive of messages, but within this last awful year, there has been some golden moments, and in a way, it’s taught me what, and who, are important. I’ve made some awesome friends and met some great people, from the guys at the specialist centre that cared for Bear, to the ferry people that kept getting me and Bear on the Red Funnel boats when he needed treatment, to the super lovey builders that rushed in to help and recover the shit work the other twats messed up.
And, of course, there is this bundle of love and happiness too.
This is Deli.
She came into my life just after Milka passed. A bundle of positivity and joy we all needed. It sounds trite, but she taught us all to smile again and got that energy growing in the right way.
See. There are good things happening! Even in the middle of all this shit.
Merry Christmas and Much love!
RR Haywood
*I’m working on The Code book 3 right now. After that I need to edit the new story I’ve written which has been bought by Audible UK and will hopefully be out in 2022. Then there will be more new material, and, of course, another episode of The Undead!