Chapter 1

Once upon a time there lived a little boy called Adam.

No, this isn't exactly a fairy tale, how about...

Marcus was dead, in the beginning.

That's not quite right either. Amber was dead too, and I don't think Marcus should get all the credit. Besides, I can't really see myself as Ebenezer Scrooge; I know too much to believe that a lump of cheese can cause a bad dream. Which is not to say it doesn't, I guess, just I know too much to believe it.

I suppose, now you're reading, I should introduce myself. My name is Adam Collier, and I'm nobody special. But, hell, if you thought that you wouldn't be reading, would you? To you I'm probably some news item, maybe a family talking point during the adverts in the Friday night film. You know the sort of thing: Dad suddenly looks up from the paper when Mum pops out to make the tea and tells you all about some nut who's killed his school-mates as though he thinks you're going to turn round and say 'Fair enough, Dad, I was going to knife some bitch that looked at me weird last week, but if you think that's a bad idea I'll just disembowel her dog instead.'

Of course, you don't say that, do you? Maybe you should, just once. See if he wakes up; see if he notices you actually reply to most of the bilious shit he spews forth as wisdom. If he doesn't, at least you'll have the opportunity to tell him you're going to fail English. If he does, thing's will get warm, but who likes snow anyway.

That didn't used to be me, by the way, and that seems like a nice place to start. Who was I? Perhaps that will bring us around to who I am. Maybe, if you give me enough time, I'll work it out myself; until then, we'll just have to muddle through this together.

How to define yourself? Lesson one: Physical descriptions. It's not as easy as it sounds, defining you in writing. Even a description is difficult, especially if you're as God-worryingly handsome as me. Honest! When you talk to people, they get hundreds and thousands of tiny little body language clues without you even having to open your mouth. Unfortunately, there isn't really a written version of it <scratch bum, flare nostril, examine fingernail, no the other one>. Well ok there is, but you want to finish this before lunch-break ends, or your flight's called, don't you?

So, how to define yourself? Lesson two: The answer is in the answer. There's a tautology to keep you occupied for a nanosecond or two. How you define yourself is pretty much the best indicator of who you are. Not what you say about yourself, but what you choose to say it about. Confused yet? Good, that makes two of us; perhaps an example would help. Or perhaps not, you're getting one anyway. If I decide, in defining myself, to tell you about my schooling you'd learn a little bit about me. Not just that I got 12 A's at GCSE (see, it's not just the stupid kids that get locked up. Hell, the most successful criminals in the world are a group of highly educated bastards known as lawyers. Don't mess with them), more importantly you'd learn that I define myself, at least in part, by my schooling. See, what we choose to talk about is as important as what we actually say.

Or maybe that's shit too, on with the show.

Amber kept telling me I was a negative person: Morgan reckons I'm just a chicken shit. Essentially, I think they both had a point. See, I tended to define myself by what, and more importantly whom, I was not. I spent most of my life running away from the parts of myself I didn't want to be or see or feel. Chicken shit! The problem with being satisfied with not being lots of bad things is that you don't have any goals. Not that I'd have achieved them anyway...

Did I mention Amber thought I was a 'glass-is-half-empty' kind of guy?

Unfortunately, of course, all those traits we don't like in ourselves really aggravate when they are in other people. If you can't handle your own small mindedness (not you personally, obviously, broad-minded person of wisdom that you are) then that's ok, you'll just avoid all the small-minded people. If you have a problem with your own curious grasp of logic, reality and the fact that you live in a distorted and hateful fantasy world, then you likely won't be in Confessional on Sunday. That, as they say, is miniscule starch-rich tubers.

My pet hate is acceptance. I can't stand those grey-souled automatons that spend their entire almost-lives nodding politely, no matter what. You hate sprouts, would you like some? Nod. I'm going to try and sell you something you don't want and doesn't work, alright? Nod. I was wondering if I could cut off your legs and steal all your money? Nod.

FUCK OFF! Take life by the ears, and shout, "Kiss my arse!" in its face. Sounds excessive? Alright then, just get yourself a nose-ring because your mother doesn't like them and Janice Twee's got two. What kind of half-arsed horseshit is that? If you're going to do it, do it. Make a choice, live with it, and don't let anyone else choose for you, even if they choose by disapproval, forcing you to 'rebel'. No one should have their life written out for them by committee.

Or even non-committee.

This ends today's sermon, all rise please for hymn 286, 'Praise the loud-mouthed bigot, his condescension well conveyed.'

Of course, most of this is a waste of time really, because you're already forming an opinion of me by what I'm writing, and how I'm writing it.

"I was horrified upon reading this work to see the gratuitous and unnecessary us of the word 'Fuck'..." You know what I mean if you've ever had to write an English essay that began with something like "Explain why the author might have chosen to use..."

Of course, your parents are probably thinking I'm typical of the generation, when they should at least recognise I am the sort of person who is giving a perfectly good generation a bad name. I figure a bad name is better than no name at all.

I said that to Morgan once, she called me a cynic. I don't really believe in all that though. As someone once said 'I'm not exactly thrilled to be living in the middle of a burned out generation. All the themes have been used up and turned into theme parks.' Its true. Even rebellion is old news really; we're a generation searching for a definition.

In thirty years time, what are the nineties youth going to be remembered for, except celebrating the millennium a year early? Thousands of parents bemoan the lack of respect in us, but we can't copy them and still respect ourselves. Our grandparents had parents who stood (and fell) on the Somme for us, our parents had parents who braved the Blitz for us, and you have to respect that, it doesn't deserve it, it demands it. Us, we have parents who burnt their bras, watched Woodstock, invented the 'walk-around-slowly-holding-someone-to-a-background-of-dull-synthesiser-crap' dance and now ban us from the same recreational herbage that they themselves took for granted. There isn't really a lot for my generation to respect their parents for. Except finally realising that flares and platforms were shit-stupid, a lesson we had to learn for ourselves in any case!

Of course, the other side of the coin applies, as well. Somewhere along the line, parents decided to stop respecting their children, and I wasn't around to see that bit. Once upon a time you could do as you were told, when you were told, how you were told, and earn a little bit of respect from your elders: now they call a psychologist in and wonder what's wrong with you. Welcome to the nineties: the lose/lose generation.

I suppose in true Adam Collier style I should tell you who I'm not, and let you decide who and what you think I am as you go. I'm not my father, I'm not my mother, I'm not my brother and I'm not who I was. There, that was easy, wasn't it? About as much use as a chocolate teapot, but easy.

It's easy not to be my mother, as she gave up on any pretence of personality many years ago. There is another theory (I'm very good at those, you'll find. I don't believe we can define very much at all: I was going to breeze through Philosophy at the University of Red-Brick, and become a highly qualified unemployment statistic. It pays to have achievable goals. Well, it pays other people, we've already established that I wouldn't have made mine.) Well, there are many other theories, but this one says that we can learn a lot about ourselves by our hates, which are just translated fears. If this is so, then I am virtually defined by my mother — no, I'm not Greek - whom I despise more than anyone or anything in the history of the known world. Her entire life revolves around conformity, fitting into the little stereotypical niches that society has conveniently made for absolutely no-one to realistically fit into. You've seen the statistical breakdown that puts various groups together, and no-one actually fits into any of them. My mother does. And she thinks we all should.

I'm not the 'typical' nineties teenager, but then I don't know many people who are. I' not a fashion victim, I'm not clubber, I'm not a vandal, I'm not a sportsman, I'm not a nerd, I'm not a geek (isn't it irritating to find these Americanisms drifting into the language? Don't they realise this is 'English'? More to the point — why don't we?); In fact, I'm not much of anything recently. Until recently I was just one observer, easily ignored and unremarkable, but even that's not true anymore. Of course, none of this really helps, does it; I think most people probably think of themselves like that, most social descriptions in that vein are the produce of our peers. We can classify everyone but ourselves. It becomes quite offensive when you think of it like that, doesn't it?