INTRODUCTION
My name is Borys. I am an overweight middle-aged single male with a relatively average intelligence quotient and absolutely no ambitions regarding a distant future. I stay at a boarding accommodation, together with three other lodgers, who unlike my humble self, think themselves to be something special and do not understand the sorry state of our social status.
This is definitely a total antidote to the beginning of a gripping and fascinating story, but it would appear that you are still reading despite this lamentable introduction. Maybe, in the most unlikely or somehow perversive eventuality, you actually enjoyed it, which tells me you have clearly never read The Godfather.
It begins like this:
“Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonour her.” Now, that’s an opening to a book!!! NEW YORK – VENGEANCE – HONOUR – all in just the first sentence of the story! You may even skip the rest of the book because you are already a highly informed and competent reviewer of The Godfather. You can confidently say that the action takes place in the centre of the universe, in the city that never sleeps, where crime and criminals are in abundance. It is a story about violence, vengeance, honour and family bonds. That's it.
My introduction, on the other hand, tells you it’s a story about nothing. I might even end it now. But since you have clearly nothing better to do and I am bored, let us ponder through the non-eventful and monotonous life at 146 The Cresent Parkway, where four losers spend their days in unquestionably useless activities, contributing absolutely nothing to the society and the environment. The owner of the house is an elderly lady, who likes to be called Miss Casey, although her mademoiselle status has expired long time ago. Miss Casey has two daughters - Alexandra who is a doctor, and Sabrina, who has a kid of her own. As for the lodgers, aside from my humble self, there is Shaba, who thinks she is a Persian princess, Hudson, whose cheerful and overexciting disposition can cause a real nausea, and Walter, whose thick neck is adequate to his brain. Miss Casey also has some cats, but this is not a subject that I feel comfortable exploring.
Now that you know who we are, you can make an intelligent decision whether you would like to come back and read the next episode of "My name is Borys".
BEST DAY
Today is the best day of my life. Today, my dear friends, I broke my foot! Rarely a broken limb classifies as good news, although you might recall a man trapped in the mountains, whose only path to freedom was to cut off his own arm. Therefore, a traditionally gross and somewhat tragic incident, turned out to save his life and subsequently made it the best day in the man’s life.
My story is nowhere near as grand or heroic (it never is...) but it is adequately colossal on the scale of my insignificant life. Admittedly I did not break my foot while saving a kitten from a burning building (to be honest I most certainly would not be bothered anyway) nor did my foot get caught up in a crumbling building during an earthquake. No. I broke my foot while attending Miss Casey’s annoying morning ritual - the bush walk. We were only a few minutes into the wilderness when I stumbled over a sharp rock. We all heard a snap, but I was the only one who actually felt the pain. As soon as we all realised what has just taken place, Miss Casey called Alexandra, who arrived within 20 minutes. And so my best day began. Alexandra quickly helped me into her car and promptly drove me to her clinic, where she performed all sorts of tests, took an x-ray, MRI and gave me some drugs that made the pain go away. She is the nicest person I know and I am always happy to see her, no matter what the circumstances. But the best part of day unravelled itself when we arrived back home. Alexandra announced that my condition is serious and she recommended rest. No, actually it was not just a recommendation. I was ordered to move as little as possible and am not allowed under any conditions to go for a bush walk for at least three weeks! This is absolutely incredible. I will be lying on the couch and Miss Casey, who was close to hysterics and only started to calm down slowly now, will fuss around me for the next three weeks. This, my devoted followers, classifies as the best day of my life.
HUDSON
It was one of those winter days when one should not venture outside of the perimeters of one's own bed. I was still very young and enjoying Miss Casey's undivided attention. Unfortunately, no matter how much she used to spoil me, Miss Casey would not yield to any of my protests or pleading to stay at home. Somewhere deep in my gut, right next to that grumbling feeling that makes you imagine a nice creamy cake, there was another one, creeping into my blood like a snake, that something was going to happen and I wouldn't like it. Nevertheless, our routinely bush walk went ahead. While admiring the flora and fauna of the Australian bush (Miss Casey) and counting the minutes until the safe return to a less hostile environment (me), we met Hudson. Weird looking fella. Very tall and skinny, with long hair. Not much muscle on him or brain in him, but quite a nice dude. Since then, we became acquainted and met every day. I must admit that our bush walks were less boring in the following months. Hudson would even visit us at home sometimes and I had no objections to that. All was good until one day Miss Casey decided to drop a bomb: Hudson is moving in with us...
Uhmm, what?!?!?!
No questions asked, no explanation given, no deliberations undertaken - just a simple, light-hearted decision.
I was beside myself. Meeting this dude once a day for half an hour was one thing but living with him, under the same roof 24/7, was quite another. Unfortunately, to my surprise, my protests were completely ignored and a few days later Hudson moved in and my days of quiet comfortable existence came to an end. Imagine my shock when the very first morning after his arrival, while I was still in a blissful state of slumber, Hudson decided that we do something fun! Apparently, the fact that the sun comes out is a totally justified reason for getting out of bed. Who knew!?!?!
TOULOUSE
Picture the scene: a giant white fridge, bursting with an abundance of mouth-watering delights and the (usually very hostile) door suddenly opens wide like the gates of heaven! No guardians around, just a clear path to paradise! With slight hesitation I begin to advance toward this heavenly vision… As I’m about to reach my ultimate destination, all hell breaks loose, with an excruciatingly high pitched squeal, which turns out to be Miss Casey’s voice: “He’s back! Oh my god, Toulouse is back!!!” Needless to say, despite my hardest efforts to remain within the heavenly ambience of fridge-dreaming, I wake up! Damn it!
With great reluctance, despite the ungodly hour (I don’t think the sun has even yawned yet!), I crawl out of bed to see what all this commotion is about. As I walk into the common area, I see Miss Casey completely immersed in some kind of a trance dance. The only time I have ever seen her do this, was when I came out of surgery. Truth be told, it was the last thing anybody would want to see when recovering from anaesthesia…
With a sense of duty I dragged my feet towards Miss Casey to offer some kind of assistance, but as it turned out, Miss Casey not only didn’t need any counselling, she was in such an ecstatic mood that she grabbed my face, kissed it and exclaimed “Borys, isn’t it wonderful? Toulouse is back. You must be really happy!!!”
Who the f**k is Toulouse?!?!
I took a deep breath and thought “C’mon man, wake up, you know this!” And then it dawned on me. Toulouse is one of Miss Casey’s cats! Apparently he had been missing for a week. Not that I noticed… Can I please go back to my fridge dream?!
My name is Borys. I am an overweight middle-aged single male with a relatively average intelligence quotient and absolutely no ambitions regarding a distant future. I stay at a boarding accommodation, together with three other lodgers, who unlike my humble self, think themselves to be something special and do not understand the sorry state of our social status.
This is definitely a total antidote to the beginning of a gripping and fascinating story, but it would appear that you are still reading despite this lamentable introduction. Maybe, in the most unlikely or somehow perversive eventuality, you actually enjoyed it, which tells me you have clearly never read The Godfather.
It begins like this:
“Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonour her.” Now, that’s an opening to a book!!! NEW YORK – VENGEANCE – HONOUR – all in just the first sentence of the story! You may even skip the rest of the book because you are already a highly informed and competent reviewer of The Godfather. You can confidently say that the action takes place in the centre of the universe, in the city that never sleeps, where crime and criminals are in abundance. It is a story about violence, vengeance, honour and family bonds. That's it.
My introduction, on the other hand, tells you it’s a story about nothing. I might even end it now. But since you have clearly nothing better to do and I am bored, let us ponder through the non-eventful and monotonous life at 146 The Cresent Parkway, where four losers spend their days in unquestionably useless activities, contributing absolutely nothing to the society and the environment. The owner of the house is an elderly lady, who likes to be called Miss Casey, although her mademoiselle status has expired long time ago. Miss Casey has two daughters - Alexandra who is a doctor, and Sabrina, who has a kid of her own. As for the lodgers, aside from my humble self, there is Shaba, who thinks she is a Persian princess, Hudson, whose cheerful and overexciting disposition can cause a real nausea, and Walter, whose thick neck is adequate to his brain. Miss Casey also has some cats, but this is not a subject that I feel comfortable exploring.
Now that you know who we are, you can make an intelligent decision whether you would like to come back and read the next episode of "My name is Borys".
BEST DAY
Today is the best day of my life. Today, my dear friends, I broke my foot! Rarely a broken limb classifies as good news, although you might recall a man trapped in the mountains, whose only path to freedom was to cut off his own arm. Therefore, a traditionally gross and somewhat tragic incident, turned out to save his life and subsequently made it the best day in the man’s life.
My story is nowhere near as grand or heroic (it never is...) but it is adequately colossal on the scale of my insignificant life. Admittedly I did not break my foot while saving a kitten from a burning building (to be honest I most certainly would not be bothered anyway) nor did my foot get caught up in a crumbling building during an earthquake. No. I broke my foot while attending Miss Casey’s annoying morning ritual - the bush walk. We were only a few minutes into the wilderness when I stumbled over a sharp rock. We all heard a snap, but I was the only one who actually felt the pain. As soon as we all realised what has just taken place, Miss Casey called Alexandra, who arrived within 20 minutes. And so my best day began. Alexandra quickly helped me into her car and promptly drove me to her clinic, where she performed all sorts of tests, took an x-ray, MRI and gave me some drugs that made the pain go away. She is the nicest person I know and I am always happy to see her, no matter what the circumstances. But the best part of day unravelled itself when we arrived back home. Alexandra announced that my condition is serious and she recommended rest. No, actually it was not just a recommendation. I was ordered to move as little as possible and am not allowed under any conditions to go for a bush walk for at least three weeks! This is absolutely incredible. I will be lying on the couch and Miss Casey, who was close to hysterics and only started to calm down slowly now, will fuss around me for the next three weeks. This, my devoted followers, classifies as the best day of my life.
HUDSON
It was one of those winter days when one should not venture outside of the perimeters of one's own bed. I was still very young and enjoying Miss Casey's undivided attention. Unfortunately, no matter how much she used to spoil me, Miss Casey would not yield to any of my protests or pleading to stay at home. Somewhere deep in my gut, right next to that grumbling feeling that makes you imagine a nice creamy cake, there was another one, creeping into my blood like a snake, that something was going to happen and I wouldn't like it. Nevertheless, our routinely bush walk went ahead. While admiring the flora and fauna of the Australian bush (Miss Casey) and counting the minutes until the safe return to a less hostile environment (me), we met Hudson. Weird looking fella. Very tall and skinny, with long hair. Not much muscle on him or brain in him, but quite a nice dude. Since then, we became acquainted and met every day. I must admit that our bush walks were less boring in the following months. Hudson would even visit us at home sometimes and I had no objections to that. All was good until one day Miss Casey decided to drop a bomb: Hudson is moving in with us...
Uhmm, what?!?!?!
No questions asked, no explanation given, no deliberations undertaken - just a simple, light-hearted decision.
I was beside myself. Meeting this dude once a day for half an hour was one thing but living with him, under the same roof 24/7, was quite another. Unfortunately, to my surprise, my protests were completely ignored and a few days later Hudson moved in and my days of quiet comfortable existence came to an end. Imagine my shock when the very first morning after his arrival, while I was still in a blissful state of slumber, Hudson decided that we do something fun! Apparently, the fact that the sun comes out is a totally justified reason for getting out of bed. Who knew!?!?!
TOULOUSE
Picture the scene: a giant white fridge, bursting with an abundance of mouth-watering delights and the (usually very hostile) door suddenly opens wide like the gates of heaven! No guardians around, just a clear path to paradise! With slight hesitation I begin to advance toward this heavenly vision… As I’m about to reach my ultimate destination, all hell breaks loose, with an excruciatingly high pitched squeal, which turns out to be Miss Casey’s voice: “He’s back! Oh my god, Toulouse is back!!!” Needless to say, despite my hardest efforts to remain within the heavenly ambience of fridge-dreaming, I wake up! Damn it!
With great reluctance, despite the ungodly hour (I don’t think the sun has even yawned yet!), I crawl out of bed to see what all this commotion is about. As I walk into the common area, I see Miss Casey completely immersed in some kind of a trance dance. The only time I have ever seen her do this, was when I came out of surgery. Truth be told, it was the last thing anybody would want to see when recovering from anaesthesia…
With a sense of duty I dragged my feet towards Miss Casey to offer some kind of assistance, but as it turned out, Miss Casey not only didn’t need any counselling, she was in such an ecstatic mood that she grabbed my face, kissed it and exclaimed “Borys, isn’t it wonderful? Toulouse is back. You must be really happy!!!”
Who the f**k is Toulouse?!?!
I took a deep breath and thought “C’mon man, wake up, you know this!” And then it dawned on me. Toulouse is one of Miss Casey’s cats! Apparently he had been missing for a week. Not that I noticed… Can I please go back to my fridge dream?!