



             L I V I N G    A    D Y I N G    L O V E

                An Autobiography By Bryan H. Joyce


Hi!   I  am  a  science fiction writer called Bryan Henry Joyce. Look,
that's me there just below the title.  You probably haven't  heard  of
me  as  I  am just at the start of my career. I am called by that name
for it is the name which I was  given.   I  wasn't  consulted  in  the
matter,  for that is the way in which these things are done.  Like Pip
said in the film of Great Expectations, '...whether or not I  will  be
the  hero  of  my  own  life remains to be seen.' My life started long
before I was named, but I guess the name is a good one for I  have  no
desire to change it.

This  narrative  is  my  own thoughts and rambling's on the meaning of
life.  Not your life.  My Life.  Parts of it will  not  be  much  fun.
Life  is like that, but the bitterness always comes with an underlying
sweetness.  Life is a process of using the  good  times  to  help  you
come  to  terms  with  your own eventual demise (I've come closer than
most).  Once that fact is fully appreciated  the  true  ridiculousness
of  the  situation  can  be  focused  upon.  Life and love are full of
happiness and sadness, but everything is full  of  humour.   Sometimes
too much humour. Many moments of my life have emulated a badly written
sit-com.

Hey, hasn't everybody's?

For  example, I am 29 years old at the moment.  I rarely socialise and
I'm what the unenlightened would call a computer  freak.   I've  never
had  a proper job and I'm in love with a beautiful woman who's in love
with me, yet we rarely see each other.  I was the worst at English  in
my class, yet I'm starting to get places with my science fiction. I've
never  had  any  money, yet I'm typing this on a computer which at the
time I built it would have cost nearly a thousand pounds to buy.

Crazy, huh?  But where is the humour in all that?  Oh it's  there  all
right,  if  you  like  irony!   I'd like to tell you about it all, but
where do I start?

How  about  the time when I was ten when I agreed with my friends that
the age thirty was incredibly old.  We would be better off, in  a  few
years  time,  killing each other rather than letting our selves get as
old as that. I'm thirty years old next year.  It's rather a  nice  age
to be.  To the real youngsters you're old enough to respected.  To the
proper grown ups your old enough to be taken seriously.

Don't we all talk a lot of crap when we're 10 years old?

                              * * *


"Look to the mote in thine own eye," said the Devil to God.

"Will you cast the first stone?" he continued, then laughing he added,
"I think not!"

God just shrugged and walked away.

                              * * *

Three of my loves are Computers, Science Fiction and Rock'n'Roll.

We'll  leave the computers out for the moment and make a quick comment
about Rock'n'Roll.  In their song, Rock'n'Roll Ain't Noise  Pollution,
the  band  AC/DC  said the most poignant thing I consider to have ever
been said about rock music; to wit, 'Rock'n'Roll is just Rock'n'Roll.'
You can't really say more than that, can you?

That just  leaves  my  middle  love,  science  fiction.   Here's  what
Frederik Pohl said about his love of science fiction at the end of his
autobiography entitled 'The Way The Future Was.'

                              * * *

"You  don't love a person just because she rewards you.  The person is
rewarding because you love her.  So it is with me and science fiction.
For the gifts she has given me I am truly grateful.  But I  loved  her
on  sight, giftless, and it looks as if I'll go on doing it as long as
I live."

                              * * *

I guess things are the same for me.  My mother tells me how - back  in
1963  - at a few months old I would sit up in my pram and watch Doctor
Who on our tiny black and white television  set.   Sometimes  you  are
drawn  to  a  subject  for no reason at all. It just happens that way.
I've been writing science fiction now - with the occasional foray into
other realms - for nearly thirteen years and boy are my fingers  tired
(groan).

I am finding it quite difficult to get into this autobiography because
I  just don't really know where to begin. Life is just too holistic to
identify starting points accurately. Synchronicity may be a nice  song
by a band called the Police, but it is a bit of a bummer to trace when
your writing an autobiography.

This  is  not  the first time I've tried to write an autobiography. In
December of 1990 I was rushed to  intensive  care  as  the  result  of
several years of major illness.

                              * * *

13/10/84 - My novel Starigrade is stuck  at  page  108.   I  can't  be
bothered  finishing it as I've an idea for another novel called Herman
about the things that happened on the CB radio.  Don't  think  that  I
will finish Starigrade or start Herman cause I don't care enough about
either  of them to be bothered.  I feel ill all the time and the world
is full of crap, Why, oh why do I feel ill all the time?   The  doctor
keeps  on  saying  that  it's just the flu.  Something's wrong and its
mucking up my life.  What the hell is it?  So much for 1984.

            (Paraphrased from the diary of Bryan H. Joyce)

                              * * *

When I got out of hospital in January  1991,  I  started  to  write  a
fictional  account  of  my  experiences  during my illness called, The
Thirteenth One.  It was so called because I had had been  on  thirteen
major  training  schemes  or part time jobs.  I scrapped it because it
was too depressing and personal, but - since it is fairly accurate - I
suppose that bits of it  might  be  suitable  for  inclusion  in  this
narration later.

Here is an example of how depressing it was....

                              * * *

Pain.

All  consuming Pain.  The sort of pain only a practising masochist can
dream about.  Red hot.  Screaming.  Let me die. Billion volts of  soul
ripping  gouging  pain.  All personally demonstrated in the privacy of
your own home.  Yes folks, for a small mystery  payment  you  too  can
have  your  own  personal hell bound trip into the twilight zone.  See
how you squirm.  See how you  sweat.   Learn  how  to  gasp  sentences
through  gritted  teeth. And it's all available now. Right now. Out of
the blue.

                (Opening para from The Thirteenth One)

                              * * *

This autobiography was actually  started  about  two  months  ago.   I
completed the first page and then put it aside.  Last Saturday I had I
phone  call  from Dave Burns of Stunn magazine. He wanted to know if I
was still writing and, if so, why hadn't I written anything for  Stunn
for ages?  I promised that there was a new Tavern story on the way and
he would receive it from me soon.

That  reminds  me  -  Dave,  what happened to that modem card you were
sending?

To cut a long story short, I decided that the new story would take too
long to finnish.  Since Dave would need something to keep him going in
the meantime, I decided that it was time  to  get  this  autobiography
moving.

I   think its time to take a leaf out of the Douglas Adam's book ("Ah,
that's where he got the word holistic!") The Hitch-hikers Guide To The
Galaxy.  He told the story of the book not by talking about the actual
book, (well, not much) but by talking  about  some  of  the  lives  it
affected.   Well,  I'm going to do the reverse by talking about one of
my own stories and how my life affected it.  The story in question  is
called  Love,  Death  And  An  American Car.  It is approximately 5000
words long and is the second of a series of stories set in the  Tavern
At The Edge Of Nowhere.

Before  I  get  to  the  actual story, I think I should tell you how I
became a writer.  I often tell people that I became I writer in  order
to  improve  my  appalling  handwriting, but the real reason is not as
clean cut as that.  Truth is, it was an  accident.   Here  is  how  it
happened....

My  mother  at  one  time did a bit of writing.  She used an old Adler
typewriter.  When she gave up writing the monster  of  a  machine  was
left to gather dust in my bedroom.

One  day  - sometime in 1979 - I was walking up to the shopping centre
with a friend called David when I heard an unwelcome  voice  shout  to
me.

"Hey, Joyce!  Come here.  I want to talk to you!"

The  voice came from somebody I had hated in school (I'll call him Jim
Doe because I can't remember his real name). Actually, it wasn't  just
me  who  hated him, it was everybody.  You probably knew somebody like
him yourself.  He wanted to fit in, but he couldn't.  He had  a  truly
bad  attitude,  but just didn't have the understanding of human nature
or the intelligence required to be a bully.  Instead, the  only  thing
he was good at was irritating everybody to death.  He would drift from
group to group being tolerated until folk got sick of him and expelled
him - sometimes violently.

That day in 1979, I groaned at the voice, hurried my walking pace that
bit  faster  and  pretended that I hadn't heard him. Unfortunately, he
couldn't be put off that easy. He ran up and slapped me on the back.

"Hi!" he said.

"Hi Jim." I said.  My pal David wasn't so polite.

"I've got something to tell you," he  said,  ignoring  David's  rather
crude remarks.

"What?" I said.

"I  just  want you to know that the next time I see you by yourself, I
will kick your 'kin head in!"

David made a remark that was along that line of that  Jim  Doe  was  a
very stupid woman's private part and couldn't fight sleep.

"I'll get you too!" he told David.

I  shrugged,  sighed, nodded and went on my way.  Jim turned to follow
me and David kicked him hard on the backside.  Jim uttered a few  more
threats  and  suddenly  left  declaring  that we were lucky, "Cause my
lunch is nearly ready and I'm starving!"

That incident started my writing career. Later  that  day  I  wrote  a
short  story  on my mothers old Adler about a guy meeting a monster in
the park and the monster saying, "Come here.  I want to talk to  you!"
The  story  was  untitled  and was in three chapters.  The whole story
fitted onto a single page.

These days, I write them a bit longer.

I've never ever did find out what Jim  was  going  on  about.  It  was
typical  of  the  manner  in which he behaved in school.  I swear I've
never thought about that odd incident again until I came to  write  it
down  just  now.   I wonder whatever happened to Jim Doe?  I really do
hope that he eventually grew up and became likeable,  though  I  doubt
it!

No  doubt, your wondering what this has got to do with Love, Death And
An American Car?  Patience, dear reader.  We'll get there eventually.

Having completed my first short story, I went on  (just  for  fun)  to
write  a  Monty  Python style science fiction about a detective in his
thirties called Sam Sponge.  It was called The Man In The White Boiler
Suit.  It isn't worth describing the plot here.  It ran to 6 pages and
I never finished it.  It was another odd incident which  prompted  the
writing  of  that  particular  piece  of  nonsense.   David and I were
walking my dog Daisy (God rest her) in  a  local  park.   On  the  way
home,  we went past a large field containing one massive tree.  In the
field was a man wearing a white boiler suit.   He  walked  behind  the
tree  and  didn't appear again.  Needless to say, David didn't see the
man at all.  I don't think I saw anyone  either,  it  was  probably  a
floater  in my eye.  The tree was well over a hundred yards away and I
wasn't wearing my glasses at the time.

Sam Sponge and the Man in the  White  Boiler  Suit  have  appeared  in
dozens  of unfinished short stories and a few unfinished novels. After
writing Sam Sponge's first unfinished short story I decided to have  a
go at writing a novel.

Even  although I could not type properly, spell, use grammar correctly
or grasp the fundamentals of plot structuring, I managed over the next
year or so to stretch my original one page untitled story into  a  102
page  novel. It had the terrible title of, A Planet Called Spoof.  The
main character was a younger Sam Sponge. It was a one  off  manuscript
with  not one word changed after it had been typed.  The mistakes were
horrendous.   The   grammar   appalling   and   the   slapstick   plot
non-existent.  After  failing to get it published, I decided to join a
writers group.

After winning last place in one of the writers group  competitions,  I
quit  the  group.   I  did  some reading up on the concepts of writing
fiction. I had just read Larry Niven's  masterpiece  Ringworld,  so  I
decided  to  write  a  proper hard science novel.  It took about three
years and was called Starigrade.  It ended up only about twenty or  so
pages  longer  than,  A  Planet Called Spoof.  Although it was another
piece of rubbish, it  was  rubbish  with  a  proper  plot.   The  main
character  was called John Brendan.  He was an asteroid belt miner.  I
liked him so much that he became the hero along with my dog  Daisy  in
one  of  my current projects the novel, Angle Park (it's looking quite
good so far).

Everything I wrote in the early years was pretty bad because  I  still
couldn't  type  or spell.  Since it often took up to two hours to type
one  page,  there  was not much chance of me  re- writing anything.  I
decided that I needed a word processor, but didn't have the money.

At that time in my life I liked to listen to the  band  Meatloaf.   An
album  appeared on the market by Jim Steinman called Bad For Good.  He
was the guy who wrote all the Meatloaf hits.  I bought the album.   It
was  and still is, bloody marvellous! Marvellous except for one really
bad narrative prelude to one of the best tracks, Stark Raving Love. It
had to have been the worst thing that I'd ever  heard  since  Hawkwind
had  done  their  version  of  a  Michael  Moorcock piece called Sonic
Attack.  The only endearing thing about Steinman's narration  was  the
title.  It was called, Love And Death And An American Guitar (too many
and's in it).  I liked the title so much that I  changed  it  slightly
and  started to write a story about a guy meeting his ideal woman in a
car park.  Thus Love, Death And  An  American  Car  was  born.   Three
hundred words into the story and I was stuck.  I wanted to write about
a  guy  who had got his head cut off and turned into a superconductor.
How could I connect that car  park  meeting  with  the  guy  with  the
missing  head?  More importantly, what was the story going to be about
once that connection had been made?  I didn't know I  decided  to  let
the story sit for a while to see if anything came up.

About  then  I  read  a  novel  by  Spider  Robinson  that  was called
Callahan's Cross Time Bar or some such thing.  I had already read some
of Niven's Draco's Bar stories and wanted to write some bar room tales
my self.  I had one small idea which I wrote down in a few lines on  a
note pad which I promptly lost.  Here's what those lines were....

                              * * *

The  Abcronxuddlern  grinned with needle tipped poisoned teeth. A drop
of milky poison was licked from its thin lips with  much  relish.   It
extended a massive hand on the end of one of its almost skeletal arms,
towards  me.  With a noise like a switchblade opening, a stumpy, black
splintered claw sprang out from its index finger.

"Here, allow me!" It growled.

A year ago, I would have fainted dead away with fright, but now I just
smiled and handed over the green crystal bottle.  With a pop of gases,
the Abcronxuddlern levered off the stainless steel cap from  the  beer
bottle and handed it back.

                              * * *

Seven  years  later, I came across those few lines again and wrote the
first of the Tavern stories.  I also discovered the original 300  word
version  of  Love,  Death  And  An American Car, but now I knew how to
write the story.  I was unable to write it before  because  it  was  a
tale  from  the  Tavern,  but I hadn't known that because I hadn't yet
invented the Tavern!  More about that later.

As  I  wasn't  getting  anywhere with Sci/Fi, a change of style seemed
imminent.  What would the new project be?

I  researched the market and discovered that Stephen King was probably
the richest writer on the planet.  It  was  time  to  write  my  first
horror novel.

The new novel was called Herman.  I'm not going to tell you  the  plot
here  because  its  never been done before and I'm using it in the new
Tavern story (entitled The Jawman).  When it reached 80 or 90 pages, I
scrapped it supposedly because it was too violent  and  had  too  much
swearing.   In  reality, it was scrapped because I was feeling far too
ill all the time to be bothered writing anything.  I told myself  that
writing  would  be much easier if I got that word processor that I was
thinking about.  I went out and bought a Commodore 64.  Big mistake!

The software was Mini-Office.  The C64's memory was so limited that by
the time I had loaded Mini-Office, there was only room left for  about
a  dozen  pages  (actually, I don't think it was even as much as that)
and there was no spell checker.  Example of the  C64's  limitations  -
during  the course of writing this on my PC I've moved a block of text
bigger than the maximum document size allowed by the C64's memory.

While the C64 is an  okay  computer,  you  can't  type  novels  on  it
particularly  with  without  a  disk drive, extra memory or a printer.
The lack of a spell checker was a disaster.   It  had  been  the  main
reason  for  buying  the  thing in the first place.  I had to find out
more about computers.

Since  I  was  on the dole, I went and asked if there was any computer
related training schemes about.  There was and I  went  on  one.   Not
straight  away though.  It took 3 months of mucking about before I got
a phone call from someone called John (we ended up  good  friends)  at
the local Employment Training Centre. Could I start tomorrow?  You bet
ya!

The computer department was in the process of being set  up  so  their
wasn't  a  lot  happening.   Resources were 3 Apple Iie's and a BBC B.
There wasn't even a full time tutor.  John did the tutoring as well as
his main job simply because he had a love of computers.  The important
thing - for me - was the chance to  discuss  computer  related  topics
with like minded people.

After a few months I got a second-hand computer called an Atari 520 ST
FM.  The  FM bit on its name stood for Frequency Modulator which meant
that it could be attached to a  TV  just  like  the  C64.   It  had  a
single-sided  floppy disk drive and loads of memory when compared to a
C64. John had let me use his own ST on many occasions and helped me to
raise the money to by the second-hand ST.

The new computer was great!  It was wonderful!  It could do  anything.
But  it  still  didn't have a printer and I didn't feel well enough to
want to do any writing anyway.

Nearly a year went by.  I doubled the memory capacity of the ST up  to
one megabyte and fitted a double-sided disk drive, but still didn't do
much other than play games or muck about.

Then  around the second week in December of 1990 my life was to change
suddenly forever.  It was a Monday and I felt  very  ill  indeed.   By
Tuesday  night, I was in surgery for several hours. It was supposed to
have been an exploratory, but when they opened me up it was found that
my pancreas was apparently not working at all.  The flesh  had  rotted
and  the  resulting  extremely corrosive slime was irritating my other
organs.  What was left of my pancreas had swollen up and looked  dead.
A  lot  of  it was cut away and my other organs had to be cleaned.  In
the bowel is a valve which stops the excrement from coming up from the
intestines and into the stomach.  I had been so  violently  sick  that
the  valve  had  jammed open and my stomach was full of excrement.  In
order to deal with these things they had opened me up from my groin to
the bottom of my ribs.

By midnight, it was certain that I was going to  die  and  by  parents
were  rushed  out  to  the  hospital.   I flatlined on the ECG machine
several times, but didn't die for more than a few seconds at a time.

When I pulled through the operation by a narrow  squeak,  the  doctors
told my parents that I would probably be in a coma as the trauma would
have  been  too  much.   When  I didn't go into a coma, they then said
that it would be several days before I  woke  up  and  I  might  be  a
vegetable.   Wrong  again!   A few hours later, I woke up in intensive
care annoyed that I couldn't find my glasses.

Everybody was amazed except me!   As  I  had  been  wheeled  into  the
operating  theatre  the  night  before,  I  had  made up my mind to do
something.  I was so determined to do this thing that death would have
been a great inconvenience.  When Death came for me, I did like  Flash
Gordon and told it to, "Zark Off!"

The  operation  scar  was  very  large and looked like two bits of raw
steak that had been sewn together.  To the  left  and  right  was  two
holes  in  my  abdomen through which large pipes carried the poisonous
fluids out of my body.  There  were  about  six  drips  going  into  a
network  of  taps  which  went  into  my left arm and by way of a long
internal tube went more than a foot into the blood  vessel.   The  ECG
heart  machine  worked  through three pads stuck onto my chest.  There
was a probe clipped onto my right index finger. What  it  did  was  to
shine  a  light  onto  the skin and measure the amount of redness that
bounced back. With that information, it could work out  if  there  was
enough oxygen reaching my blood stream from the oxygen mask that I was
wearing.  On top of all that, a urinal tube was also in position. Just
as  well.  It  would  be  a  long time before I could go to the toilet
again.

What follows is a drastically re-written excerpt  from  my  unfinished
novel  the Thirteenth One.  All the fictional bits have been taken out
and what remains is very accurate.  Bits of it might seem to you to be
very contrived and in places theatrical, but it was originally written
directly after coming out of hospital when the pain was all too  fresh
in  my  mind.  I wouldn't have written it in such a manner today for I
am detached from  it  by  two  years.   You'll  have  to  forgive  the
intensity  of  the  excerpt.   If  I  had toned it down then you would
never be able to understand why the experience  had  such  a  profound
effect on my life and, by obvious association, my writing.

                              * * *

That  morning  I  was confused, melancholy, nauseous, dizzy, jumpy and
had a splitting headache. The pains in my stomach and chest I put down
to stress or nervous tension.

It was December 1990 and, though I didn't know it at the time,  I  was
dying.

Walking  to  work  that  day  was miserable.  It was pouring down with
freezing cold rain and the North Wind was howling  something  chronic.
The  last  time  I'd  been out in weather so foul had been about eight
years ago when myself and David had hired a cheap caravan  at  a  site
down at Berwick upon Tweed in January.

What  a  holiday  that  had  turned  out to be!  We had planed to do a
cycling trip of the numerous historical sites using the caravan  as  a
base.  It started off straight away as a lousy trip and got worse in a
hurry.   We  almost didn't get there at all as the weather was so bad.
On arrival, we got snowed in. The roads were blocked for a week.   The
caravan's  water  pipes froze solid.  The gas only worked when it felt
like it and the caravan park was crawling with cops all  week  because
one  of  the  locals  who  stayed there all year round had disappeared
under strange circumstances.

Turns out that the guy had taken a short cut across  the  frozen  lake
and  fell  through  the  ice.   It  had frozen over the top of him and
snowed on top of that.

I really shouldn't have gone to work that day as I felt really bad.  I
had been feeling pretty bad for a long time, but was worse than  usual
because I was also really depressed.  At the weekend I had asked out a
woman  friend  whom  I had known for a long time and fancied something
rotten.  I was sure she would have gone out with me, but she said  no.
Not  only  that,  she  no longer wanted to be friends with me when she
found out that I thought about her in THAT way.  I've  never  had  any
luck with women.

By  3  O'clock  that day, my head was throbbing like a virgin inside a
prostitute. I'd had enough for one  day.  It  was  time  to  go  home.
Little  did I know that it was going to be three months before I would
be back.

On my way home, I went to the corner shop and bought  twenty  low  tar
cigarettes  because they didn't sell low tar in tens. Although my head
was still throbbing and I felt as depressed as it was possible  to  be
without  actually being suicidal, I bought a bottle of strong wine and
took it home.

That evening, my pal Andy came over to see how my date had went at the
weekend.  I explained that it hadn't and he watched me drink my  wine.
Late,  I  want  back  to  the shop for a second bottle of wine.  I was
feeling so ill that I decided  not  to  open  the  second  bottle  and
instead  went  to  bed early.  Before falling asleep I lay in the dark
listening to the rush of blood in my ears, the drum beat of  my  heart
and  thought about the woman for a long time.  Nothing rude, mainly it
was thoughts about wasn't it time I thought  about  getting  a  proper
relationship?   By  proper,  I  meant for longer that the usual two or
three months.  After all,  it  was  1990  and  I  was  27  years  old.
Depressed  I  rolled  over in bed and eventually fell into a tormented
sleep.

Next day I awoke at four in the morning  feeling  truly  terrible.   I
toyed  with  the  idea  of reading from my note pad at the side of the
bed. It was there so that I could write down  any  interesting  dreams
that  I  might  have. In the nearby cupboard, was half a dozen similar
notebooks filled with assorted dream bumpf. Now and again I'd  get  an
idea for a story, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred it would turn
out  to be meaningless claptrap.  I decided not to bother and just lay
there for some hours feeling very sick.

The pain didn't start until almost seven in the morning. When  it  hit
it went from zero to a billion volts of pain in about five minutes. It
felt  like I had a large white hot rock sitting under the V of my ribs
and had been kicked in the stomach  by  a  horse.   For  years  I  had
experienced such pain every now and then. It usually only lasted a few
minutes.   The  pain  had  always  been unbelievable, but it had never
been as bad as this before.

I lurched to the bathroom. Whilst I was sitting on the  toilet  I  was
violently  sick  into  the bath.  The pain in my gut managed to do the
impossible and double in intensity.  It was then that I realised  that
I wouldn't be going into work that day.

Back  in  my  room,  I  tried  to get dressed and failed.  The pain of
moving about was just too much for me.  I sat on my bed for a while. I
toyed with the idea of  banging  on  the  wall  or  floor  to  attract
somebody's  attention but decided against it. Sometime later I lurched
down stairs and into the living room.

"Could  you  walk  me  to  the  medical  centre?   I  think  I've  got
appendicitis,"  I said to my father who looked shocked at the sight of
me. I was sure that it must be my appendix.  In a telly  program  seen
years  ago,  somebody had said the pain caused by appendicitis was the
worst kind of pain there was.  My pain couldn't get any  worse,  could
it?

"It  doesn't  open till nine O'Clock.  The phones are manned from  the
back of eight. I'll see if I can get you an emergency appointment," my
father said.

I guessed from the look on his face that I didn't look too good. I was
slick with cold sweat.  By looking in the mirror over the fireplace, I
found  out  that I was as pale as death. Stupidly, my only thought was
that I looked like an android, like Mr DATA from  the  new  Star  Trek
shows.

Waiting  that  hour  for  the  phone  call  was torture.  There was an
emergency appointment at eleven O'clock.  There was  no  way  I  could
wait  until then so I insisted to be allowed to phone my work and tell
them that I wouldn't be in today.  Having done this,  I  waited  until
ten  to  nine  and  set  out with my father and someone else - I can't
remember who - to walk the quarter of a mile to  the  medical  centre.
They  wanted  me  to  get  a  taxi  but  I wouldn't hear of it.  Why I
insisted on walking I'll never know, the pain was so bad that I  found
it difficult to talk.

The  green  prefab of the medical centre was normally only a slow walk
of less than five minutes away.  We took more than fifteen minutes  to
get  there.   The  walk  was  in  silence.   I was too much in pain to
realise just how upset my father was (and  whoever  the  other  person
was).  Half  way there, I wished that I'd let them get the taxi to run
me there.  By now I was really shaking and my  skin,  which  had  been
slick  with  sweat,  now felt as if it was covered in a thick layer of
heavy icy moss.  I had a bad moment when I started dry  retching,  but
it was over quickly.

When we got there, I had to wait for about ten minutes for the doctor.
My own G.P. wasn't available so I was taken by someone else.

The  Doctor  seemed  quite  concerned  about  me.   He  took  his time
examining me and then had a word with me about what I'd been up to the
day before.   He  considered  carefully  before  hitting  me  straight
between the eyes with the truth.

"You've got a stomach bug." He said.

For years, every time I'd felt like death warmed up and dragged myself
off to see a doctor, he usually told me that I've got a bug or  a  bad
dose  of  the flu.  Each time I was told this, I felt a great sense of
relief for I had increasingly begun to think that there was  something
seriously  wrong  with  me.  This time his explanation did not calm me
down.

"Nobody feels like this, with only a stomach bug!" I said.

"Stomach bug.  It's doing the rounds just now.  A real  stinker.  It's
giving  lots of people a fright.  That and the bottle of wine that you
had last night. That's all that's wrong with you."

"But I wasn't drunk last night."

"Probably a bad bottle of wine on top of the bug."

"Have you...got a sick bag?  Think am going to be...."

As I vomited, I brought my hand up to my mouth.  Yellow gunge  spurted
with  force  from  between  my  fingers. A lot of it managed to splash
upwards onto my glasses or go down both  the  sleeves  of  my  'yuppy'
coat.

"Sink! Behind you!" He said calmly.

I spun round and leaned over the sink.  My glasses fell into the sink.
The  next  blast  of vomit was so forceful that it bounced back out of
the small stainless steel sink and hit me in the face.

Stupidly, I was vividly reminded of a sequence near  the  end  of  the
novel I'd written called Starigrade.

                              * * *

....the last thing John Brendan remembered was the creature. It opened
it's  leathery  black mouth to take another bite out of the rock.  The
beam from the tumbling laser fired into the animals mouth.  The result
was as unpredictable as it was unbelievable.  First  the  Starigrade's
mouth slammed shut. Wouldn't yours?  The creature seemed to shrivel in
upon  it's self.  Then it suddenly bloated out to more than twice it's
previous size.  The mouth opened wide.  As the creature tried to  turn
itself  inside  out,  it  began  to  cough.  It coughed light.  Bright
light. All consuming light.  The ultimate purifying flame.  It coughed
Starlight.  After a split second of  orgasmic  pain,  there  came  the
eternal darkness.

                              * * *

The key phrase is, 'turn it's self inside out' for that's what it felt
like  when  I  was vomiting.  It felt like I was bringing razor blades
all the way up from my larger intestine. The creature  from  my  story
vomited  starlight.   The  stuff  that  I was bringing up was a lovely
bright yellow with just a hint of orange.  It was the  coating  of  my
stomach.   There  were  no  solids. Just a fluffy floating head to the
bile.

When I stopped retching, the doctor gave me lots of large  tissues  to
clean myself with.  He examined the vomit closely then rinsed the sink
out.

"Can I have some water?" I croaked with much difficulty.

"No.  Your stomach lining will be badly inflamed  after  that  attack.
Don't  drink  anything  until  the vomiting has settled down for a few
hours.  Don't eat anything for a minimum of twenty four hours."

He gave me a prescription and told me to rest a lot.

My Father took me home and put me to bed.  It was too painful  for  me
to  get  undressed,  so I lay on top of the covers with a blanket over
me.

From  then  on  my memory of things get hazy.  I don't think the human
mind will let that amount of pain be remembered accurately. If it did,
then I think that the human being in question would go  stark  staring
mad.  If  I  even  attempted  to  describe  in  detail the events that
occurred in the following hours it  would  get  very  repetitive  with
constant references to pain, pain and more pain.

One consolation, I never screamed in front of anyone.  When I screamed
it  was during and after the vomiting-into-the-orange- basin fits.  It
was done very  quietly  through  gritted  teeth  whilst  gripping  the
headboard of the bed hard enough to bruise my hands.

Sometime  that  afternoon, I realised that I was dying.  I didn't tell
anyone, but insisted that the doctor be called out.

He wouldn't come out and insisted again that it  was  just  a  stomach
bug.  He left a prescription for strong medicine with the receptionist
at  the medical centre.  My sister went to the medical centre and then
to the chemist's to collect the new lot of drugs.  The  first  lot  of
drugs  I'd  been given were no good to me because I couldn't keep them
down for long enough to be effective.  The new medicine turned out  to
be  something  to  stop vomiting combined with paracetamol to kill the
pain.  Para-bloody-cetamol!  I nearly died laughing!   That  was  like
using a pop gun to ward of the lightning!

I managed to keep the new medicine down.  It did nothing for me so the
doctor  was  called  again.   He  agreed to visit me at home after his
surgery was finished.  That was hours away.

By this time my own bedroom was stinking of vomit so I was moved  next
door  to  my mother and father's bed.  Soon their room was smelling of
vomit.  I started to vomit blood.   Admittedly,  not  very  much,  but
blood  nevertheless.   My  Mother  examined the vomit and then put the
basin somewhere safe for the doctor to examine later.  Aren't  Mothers
wonderful!

The family was now so worried about me that they would not let me stay
in the room by myself and posted a watch on me.

To  make  the time pass quicker, I tried to watch some TV.  I can only
remember watching Grange Hill because I was surprised to find that the
theme music had changed after all those years. What it was about  I'll
never know.  It's not been worth watching since Tucker Jenkins left. I
was  only  looking at the TV screen, not watching the program.  I must
have seen Neighbours and the News but I have no memory of it.

Eventually the doctor came. It was the same one as before. I  got  the
impression  from  his  attitude  on  examining  me that he just didn't
believe the pain that I was in.  When he touched  my  stomach  I  went
into  spasms  with  pain.   He told me to stop panicking and relax.  I
joked that I was so cool that he could keep a side of meat in me for a
month.  Zaphod Bebblebrox said that in one of the  radio  episodes  of
the  Hitch-hikers  guide  to  the  Galaxy.   I told the doctor so.  He
wasn't interested.

"You'll have to go into hospital.  I think you're okay.   When  anyone
brings up blood then it's routine to have it checked," he said.

"Will they give me something for the pain?"

"Yes."

That  was  the  only  thing  that  I  was interested in.  He called an
ambulance and left.  It  was  over  an  hour  before  they  came.  The
ambulance  men  wanted  to carry me in a stretcher but I would not let
them. Supported by both of them,  I  walked  baby  steps  out  to  the
ambulance.   Why  I  did such a daft thing I'll never know.  I'm not a
macho person.

"How long have you had an ulcer?" One of the men  asked.   He  was  my
height  and  build.   Looked  about  mid  thirties  with a thick black
moustache.  The other was about the same but had no moustache and  was
bald.   I  may have been mistaken, for it was in the dark car park, he
didn't appear to have any eyebrows.

"Don't have an ulcer!" I said.

"You fond of curries?" Said the bald one.

"No."

"You like a drink?"

"Yes."

"Ah, that'll be it then!  You've probably had a  wee  ulcer  for  some
time and it's burst.  You had much stomach trouble in the past?"

"A little." I was getting angry at the questions because of the effort
that it took to answer them.  We had at last got to the ambulance.

"Sounds like a burst ulcer then," said one of the men.

"First time I've ever seen someone with a burst ulcer able to walk out
to the ambulance," said Moustache as he helped me into the vehicle.

"You're in luck, son.  This motor's just  been  fitted  with  all  new
gear.   Goes like the wind.  Smooth too," said the bald one as he went
around to the driver's door.  I was indignant at him calling me  'Son'
for he was only a few years older than me.

Smooth he said!  Every bump and pothole was torture.  I lay on my side
clutching  a  safety rail with one hand.  In the other I held a stupid
looking grey re-cycled paper hat that was actually a sick  bowl.   The
moustached  ambulance  man  tried to keep up my spirits by chatting to
me.  I refused to answer his questions because the  pain  was  getting
too  much for my true grit to handle.  He started to talk to my mother
and father instead.

The only thing I remember about the journey clearly was that the glass
in the back door panel was black.  I could see out but the  other  car
drivers couldn't see in.

The ambulance stopped suddenly.  We had arrived at Monklands hospital.
I  was  helped  from the ambulance and onto a large wheeled stretcher.
Beside the nearby doors, set into red brick, was  a  sign.   It  said,
'CASUALTY DEPARTMENT.' Don't know why but I thought that you only went
to  casualty  if  you  were  in  a  road  accident or had been shot or
something. Green walls  and  automatic  doors  whizzed  by  as  I  was
hurriedly  wheeled  into a big bright room.  My mother and father went
off to fill in forms. Nurses  and  doctors  buzzed  about  everywhere.
Curtains  were pulled around.  I had been lying on my side, they moved
me to a sitting position.  With marvellous efficiency, I  was  quickly
undressed  and a blood sample was taken.  Somebody took my glasses and
my watch and  put  them  in  a  small  plastic  bag.   There  were  no
possessions  in  my  pockets.   I'd  emptied them onto the floor of my
bedroom some hours ago.

My blood pressure was recorded several times in  quick  succession  by
three different machines.  One minute it was dangerously high the next
dangerously low.  I was told that it was the pain that was causing the
dramatic  fluctuations.   They would not give me anything for the pain
until a surgeon had seen me.  I felt confused at  the  blur  of  faces
that kept asking me all the same questions over and over again.

"How long have you had the ulcer"

"Don't have one."

"Ya had a discharge when you go to the toilet?"

"No."

"Blood in the urine?"

"No."

"Any blood or black stuff from your bum?" A doctor actually said that.
Honest!  He looked to be about 17 or 18 years old.

"No."

The  blood pressure machine was left attached to my right arm whilst a
plasma drip and two others went into my left arm.  The  pain  from  my
stomach was so overpowering that I couldn't feel the needles go in.

"When did you last eat?"

"Yesterday lunch time.  I had a sandwich or two."

"Anything to drink?"

"Some water about ten hours ago but I sicked it back up."

"I meant alcohol."

"No.  But I had a bottle of wine last night."

"Don't let it bother you.  I had six bottles of Grolch last night."

A portable x-ray machine was wheeled in.  The first x-ray was taken of
me  sitting  up.  The plate they put behind my back was freezing cold.
Then they tried to lower the back rest so  that  they  could  take  an
x-ray of me lying on my back.  At about forty degrees the pain was too
much.   I  started  to  scream quietly through gritted teeth.  Quickly
they raised the back rest again.

"I'm not waiting for the surgeon.  I'm giving him  something  for  the
pain now," said one of the young doctors.

God bless him!

"Okay. I'll take the blame," said another doctor.

After  about  two  minutes  someone injected me with a tiny hypodermic
that wasn't even half full.

"There's no way that anything can kill  your  pain.   This  is  strong
stuff but it'll only take away the edge.  Dull it a little."

I'm  glad  he  told  me that otherwise I'd never have guessed that I'd
been given a pain killer.  Nevertheless, it must  have  done  me  some
good  for  when  they  had  another go at lying me on my back for that
second x-ray I managed not to scream.

Some minutes later a massive black man entered the  room.   He  looked
like a wrestler.  It turned out that he was the surgeon. He prodded my
stomach  and  abdomen  with  massive  fingers  and  asked  me the same
questions that I'd already answered several times before.

"You'll have to have a small operation.  An exploratory. There's a few
things that it could be.  An ulcer that's burst,  your  appendices  or
more probably I think that you might have a hole in your bowel."

"When?"

"Well, it's ten-past nine now.  We'll  have  you  in  the  theatre  by
half-past.   Just  waiting  on the x-rays.  In the meantime, I have to
examine your back passage to see which way your bowl  curves  so  I'll
know which side of the abdomen to go into."

Under  normal  circumstances, the thought of a bowel examination would
have been the ultimate humiliation.  It wasn't exactly very  pleasant.
At  least  it  didn't  hurt  and  was over quickly.  All I could think
about was the fact that I had less  than  half  an  hour  of  pain  to
endure.   The fact that I was to have an operation didn't bother me in
the slightest.

Sure, people die all the time during operations.  Their bodies have  a
bad reaction to the drugs or just the shock of the surgery. People die
all  the time.  Hospitals must have more ghosts than graveyards.  I've
had a boring life.  Who would give a damn if I died on  the  operating
table?  At least the pain would be over.

Another  drip  was  plugged  into  my right arm by a young doctor that
looked like a moustached Hawkeye out of MASH.  He got  me  to  sign  a
release form for surgery.

"Sorry  about  the state of the signature.  It's normally much tidier.
Can't stop shaking," I said.

"Doesn't matter," he said.

The  next  event  was  the  insertion  of  the  urinal  catheter.  The
painkiller  I'd  been  injected  with  still  didn't  seem to be doing
anything,  but  obviously  it  must  have  since  I  managed  a  short
conversation  with  the  doctor  at  that point.  It was about how the
insertion of the tube reminded  me  of  a  TV  documentary  where  the
doctors  had  fitted a TV camera up with a fibre-optic cable which was
then passed down the patients penis and  into  his  bladder.   It  was
frightfully  interesting.   The young doctor agreed with me.  He'd see
the documentary too.

Whilst the doctors gathered at the back of  the  room  to  examine  my
x-rays,  my mother and father came in to see me. Without my glasses, I
had trouble seeing them.  They both looked pale and worried.  I  tried
to cheer them up with a feeble joke.

"I've just thought up another joke."

Normally  when  I  say  that everybody groans and then I tell the joke
anyway.  For all they complain about my jokes,  people  usually  laugh
anyway.

"What's Mrs Mouse's first name?"

"Don't know son?" said my mother quietly.

"Fay."

"Fay?" said my father.

"When  will  I,  will  I  be  Fay-mouse.   You  know,  the  Bros song?
Fay-mouse. Get it?  Famous.  Tell sis that one."

Someone arrived to wheel me away to the operating theatre. I  said  my
goodbyes.

"Don't worry son.  You'll soon be home again," said mother.

"I'm not worried."

Then  as  they  started  to  wheel  me  away,  I  suddenly blurted out
something that even managed to surprised me.

"When's Valentine's Day?"

"Next year," said mother looking puzzled.

I was wheeled out into a cold white corridor.  It was that quiet after
the casualty room that the long smooth journey took on  a  dream  like
quality.   Passing  through  many  sets of automatic doors, I began to
feel nervous.

"It's just like the telly," I said.

"Yeah.   Only  it's  better,"  said  the  somebody who was pushing the
trolly.

I was left by myself in a single  room  near  a  ward  for  about  ten
minutes.   Then they put me onto another trolley and wheeled me into a
room near the theatre.

"Bryan Joyce?" said an old nurse.

"Yes."

"When were you born?"

"Sixty three."

"You ever had an operation before?"

"Once. Had my adenoids out.  Don't know when.   Guess  I'd  have  been
about eight."

"You've got a good memory," she said and looked at a clipboard full of
papers.  How did they find that out?  "You're dead right!"

When she said the word 'dead' my blood went cold and I focused sharply
on  it.  It seemed to mean something different from what it had always
meant.  Her voice took on sinister tones.

A man that I guessed to have been the anaesthetist put  a  black  mask
over my face and told me to breath in deeply.  In what seemed to me to
be no logical order he began to count backwards. Several minutes later
I began to feel decidedly odd.

"Nearly  there.   He's nice and red," he said.  He filled up a syringe
and injected it into one of the taps of the drip that was attached  to
my right arm.

So  this  was  it.   I  expected to get sleepy but didn't.  After only
about a minute they started to wheel me into the theatre. Would it  be
just  like the on telly?  All the lights shining down at me from a sea
of white masked faces?  Lots of green cloth and  stainless  steel?   I
don't know.  My last memory is of the trolley bumping the door open.

Then,  realisation  and terror!  If I died, I had no kids of my own to
carry the family on.  No loving wife to miss me!  No wife to  hold  in
my  arms  and  tell  her I love her!  I could die and nobody except my
mother, father and sisters would care?

I DON'T WANT TO DIE!

I started to cry.  God, don't let me die.   I  need  her  though  I've
never  met  her.   I need to live.  I have to find someone.  I have to
let her know.  There has to be  time  for  strangers  to  turn  in  to
lovers.   Help  me God!  I'm so frightened!  Save me! (Total panic!) I
tried to sit up but found that I couldn't move. Need to find a love to
share my life with.  Need to tell her....!

A face in white looking at me.

I struggled and managed to mumble five words quietly.

"Tell her I love her!"

"What?" said a soft voice.

Then sub-vocally I repeated myself.

"I love her."

Then as everything fades to black, "I'll find someone."

Now things start to get weird....

Darkness.  Silence.  So  comfortable.   No  pain.   I  can  stay  here
forever.   Then voices.  Quiet.  Mumbling.  Full of concern. A machine
hissing.  Full of panic.  Something tickling my right  arm.  Stop  it.
Go  away.   Leave  me alone!  Get me a drink.  Never been this thirsty
before?  I try to turn on my bedroom light and find that I can't move.
No, not that dream again!  If I find the light it won't  go  on.   The
invisible  things  in  the  darkness  will  begin  to call in laughing
whispers whilst their claws caress my sweating body.

It's too hot in this dark dream?

I should bite my fingers, maybe that would wake me up.  No, don't!  It
may only be a dream, but people sleep walking can hurt themselves.   I
could wake and find I'd bitten my fingers off.

Skin  crawls.  Tickles.  Dreams never have the sense of touch in them?
There's something wrong with my face!  Try to touch  my  face.   Still
can't  move.   Try to speak and feel as if I no throat or tongue.  Try
harder.  Mouth doesn't work?  Can't feel it at all.  Are my eyes open?

Perhaps this thick jelly of burning sweat is really  just  hot  water?
I'm drowning in thick hot water.  Help me!  Breath out and swim in the
direction of the bubbles!  I'm drowning and dying of thirst!

Then  there  was light.  I open my eyes.  Blobby figures float closely
near by.  Why can't I see them?  Am I alive?   Something  tickling  my
arm.   Stop  it.  Stop it.  Stop it!  Why can't I speak? Why won't she
leave me alone?  She?  Stop tickling my arm mother!

With what felt like a super human effort I twitched my arm.

"Look he moved.  His eyes are open!"

My mind cleared momentarily.  My glasses!  I can't see because I'm not
wearing my glasses.  Where am I?  Why can't I speak?  Try.  Try.  Try?
Super  human  effort  to  move  my  mouth.  Again.   Nothing.   Again.
Nothing? Give up.  I'm not even breathing.  Its a dream.  Has to be?

STOP TICKLING MY ARM!

"Look!  Told you.  He hates that.  It worked!" Something's on my face!
What's on my face?

"Can you hear me?"

I  tried to nod but couldn't so I gave a thumbs up sign. Happy sounds.
Many people sounding relieved.  Feel so....so....loving.  Let me  wake
up. Don't like this dream. Probably forget it anyway.  Need to sit up.
What's that hissing?

I  turned  my  right  hand  palm upwards and slowly lifted the fingers
until they were at ninety degrees to my palm.  Sit up. Sit me up.

"What's he trying to do.  What is it, my lamb?"

"Sit up.  He wants to sit up.  It that it?  Do you want to sit up?"

Thumb up.

"He's going to be all right!  He understands us."

"You can't sit yet.  You've been very  ill.   I'll  give  you  another
pillow."

Better!   Need  to talk.  Do a mime of someone writing. There!  Got it
first time.  Someone gives me a clipboard with  paper  on  it.   Can't
tell  if  I'm handed a pen or pencil.  Its hexagonal in cross section.
Must be a pen.  A Bic.  Yes.  I can feel the air hole  half  way  down
its  length.   Can't  see well enough to write.  My eyes were never as
bad as this before? Don't need to see to write stuff  down.   Knew  my
talent  of being able to write without looking would come in handy.  I
bet their impressed!  No one knew I could do it.  Wonder  if  I'll  be
able to do it when I'm awake?  Do you want to know what I wrote?

GLASSES.

"Sorry, pet.  They're at home.  I'll get them brought in later."

Pet?  Pet?  We're not Geordies!  We're Scottish.  Who said that?  Mum?
Dad?

WATER.

"You can't have a drink yet darling.  You've had an operation."

What  the  hell  has that got to do with anything?  Then I remembered.
I'm in hospital.   They  wouldn't  let  me  drink  after  I'd  got  my
adenoids out. Go back to sleep.  Sleep it off. Nothing lasts forever.

My vision clears a bit.  Can see my mother and father smiling  at  me.
Mum  is  stroking  my  arm.   Don't!  You're annoying me!  Three other
people are smiling excitedly.  They  look  like  doctors  and  nurses.
Everybody looks daft.  Grinning like Cheshire cats.  I write again.

GLASSES.

"They're  at  home.   Try  to  understand  Bryan.   They're  at  home,
pet. Bring them to you later."

Stop calling me pet!  I need my glasses!

Again... Blackness.  No dreaming.  Long time....

                                         .... Where's my glasses?

                              * * *

I think that is enough stuff about the hospital for the time being. If
you've  ever  read  Love, Death And An American Car you now know where
the scene near the end came from.

It is often said that a writer can't really write with  passion  until
he  has  truly experienced misery.  This isn't exactly true, but there
is some truth in it.  I went into quite a lot of detail  about  things
leading  up  to  the hospital because they have effected me profoundly
ever since.  It a case of when you have been near  death,  you  become
closer  to  life.   I see things more clearly now and as a result I am
able to write GOOD stories where before there was only a load of crap.
My experience near death has heightened my awareness of life.

I was in intensive case for four or five days.  I  don't  remember  it
very  clearly  for  I was doped up on strong drugs.  I had quite a few
nasty hallucinations which I don't want to talk  about  and  one  very
embarrassing incident which I will talk about.

One  night  I was telling the nurse about how this was all a dream and
that I could prove it cause mirrors didn't work in dreams.  The  nurse
got  me  a mirror to prove that it wasn't a dream.  I then asked if it
was okay if I could touch the nurse on the face just to  double  check
that it really wasn't dream.  I ran my fingers over her cheek and told
her that it couldn't have been a dream after all because I could never
have  dreamt  up someone as lovely as her.  I've never in my life said
anything like that to anybody ever.  You - dear reader -  may  now  go
off and find a bucket to throw up into!

After  a few days, I was moved out and into a high risk ward. Two more
weeks went by.  I spent that Christmas in that ward.  My  parents  got
me  an  IBM  printer.   A  few  days  later and I was allowed home.  I
couldn't try out the printer because I was too  weak  to  sit  at  the
Atari.  Eight days later and I was rushed back into hospital again. It
was  two and a half weeks before I was allowed out again.  This time I
stayed out and finally managed to use the printer a  few  weeks  later
when I was strong enough to sit at the computer.

During  the next two months I used my time to write about 15,000 words
of The Thirteenth One (one of my other  Christmas  presents  had  been
Protext).  For most of the time to learn to code with a version of GFA
Basic  that  had  been given away free with ST Format magazine.  I had
been dying to get out of hospital to try coding in GFA.

Eventually I got back to work.  Months later  and  I  was  allowed  to
borrow  one  of  the PC's which would be spare for a few weeks because
the place was shut for two weeks for the Glasgow fair.  I came  across
an  old  notebook which I'd lost nearly seven years previously.  In it
were a few lines that I wrote down as memory  joggers  for  a  science
fiction,  bar  room  tale.   Over the next 3 days I wrote the first of
what was to be come my Tavern At The Edge Of Nowhere tales.  The story
was called A Killing Time. I re-wrote it several times over  the  rest
of the Fair Fortnight.

By  this time I was interested in the ST disk magazine scene. This was
the result of the Lost Boys  magazines.   Technically  the  coding  in
their  magazines  was impressive.  Some of the articles were good, but
most were written by young people who used too much bad  language  and
had  no  writing  skills  at  all.   I was interested in coding my own
magazine and wrote to the editor for advice.  He never wrote back.

The  next  disk  magazines  that  I  started  to  read  were  by   the
Untouchables.   Again, there was a lot of good articles and demos, but
there was also a lot of badly written rubbish too.   I  wrote  to  the
editor  Mat  Sullivan  on  several occasions and received replies from
them.  According to Mat, It appeared that  getting  articles  for  any
disk based magazine was like pulling teeth.

The  next  disk  magazine was something by Jason Reucassel called Disk
Space.  It wasn't particularly much better that  the  other  magazine,
but  the  articles  were  of  a higher quality and there was a fiction
section ran by a professional  called  Paul  Bocij.   It  was  also  a
swearing  free zone.  I've got nothing against swearing (my unfinished
novel Herman was peppered thickly with expletives).  When  a  magazine
allows strong language on a regular basis, they seem to get plagued by
hundreds  of teenagers who having got a word processor free with their
machines have to write comedy sketches composed of nothing other  than
strings of swear words without structuring of any kind.

Disk  Space  didn't  have that problem because it was an anti swearing
zone.  In the  first  issue  there  was  a  competition  to  write  an
article.  I entered my tale from the Tavern At The Edge Of Nowhere and
won  the competition.  I got a nice book on coding in GFA Basic for my
trouble.  I wrote to Jason quite a few times. The first  time  he  was
slow  in  getting  back  to me because he was in the process of moving
house.

Paul Bocij wrote to me and asked if I would consider writing something
for another magazine that he was working on.  He had taken his time in
replying because he too was in the process of moving  house.   I  said
yes  and  spent  the  next  three  weeks working on Love, Death And An
American Car.  I sent it to the other magazine and  the  editor  loved
it  so  much  that  we  worked  on a collaboration together called The
Monsters.  The magazine was better than  any  other  I  had  yet  seen
because  it  was  very  professionally  done.  The magazine was called
STUNN!  The editor was Dave Burns.  He was in the  process  of  moving
house. (????)

A few months later and I managed to buy a second-hand XT PC laptop.

I  came  across two other very good ST magazines shortly after joining
STUNN!  One was by Dave Mooney.  It was called STENN. The other was by
virus killer extraordinare  Richard  Karsmakers.  It  was  called,  of
course,  ST-NEWS.  I had put the word about that I was starting my own
magazine called WAY STATION and they were the only two to reply.   One
of  the  other trainees at the training centre was a STOS coder called
Colin Watt from the group ACO.  He was  going  to  code  the  magazine
shell  for  me.   One of the things Richard Karsmakers had said in one
of his  letters  was  that  he  would  be  interested  in  hearing  my
experiences  from  the  time when I was ill, so you could always blame
him for this autobiography.

During the next few months I started to use the ST less and  less  and
the  PC  more  and more.  It was time to sell up everything except the
printer and use the money to build a 386 PC.  And so  it  was  that  I
left the ST magazine scene.  I scrapped the WAY STATION idea and Colin
Watt  went  off  to  code  his  STOS  elsewhere.  He's just had a STOS
extension published in ST Format.

I received a letter from Paul Bocij.  He was selling up and was buying
a 386 PC.  I received a letter from Dave Burns.  He was buying  a  386
and  keeping  his  ST!   It looked like I wouldn't get away from STUNN
that easily!

In February of this year (1992) I met a very lovely woman at work  who
asked  me  out.   In either May or June I got the PC finally built.  I
coded the new STUNN shell in Turbo Pascal for the PC.  Over  the  next
few  months I began to write less and less. The reason being, I was in
love with that woman from work - still am.  Two weeks ago I started  a
day  release  course  which  was  an  HNC  in  computing.   My  lovely
girlfriend shortly leaves the training centre to do an HNC in business
admin.  Its been seven months now, so I guess  I've  nearly  kept  the
promise that I made to myself on my death bed nearly two years ago.  I
don't have a wife, but I've got the love of a good woman and if things
stay this good who knows....

So  what  is  the  dying Love?  Why life of course!  We all love being
alive when things are going right, but even when life is good  we  are
all  still  dying  a  little each day.  Nobody gets out of here alive.
Take life easy.  Enjoy it.  Love your life even although you begin  to
die from the moment your born.  The best that can happen to us is that
we are allowed to continue living a dying love.

The only alternative isn't worth worrying about.

                              * * *

A  week  ago  I  had  a phone call from someone I had never met before
though I had been writing to him for well over a year.

"Are you still writing these days Bryan?" he asked.

"Yup.  There's a new Tavern tale under way.  Did you use the last  one
that I sent you?" I asked.

"Yeah, it was great though it doesn't beat my favourite."

"Which one was that?"

"The one about the head."

"Love, Death And An American Car?"

"That's the one!"

It was Dave Burns.  And then a week later, I wrote this.

                      (c) Bryan H. Joyce 6/9/92

                              * * *

This  work is dedicated to the following people for being instrumental
in the restructuring of my life.  They each in their own unknowing way
played important parts in it.

   Paul Bocij              - Encouragement and advise.

   Dave Burns              - Encouragement and bullying.

   Richard Karsmakers      - Encouragement, encouragement &
                             encouragement.

   David Birch             - For being my life long companion
                             who lives over 300 miles away and
                             taught me to swear, drink and think
                             rudely about woman (though I think
                             that I would have managed that
                             anyway).

   Fiona Hope              - For being the one I needed to meet.


                              * * * * *



Editor's Note:

STUNN!  is  proud   to   receive  to  such  praise  from  one  of  our
stalwarts and find it extremely gratifying to know that Bryan feels we
have  been  able  to  help  him in some way. I suspect (and know) that
there's a great deal more to Bryan's story than is  presented  here  -
let's hope that most of it is good!

We hope to be able to present more of Bryan's work for your delight in
the future... one possibility we're considering is a collection of his
Tavern  tales. If anyone is interested in a copy, please let us know -
it'll spur us to get around to it more quickly!


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