A Prologue to Once Upon a Time

Originally written during the blackout

Maybe In The Meantime

Once upon a time, as fairy tales always began, we followed the heroic and delusional stories of who we would come to know as the fighting Irishman. A man that fought his battle of evermore, found redemption in damnation and left his ghosts on the dark side of the moon. In these fairy tales we found a cast of characters that were no less real than you were to me.

The leprechauns of addiction and madness. The maidens, always finding themselves in distress, that our hero would irrationally fight to protect. The blessing way, the excommunicated, the forgiven and the damned. The countless enemies and those that just got in our way. The promise of something so cherished yet remained unseen.

And we listened to the ghosts of days thought past.

For it was the worst of times, and so it was the best of times, and there would be no argument that these two chapters had come to a close.

In the early days we remember without an ounce of remorse or regret, as we staggered away from reality and found an unlikely partner to tango with. There was nothing real about those times, just moments strung together, one inescapably bleeding into the next; control was never an issue. In those latter days we made our communion with the stars, living in a world that no one could have imagined, and living it up like no one else would. There was everything to believe in, as impossible as it seemed, and despite all appearances to the contrary, familiarity kept us alive.

And in the end that day then had come. The Battle of Evermore had reached its crescendo and faded away into the night sky.

Stringing people along on some coked out magical mystery tour. Every night I died creating these stories for you, every word personalized for you and every last one of us, each with an entirely different meaning. That was The Battle of Evermore, that uninspiring little habit that took on a life of its own…mine.

Like a stranger stealing a peak inside another’s house, you couldn’t help but watch the drama inside those walls unfold. There you stood on the outside looking in, trying to catch a glimpse what got you going. Voyeurs enjoying the free show. You kept your distance not knowing if it was safe to let your presence be known.

The show was just too entertaining to break away from; too tantalizing to miss out on. But it never bothered you how far off script the scene played out, as long as they were confused, no one would notice you at the window.

That window took us into another world, a place you never belonged, and a place where you couldn’t help but take for your own. This is your life now, and it is as real as it gets. This is your life Jay, and you have completely fucked it six ways to Sunday.