Born

Born? I was born three months premature at the Mercy Hospital in Melbourne Australia.

My father and mother every birthday would tell me my father held me in his hand like me an incubus, small and impossible yet alive.

I was born on the cusp, on the edge, by pure chance and luck I the only son.

My mother for a time was a humidity crib being three months premature and dying twice, which became some sort of family myth.

Myths surrounded by family and the circumstances of my birth.

When my father saw me for the first time, cradling me like some God in a single hand, he and a mate of his decided to celebrate my birth, heading down to a pub in the city.

To wet the babies head, meaning to celebrate the birth of your child.

The pub was normal but upon leaving the pub was not and I have heard it and heard it a thousand times.

As my father and Doug his mate walked out of the pub in this city of Melbourne, the black steps shiny marble, trimmed with gold, a car pulled up and a man got out.

A fella beside my father was confronted by another out of the car and shot six times.

Now not to be morbid, but I was told the blood flowed, down the steps, as the fella died, and my father could not believe how much blood a human body could hold.

The assassin,task done, was a killer, a killer absolute, pointed the gun at my father and his mate, and said 'You didn't see a thing did you?.

Both said no. So many times my father has said I was raised in violence because of this, this act, and he may have been right but I am still working that out.

And so I was born and like a kaleidoscopic film I was told every year of my birth.

But I really think my life, my birth is commiserate with the violence in the world, like a juddering jack in the box played out every day.

Me? I went on to live, still living now, and do I believe the myths of my family carefully told every year?.

Answer is yes, yes I do, because I am still living it.