C. Enyo's Blog - Posts Tagged "thriller"
Why I wrote Missing Side of a Rubik's Cube (a true story)
I never intended on becoming a writer. As a youngster, I had never given it any thought. In fact, I didn’t read books. I was the type who was always outdoors, chasing girls, riding motorcycles, scuffling and clubbing. I loved dancing – was a break dancer – rollerblading and… well, chasing girls. At home I drew; a lot! My mother was an artist and it rubbed off on me as I grew up. Academically I was smart but lazy. Yet, in all of this, there was that first sign.
My literature teacher pushed for me to choose it as an O’ Level. Unfortunately, although it was evident to him that I had a knack for writing, essays bored me, as did reading. So, I declined and he developed a grudge that I was unable to understand until much later, at university when my love of hip hop and free-styling morphed into a passion for poetry and, somewhere between reading endless books and writing essays for a degree in Politics, I began to write. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In January of 2000 I had just turned 17. Following an enormous party blow-out to welcome the millennium New Year, my friends and I were on cloud 9, peaking in the Neverland world that our teens were rooted to. Each was his/her own Peter Pan identity and Cyprus was this unbelievable playground that no other of my friends growing up anywhere in the rest of Europe/UK/US could even imagine. We were a group of very tight friends – if you’ve seen American Pie, we were like that but closer, crazier and far more mature by way of experiences – and what a mix we were: Three British Cypriots, one Ukranian Cypriot, an Armenian Cypriot, a French Cypriot, a French lad, a Russian and a British Dane. This was just the core of the group excluding the girlfriends and those of the greater circle that hailed from various countries and cultures.
My parents knew I was a wild child but they could have never imagined what was in store for me and in fact, they remained unaware of the suffering I endured until many years later. Happy and loving every aspect of life, I never saw it coming either and once it does, you don’t know what hit you. The years just begin to roll together, balling beyond your control and before you know it, you’re older and wondering who you are, how you got there and how did that happen to you?
One chilly January evening, my life changed forever. We all attended a gathering at a friend’s house where we intended to congregate and smoke pot. Little did we know that the entire thing was a set-up by the drug enforcement agency who had planted a rat in the group – a youngster who had been caught smoking pot and used by the police as an informant. Now I know what you’re thinking. There must have been something more sinister to this – to us – why else would the police care about a group of youths experimenting with pot? Well, there wasn’t. We were just that: a group of youths, innocent, experimenting with pot and drinking booze. So what did they want with us? Why waste resources in cracking down on a group of youngsters who were not criminals by ANY measure?
Well, Cyprus is a small place – an island of 850,000 today (about 700,000 then). We were not yet in the EU and matters were a little backward. Crime-levels were extremely low. Thanks to European integration (freedom of movement), today, although lower than large EU member states, crime is substantially higher than then. I mean, at the time, people left their back doors and even their cars unlocked. Today there are break-ins daily and security systems sell well in the market. So, the police had little resources and would generally catch smokers and scare them into revealing their sources. Little by little the police would work their way to the top this way, catching out the users, then petty dealers and finally… the suppliers? Well, no not really – most of those were protected, meaning they had people on the inside of the police to aid them in remaining in business. And here it is. Why this story has always been so important to me.
Many people do not realise how corrupt the police truly is, everywhere in the world. Don’t get me wrong, it is not entirely corrupt but wherever there is a human structure; an organisation formed by multiples of men, you find corruption. When this corruption finds its way to your doorstep, it is unexpected and worrisome. In my case, it resulted in years of harassment and subsequently, wrong decisions by a traumatised youngster about to enter adulthood. So this book, my story, is about personal lessons in life and about awareness. The awareness that there is immense corruption and abuse that results from it. In addition, lessons about addiction, isolation and the dangers of mental illness that the two can bring. Now this last point is also of great importance to me and so, I used my own story as a vehicle to touch upon this also.
I am not mentally ill. Certainly not by psychiatric measure. However, it felt as if it came close at times. In fact, I’m very certain it did. For me, this was the result of heavy drug and alcohol abuse, as well as isolation – I lived with my dark secret, with guilt and suffered ongoing harassment at the hands of police for years to come. Nevertheless, when I was 16, I had also met a man who suffered from schizophrenia. He was a ‘client’ at an institution my mother volunteered for and I was fascinated with him – with all the patients, especially those who had a history of drug abuse and particularly him – musical genius gone mad (the Syd Barrett syndrome). I was empathetic and intrigued but also, later became academically interested in his condition, as it felt I was deteriorating psychologically, sinking deep into an abyss – into Hell! So, I incorporated much of my interaction with him over the years (as a kind of unusual friendship developed) into my book, so as to shed light on the little we know of his life, in hope of expressing further these lessons learnt – drugs and mental illness – and in hope of earning more empathy towards those with mental illness – those phreaks we see and know but pretend not to see or know. God forbid, it ever happens to us or a loved one!
I think it is worth seeing the world in its true light and if I can, I will do my best through my work to always do just that: to diminish the obscuring lenses we use to mask the reality of life and society. For, our downfall is our salvation, our weaknesses are our beauty and what we fear, truly, is all that we are.
My literature teacher pushed for me to choose it as an O’ Level. Unfortunately, although it was evident to him that I had a knack for writing, essays bored me, as did reading. So, I declined and he developed a grudge that I was unable to understand until much later, at university when my love of hip hop and free-styling morphed into a passion for poetry and, somewhere between reading endless books and writing essays for a degree in Politics, I began to write. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In January of 2000 I had just turned 17. Following an enormous party blow-out to welcome the millennium New Year, my friends and I were on cloud 9, peaking in the Neverland world that our teens were rooted to. Each was his/her own Peter Pan identity and Cyprus was this unbelievable playground that no other of my friends growing up anywhere in the rest of Europe/UK/US could even imagine. We were a group of very tight friends – if you’ve seen American Pie, we were like that but closer, crazier and far more mature by way of experiences – and what a mix we were: Three British Cypriots, one Ukranian Cypriot, an Armenian Cypriot, a French Cypriot, a French lad, a Russian and a British Dane. This was just the core of the group excluding the girlfriends and those of the greater circle that hailed from various countries and cultures.
My parents knew I was a wild child but they could have never imagined what was in store for me and in fact, they remained unaware of the suffering I endured until many years later. Happy and loving every aspect of life, I never saw it coming either and once it does, you don’t know what hit you. The years just begin to roll together, balling beyond your control and before you know it, you’re older and wondering who you are, how you got there and how did that happen to you?
One chilly January evening, my life changed forever. We all attended a gathering at a friend’s house where we intended to congregate and smoke pot. Little did we know that the entire thing was a set-up by the drug enforcement agency who had planted a rat in the group – a youngster who had been caught smoking pot and used by the police as an informant. Now I know what you’re thinking. There must have been something more sinister to this – to us – why else would the police care about a group of youths experimenting with pot? Well, there wasn’t. We were just that: a group of youths, innocent, experimenting with pot and drinking booze. So what did they want with us? Why waste resources in cracking down on a group of youngsters who were not criminals by ANY measure?
Well, Cyprus is a small place – an island of 850,000 today (about 700,000 then). We were not yet in the EU and matters were a little backward. Crime-levels were extremely low. Thanks to European integration (freedom of movement), today, although lower than large EU member states, crime is substantially higher than then. I mean, at the time, people left their back doors and even their cars unlocked. Today there are break-ins daily and security systems sell well in the market. So, the police had little resources and would generally catch smokers and scare them into revealing their sources. Little by little the police would work their way to the top this way, catching out the users, then petty dealers and finally… the suppliers? Well, no not really – most of those were protected, meaning they had people on the inside of the police to aid them in remaining in business. And here it is. Why this story has always been so important to me.
Many people do not realise how corrupt the police truly is, everywhere in the world. Don’t get me wrong, it is not entirely corrupt but wherever there is a human structure; an organisation formed by multiples of men, you find corruption. When this corruption finds its way to your doorstep, it is unexpected and worrisome. In my case, it resulted in years of harassment and subsequently, wrong decisions by a traumatised youngster about to enter adulthood. So this book, my story, is about personal lessons in life and about awareness. The awareness that there is immense corruption and abuse that results from it. In addition, lessons about addiction, isolation and the dangers of mental illness that the two can bring. Now this last point is also of great importance to me and so, I used my own story as a vehicle to touch upon this also.
I am not mentally ill. Certainly not by psychiatric measure. However, it felt as if it came close at times. In fact, I’m very certain it did. For me, this was the result of heavy drug and alcohol abuse, as well as isolation – I lived with my dark secret, with guilt and suffered ongoing harassment at the hands of police for years to come. Nevertheless, when I was 16, I had also met a man who suffered from schizophrenia. He was a ‘client’ at an institution my mother volunteered for and I was fascinated with him – with all the patients, especially those who had a history of drug abuse and particularly him – musical genius gone mad (the Syd Barrett syndrome). I was empathetic and intrigued but also, later became academically interested in his condition, as it felt I was deteriorating psychologically, sinking deep into an abyss – into Hell! So, I incorporated much of my interaction with him over the years (as a kind of unusual friendship developed) into my book, so as to shed light on the little we know of his life, in hope of expressing further these lessons learnt – drugs and mental illness – and in hope of earning more empathy towards those with mental illness – those phreaks we see and know but pretend not to see or know. God forbid, it ever happens to us or a loved one!
I think it is worth seeing the world in its true light and if I can, I will do my best through my work to always do just that: to diminish the obscuring lenses we use to mask the reality of life and society. For, our downfall is our salvation, our weaknesses are our beauty and what we fear, truly, is all that we are.
