Clarence Peabody - A Life - Boyhood

I can't remember being born. Anyone who says they can needs to have
their head examined by qualified personnel. One moment you're all warm
and cosy having a nice swim and the next minute you're upside down with
some fellow smacking you. I certainly don't remember being born.
Wouldn't want to. Not that I am at all opposed to being suspended in
some way and being beaten like an old carpet by some young thing or
other.

I do, however, remember the first time I shat my pants. That I could
never forget and, I suppose, one way or the other, that's what I've
been doing ever since with this rollercoaster life.

As an infant I spent much of my time apparently crawling around
aimlessly. I was, in fact, teaching myself about the way that carpet
works. I have been obsessed with carpet, the applications of carpet and
carpet based goods for all of my life. You can learn a whole universe
of knowledge about carpet weaving, stitiching and dying techniques by
spending every day for four years with your nose two inches away from
some carpet or other. Quite an education. In many ways carpet has been
my life, and, I suppose, my life has been a vast carpet, full of stains
and with a filthy underside, whilst the aspect on display to all and
sundry is brightly coloured and beatific. Like a carpet I have been
walked upon by many ladies in high heels and I always feel rejuvenated
after being tied up and hung out in the fresh air for a few days.

It has always struck me how close to beauty that which disgusts us is.
I always revel in the fact that even the most wonderful carpet can be
covering up the most revolting things. The pleasure of Artifice and the
genius for Illusion. Whiskey at five.

My first few years were spent growing at our familial stateley home in
Rennes-le-Chateau in the Midi of France. My taste for garlic and pigs
is still with me to this day, although my penchant for both of these
marvellous things has never once been proven in a court of law. Some of
my first memories are those of the scorching days disappearing into
delectable long evenings, the scent of the blossoms and scrub
overwhelming. The chivalric church of the Templars that drew pilgrims
from far and wide.

As a seven year old boy, exceptional though I was, I would love to
explore as all boys do. For whole days I would disappear into the
landscape and the sky. For me it was heaven. It was at the age of nine,
I think, that I began to discover the legends that lay beneath the
tranquil yet incredibly vibrant landscape. I loved the tales of the
ancient knights who came to the place where I lived to preserve some
great secret which humanity was not yet ready for. I spent my days
imagining what it could be that they sacrificed their lives to - what
could possibly be so precious? I took my imagination deep into the
caves and woods of the area and acted out Chivalric rites and performed
my own Mysteries at evey chance I could grasp. This boy's mind was full
of vivid, rich colour, and the countryside was my canvas. My young mind
could not even begin to grasp the possibilities, but those vague
questions about the mysteries of the Universe constituted a spark that
set my soul alight at an early age. Ever since then every second has
been precious to me.

One summer evening I fell ill with the most terrible fever. My mother
feared that I would die and the servants began to divide up my few
posessions amongst themselves. I must have been sick for a week or so -
much of the time I was absolutely deliriuos, my mind blasted by the
heat of the ague. After an eternity of torment from the furnace within
and without me I found myself back in my room, feeling absolutley
prinstine and with a mind as clear as the most perfect diamond
imaginable. No-one could see me standing next to the shivering shell of
the boy that I once was. I sat down next to myself and watched the
stifled activities of nursing grinding painfully on around the sick
boy. I looked over my shoulder out onto the dusky evening hills and
drifted out to them. The hills, though under the pen-hombre of
evening's sky were of the deepest cool emerald. I felt them embrace me
with a quiet loving intelligence. I remained there and felt their
precence around and within me for the longest time. Then, without any
warning my whole being began to tremble - the whole hill began to
tremble, the entire landscape, the sky. The most potent earthquake that
shook not only the land by my soul also. My celestial body quivered
with fear and understanding like never before. As everything began to
blur I barely made out a shape - a huge and bright shape - blotting out
the evening sun with a mist of its' own - mist pierced by two huge
rubies of fire. The whole hillside reared up and looked down at me,
ravaging me with its' breath and furious eyes. THE DRAGON!

I awoke in my bedroom, made out the profile of my nanny Veronique. The
fever had broken and I would never be the same again. The world would
never be the same for me. Once you have looked into the eyes of the
Dragon and it has had a long, chilling look into your heart you can
never walk through this life like a normal man. And I never have.