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If you’re reading this… well, likely you know what became of me.

Telling the story of my life is something I’d always wanted to do, although, I never figured that it would take something like this to bring it to fruition.

Understand that I came to this cabin to get away from it all. No phone, no television, no computers –it’s sad that checking my email tugs at me like I’ve given up an addiction – I was here, 20 miles from anyone and anything for two weeks, just so I could be free.

And, I suppose that to a degree, it’s worked.

On my way up, listening to the radio crackle as I got further and further from reality, they gave predictions of a snow storm. Even as the heavy flakes fell and my tires would slip occasionally. Snow, I figured, would make this all the better.

It was the next day, when the rumble shook the old log cabin to its core as the avalanche poured down the side of the mountain. I won’t lie, I coward under the table, scared.

When it stopped, the silence becoming deafening, that’s when I went to the un-shuttered windows that face down the hill and saw nothing but white, in the yellowish hue of the kerosene lanterns. It was the same all around, and when I went to the door and opened it to a solid wall of snow, that’s when the panic set in. Of course, it should help to describe my mindset when I say that the entire thing was reminiscent of some sort of sitcom.

Of course, I wasn’t trapped here with my ex-girlfriend, and this was definitely going to take more than half an hour.

The potbellied stove in the middle was still burning, and I realized that the smoke was still going somewhere, so, at least there was some ventilation. Thoughts of suffocation started to abate, because, I thought that I had at least some sort of a fresh air supply.

But, it’s so much worse. It’s taken me to realize that I can’t dig out, between the rocks and the thick packing of snow, and the fact that I have absolutely no tools whatsoever. I know that I have no way to contact help. Suffocation isn’t the worse thing, no; the fact that I’m going to starve to death is the thing that scares me now.

It will be some time before I’m missed; I have only my arrogance to blame for that.

I take solace in these facts: I’ve got enough food to write these memoirs, what I brought was meant to last me for two weeks, but I’m sure I can stretch it out to at least twice that. I hope. I’ve got enough battery power in the iPod that I can listen to my favorite songs one last time. And there’s enough firewood to keep me warm inside the insulation of snow. I won’t freeze to death. It’s good to know how you’re going to die. It’s not good to know that you will die, but it’s good to know how it’s going to happen. Perhaps.

And there’s this typewriter. A manual typewriter and a whole lot of paper; It’s like this desk was set up just for me.

I came here to reflect. Reflect I shall.

To my daughters: I love you. I’m sorry I was never there.

Yes, I’m a father.

Not many people know that about me. I’m a father in the same way that a sperm donor is a father. At least, that’s how it feels. At least I was there.

I met her while I was still in college. She was at a coffee shop, and she seemed like a sweet, innocent little angel. I told her I wanted her, she told me she wanted me inside her. It was the greatest sex I’d ever had, and it was the greatest sex I’d ever had for about 6 months. Then she was pregnant, and it seemed that she as ready to settle down. I figured that I’d give it a shot.

We tried the marriage thing; we even had another daughter a year later.

That’s when she decided she’d gotten what she needed. This was fine, because I’d decided I was bored with being a family man.

I moved on, and the only thing I ever heard from her was when she wanted money. Alimony and child support were my new names.

Maybe I should go back a little further.

I was born at a young age. I’m sorry, I know it’s a lame joke, but, after staring at the white page and out the white window, I’m not feeling the most creative here.

I was born to a woman with a terrible case of obsessive compulsive disorder. Contrary to popular belief, OCD isn’t always a cute little disorder that makes people quirky. In this case, it made her downright violent.

On my fifth birthday, she stabbed my father in the face because he’d spilled coffee on the counter she’d just cleaned. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t die. As a matter of fact, the therapists said that this was a good thing, because she’d managed to manifest her anger in a way she never had before.

My childhood was complicated. Not having the same disorder, I had to observe strange rituals. I had to knock on the door frame three times before I entered any room, unless my mother was in that room, then I would have to knock 5 times. It was never explained how I was supposed to know, though, because more than once I would knock three times and enter, and she would immediately fly into a rage. The only punishment for this infraction was 20 lashings with the Spoon.

Just after my twelfth birthday, both of my parents were dead, and I was a ward of the state. My previous life haunted me from foster home to foster home. I started shop lifting when I was thirteen.

It started small, but, as time went on, it grew more and more into a compulsion. Before long, I couldn’t enter a store without taking something, and not long after, I could go a day without entering a store so that I could steal things.

This is where my life in retail began. Again, though, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Being in foster care wasn’t all bad, at least not for me. My first family was a little strange, within my first week of living with them, my foster sister actually raped me (alright, it became consensual halfway through), she was only about eleven or so. I think she really needed some help.

My second foster family got rid of me right away when they found me trying to seduce my somewhat older though dimwitted-to-the-point-of-retardation foster sister. I couldn’t help myself, her body was immaculate and she had the most amazing breasts. The thing is: she really seemed to enjoy it, so I didn’t see the harm in it.

Third time, however, was the charm. I found myself with a comparably wealthy white family in suburbia. They had everything: A father with a great job, mother who volunteered, son in soccer and a daughter my age who never said a word, she wanted it as bad as I did. It was convenience that did us in.

As far as families go, they were the tops – dinner at the table, allowance, a brand new car on your sixteenth birthday. Things were looking up for me, and for a short time, I thought maybe I could live a normal life. Of course, for some reason, the compulsion to steal was always there.

My foster father, Dan, didn’t trust banks. With nearly a six figure income and a mortgage paid in full, he stuck all of his earnings into his nest-egg.

His nest-egg was about 25 hiding spots around the house. I guess, because I had found 22 of them and figured I was only a couple shy of a full house. Each of these stashes contained many thousands of dollars, and after spying on him thoroughly, it was clear that he didn’t keep track of how much was where.

If he ever missed all the money I took, I never knew. I’m actually still in touch with them, except Cindy, who ballooned up pretty bad after the abortion. I don’t think she ever told them it was mine. Whore.

Now, none of this is to say that my life was all about sex growing up, but, let’s be honest, this isn’t an uncommon story. Even at such tender ages, we all of us have needs.

I just didn’t satisfy those needs only in the shower.

My life wasn’t that unusual though. I did those things kids would do. I collected things, like comic books and football cards; I had an awesome BMX bike that everyone in the neighborhood wanted. I’d hang out with my friends and we’d go up to the store to get candy and pop and peruse the magazines in the summer.

Of course, all that stuff was stolen, and when I was with my friends we’d shoplift.

“It’s his history. He’s had a hard life, and this is a coping mechanism.”

I started meeting with a therapist when I was 14.

Although, I really wish they’d call them what they are. She was a highly paid listener. Of course, the important thing to keep in mind is that there is a huge difference between listing and hearing, and I’m not sure she did either.

We’d meet once a week, it was Thursday evenings, and she’s sit there in her chair, and I would sit there in my chair, and she’d prompt me to talk. I’d stare out the window, where things were happening, even if I couldn’t see them, and I would talk.

“How does that make you feel,” She’d ask me.

“How do you think it makes me feel?”

“This isn’t about me and what I think,” she’d say. Always, she was diverting away from herself and onto me.

The hardest part about meeting her, sitting in that office where there were bookshelves lining the walls filled with leather bound novels, and binders with names on the spines like “A Study on Adolescent Post-Traumatic Stress”, and “Current Models for the Active Interpretation of the Young Male’s Erectile Dysfunction”, was the constant distraction of her shifting positions. You see, I couldn’t help but notice that this woman, the good Dr. Elizabeth Fellston, was very attractive. She was in her late twenties, and she always wore these smart looking suits, usually a jacket with shoulder pads, a white blouse with ruffed collars, and a pleated black skirt. When she would sit there, not exactly across from me, but just off to my left, she would frequently re-cross her legs, and out of the corner I would always catch a shot of her crotch and a pair of panties.

Her panties. I can’t tell you how much I would obsess over them. It probably seems sick, but I was at that age that even the most innocent looking brick wall would give me a raging erection. Most of the time they were just those solid colored cotton numbers, Jockey or Hanes, a light pink, or red, plain white were the best, though, because with plain white, you could make out everything. Occasionally, though, she’d wear these silk pairs, and more than a few times she would wear a nearly transparent black pair. Perhaps it’s not appropriate to point out, but she kept herself very well groomed.

Now, I would say that she didn’t listen. She most certainly wasn’t well read. I remember one time that I told her about reading A Clockwork Orange, and how I really identified with the main character. The hero, I told her, Alex.

“Mm-hmm,” She’d mumble, writing on her little notepad. I always assumed that she was actually just doing a crossword puzzle there, because I can’t imagine anyone hearing a teenage boy claim that he identified himself with a violent rapist of young girls that obsesses over classical music while spitting Nadsat about in a horrific banter, and just writing it down on a pad of paper.

But, she was a great source of sexual inspiration for me. I will say that about her. She may not have killed me. She certainly never offered me any sort of guidance. But, when I was taking care of myself in the shower, she was always there for me.

Chemical reactions are all the human brain is. My chemical reactions are just off, I know that, and I’ve come to cope with it. I sometimes think that I might actually be some type of sociopath, but I pride myself on the fact that I have come to blend in with normal society quite well.

Well enough anyway.

Or not, I guess. I can’t really tell.

School is not something I’d ever care to repeat, however, I recognize it as a valuable tool for molding young minds. The problem is that, if I’d been in a good home, I might have been considered a prodigy. I hate to sound like I’m posturing, because, frankly, I’m not. I have a genius level I.Q. The problem was that I cared very little about academia, and was always more interested in real world things.

Perhaps you’ve already deciphered that.

Really, much of my time in school, more aptly class, is a blur. I remember very little about those things the teachers were trying to teach me. A lot of this, I think, stems from how much I picked up on my own. I was always about two steps ahead.

This led me to spend very little time listening, and more time day dreaming, drawing, or writing. I had though, when I was younger, that I might become an artist.

It’s funny, now, to think about this. I was ‘wise’ beyond my years, yet I didn’t realize that there’s no such thing as an ‘Art Career’. At least not for someone who isn’t willing to apply themselves, there’s not. Talent might also have helped.