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taken from elsewhere, best thing i've read in a long time
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Hi there, I’ve been lurking almost a year now, trying to get up the bottle to post my one and only story worth telling and I think I’ve found just the QOTW to do it. I will apologise in advance for any excessive length and also for any slurring which may occur - this is due to Dutch courage in the form of Scottish Water. It is on topic, but you’ll have to stick with it.

Well, where to begin? (not so easy this is it?)

How about 1978? I was 17 and while not a geek - I’ve never been a geek - I was a nerd. Kind of. I was into Punk but wasn’t really a punk, I was tall and a bit spotty and I liked maths. My best friend Nick however, was cool. He was a ladies man and bass guitarist with a post-punk band. We’d known each other since junior school and had become best friends in about the 3rd year.

I was more political than him, thanks to my elder brother. I went on marches a lot and in the holidays I got together with like minded friends from school and we’d volunteer down at the Anti-Nazi League HQ, stuffing envelopes etc. We were keen and our hearts were in the right place. I also got to mix with girls, though I was yet to have a girlfriend, and one of the girls was Manisha. She was a year younger than me - still in the 5th form, but would soon be a lower-6th former. She was born in South Africa and was a ‘Cape coloured’, i.e. her parents’ families came originally from India. The whole family was heavily involved in the struggle against apartheid: her grandfather and uncle were lawyers and belonged to the same practise as Nelson Mandela (before his imprisonment, that is); her auntie had been imprisoned for a time in Robben Island. When Manisha and her brother Anand were 6 and 4, the family had fled to the UK where they claimed political asylum. Ten years on the family were still not UK citizens but ‘stateless’ i.e. they had no passports.

As well as being highly political aware, Manisha was a peach and I fancied her silently but fervently from afar. We got on very well and soon we were both part of a tight group of mates. This was great until the tragedy stuck; she and Nick fell in love. It was full-blown teenage love and I made the best of things, i.e. suffered silently and became a much bruised gooseberry.

I got a Saturday job in a department store restaurant kitchen and when Manisha was looking for a job too, I put in a good word for her and she got a job as a waitress. This gave me more opportunity to eat my heart out, but it also gave us time to get to know each other better. As the ‘middle-man’, I could give sound relationship advice, listen to her moans and gripes etc. I found it easy to talk to her and we became very good friends.

Then the two of them broke up. I had both of them crying on my shoulders - I’ve always been a good listener, but this tried my patience somewhat. Anyway, it meant that we saw less of each other except at work. I didn’t want to be disloyal to Nick.

I’ll skip forward here to 1980. I’d got decent grades for Maths, Further Maths, Economics and Government & Politics A Levels and was now an accounting student at Southampton University. I managed to lose the ‘V-plates’ at long last [thanks Trish!] and was a studious student as those things go. My musical taste was a bit left-of-centre, more punk and reggae than heavy metal and I was pathetically glad to be ‘interesting’ as far as accountancy students go - and believe me, that’s not far.

Half way through the year I got a letter from Manisha! She was thinking of going to Southampton too and wanted to visit. Fine! She came down, but with some boyfriend in tow. I spent a day showing them round before they went back to London.

The next time I saw her was a scene straight out of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ - the one where George Bailey meets Mary at the college party - except this time it was the freshers’ ball.

BURBAGE DIES
HEDWIG DIES
MAD-EYE DIES
SCRIMGEOUR DIES
WORMTAIL DIES
DOBBY DIES
SNAPE DIES
FRED WEASLEY DIES
HARRY DIES, BUT COMES BACK TO LIFE
VOLDEMORT DIES
TONKS DIES
LUPIN DIES
COLIN CREEVY DIES
RON MARRIES HERMIONE; THEY HAVE TWO KIDS: HUGO AND ROSE
HARRY MARRIES GINNY; THEY HAVE THREE KIDS: JAMES, LILY, AND ALBUS SEVERUS
SIRIUS DIES
DUMBLEDORE DIES
L DIES
AERIS DIES
SPIKE DIES
NEO DIES
TRINITY DIES
JACK SPARROW DIES
OBI-WAN DIES
QUI-GON DIES
YODA DIES
PADME DIES
BOROMIR DIES
GANDALF DIES
EVERYONE IN EVANGELION TURNS INTO ORANGE JUICE
BAMBI'S MOM DIES
EVERY MAJOR CHARACTER IN FFT DIES
KRILLIN DIES
CHAOZU DIES
YAMCHA DIES
VEGETA DIES
PICCOLO DIES
GOKU DIES
GOKU DIES AGAIN
GOKU FUCKING DIES AGAIN
GOKU DIES, THIS TIME FOR REAL, AND THEN DIES AGAIN
TELLAH DIES
MARIKO DIES
DARTH VADER IS LUKE SKYWALKER'S FATHER
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE
BRUCE WILLIS IS A GHOST
PRINCESS LEIA IS LUKE'S SISTER
WINSTON GETS REPROGRAMMED
THEY FIND NEMO
THEY ALL WENT TO THE SAME DAYCARE
ROSEBUD IS HIS SLED
WANDER DIES AND IS REBORN FUSED WITH THE DORMIN
GRETCHEN DIES
DONNIE GOES BACK IN TIME SO HE CAN GET KILLED BY THE FALLING PLANE ENGINE
MACMURPHY GETS LOBOTOMIZED AND IS KILLED BY CHIEF
ALEX IS "CURED"
YOU JUST LOST THE GAME
THE PLANET OF THE APES IS EARTH IN THE FUTURE
TYLER DURDEN AND EDWARD NORTON'S CHARACTER ARE THE SAME PERSON
MERCUTIO DIES
ROMEO DIES
JULIET DIES
CAESAR DIES
HAMLET DIES
TONY ALMEIDA DIES
DECKARD IS A REPLICANT
THE BOY SHOOTS OL' YELLER
ONE OF THE QUEER COWBOYS DIES
THE BLACK GUY DIES FIRST
ROCKY LOSES
ROCKY WINS
ROCKY LOSES
ROCKY WINS
ROCKY WINS
ROCKY WINS
REDRUM IS MURDER SPELLED BACKWARDS
WILLARD KILLS KURTZ
SCARFACE DIES
JESUS DIES
SPOCK DIES
W.O.P.R. WAS JUST PLAYING A GAME
THE WIZARD IS THE GATEKEEPER
THEY NEVER FIND THE GRAIL
SIMON AND PIGGY DIE
JAY GATSBY DIES
THE ANSWER IS 42
299 OF THE SPARTANS DIE
LEONIDAS DIES
28 WEEKS LATER EVERYONE'S STILL FUCKED
JASON LIVES

A couple of years ago I got my son, who was six at the time, a dog. I’d read something about children who get brought up with pets being less prone to allergies and so on as they get older, and also thought it might be good for him to learn about how to treat animals properly and so on. Anyway, I got the dog from a rescue home. They told me it would be perfect as a child’s first pet, as it was a truly gorgeous border collie that was only three years old with a wonderful temperament and had been well kept and looked after by it’s previous owner, an elderly lady who had sadly passed away.

Obviously, my child loved the dog, as did the dog him. He named it, and with me in tow he’d take it for endless walks, which the dog adored, would let it sleep on his bed and rushed to hug it when coming home from school BEFORE he paid any attention to his mother and me. I was a happy man, as I thought my various plans were all working well. Then it all started to go wrong.

This gorgeous, soft, friendly, playful animal I had brought into our home slowly started to turn. It wasn’t particularly noticeable for the first couple of weeks; the dog just wasn’t as friendly and playful as he had used to be. He spent more and more time in front of the fire, not wanting to go for walks and ignoring my child’s attempts to cajole him into rushing around the house, damaging furniture. Over time, his behaviour got steadily worse. He would growl at me and my wife, do his business all over the house, rush around like a lunatic and then collapse in front of the fire and not move for several hours. Interestingly, he was still very affectionate towards my son, didn’t growl or bite at him, which still makes me kind of happy.

Anyway, after a particularly unpleasant episode, in which he gave me several large puncture marks on my forearm, I decided he had to go to the vet. I took him along, waited patiently and was told to leave him in overnight to let the vet do some tests. When I returned the following day, the vet had some bad news: This beautiful animal, which my son adored, had contracted an aggressive form of cancer that had raged through his body, corrupting everything it touched. The cancer had spread to his brain which, the vet said, explained his erratic behaviour, and he would have to be put down. Nothing could be done. I told the vet to do what was necessary, and shed a few tears as his leg was shaved and the needle gently inserted. The gorgeous border collie died with me stroking his head and whispering into his ear.

The vet then asked me if I wished to take the body with me, or if I’d prefer for them to dispose of it at the practice. I obviously chose the former, telling the vet that my son adored the animal and that I felt it would be best to bury the dog in the back garden and explain what had happened. This was the first problem.

The vet explained that I couldn’t bury my dog in my garden, as my local council had passed a law requiring all animals being buried to be placed in a pet cemetery. The vet gave me some leaflets, and I went home.

I looked over the leaflets. The prices for the cemeteries were all rather expensive, and the vet’s treatment had already cost me most of my expendable income. Anyway, my son came home, and I explained to him about his dog, that he had been very sick and not himself any more. There were many tears, and I explained that I thought he would like to bury him in the garden as a last goodbye. Bollocks to the council I thought, no-one will mind.
‘No,’ my son said. ‘I want to give him a funeral like the Lord of the Rings.’ I thought for a minute, and then realised he meant the pyre scene where that bloke who’s alive nearly gets burnt. I was puzzled, by son was adamant. Only cremation was good enough for HIS dog.
So, I built a pyre, placed the cold, dead animal (carefully wrapped in an old sheet) on top, and took my son outside to say one final goodbye.

The pyre caught, a