TLO Chapter 22

 Chapter 22

Trying to leave the bed unnoticed was like playing Mikado for the World League. Lars considered my body as his teddy bear and he was always spooning me with a gorilla grip. We did it twice, therefore he considered he had regained every right of ownership over me. 

I still didn’t understand why I had done it. I had liked it the second time, true but it had been a very rushed (lousy) decision. I wanted to get rid of him and I was again in bed with him? Well, kitchen and bathroom but we definitely were in bed now, sleeping together. 

I needed to spend all my money on shrinks. 

“Where are you going?” He asked me half asleep when my foot tangled itself with his calf. Bad move; lost my turn at mikado. 

“Toilet and kitchen. I need my afternoon pills for the shoulder. Or are they tampered too?” 

“No, they are fine. It was just a few doses but you seem to be recovering very well, runt.” 

I pushed him away but he caught me easily. “Was it too much for you? We don’t have to repeat it if you didn’t like it.” 

“It was… strange but fine.” 

“You don’t want to do it again,” he affirmed and he was right. The whole thing was fine but it wasn’t worth the effort. It had been like one of those fancy, expensive Belgian chocolate boxes you buy thinking it’s the best and then, the chocolate is too fatty and all the chocolates taste the same. You finish the box and keep it because it’s nice and you can store things inside. 

But you will never buy it again. 

TLO Chapter 21

Chapter 21

We met by chance. I left the Brontosaur’s magnificent office and bumped into a good suit (it’s hard to see anything if you’re carrying five legal digests the size of a phone book)

“Hey! How are you?” The dark tanned man greeted me. Though the suit was a bit on the bling-bling side of tailoring for me, it was well cut and of good quality. 

I gaped at him because familiarity doesn’t abound in this firm. I didn’t have a clue of who he was but the junior lawyer standing two steps behind him was certainly courteous towards him (bordering on unctuous).

“Can’t believe you forgot me after all what we went through.” The man said falsely aggravated. 

I had no idea to whom that golden Rolex belonged to. 

“Two rucola specials, no cheese?” He smiled broadly. 

TLO Chapter 20

 Chapter 20

How long does it take to realise that a relationship is over? Some people say it’s never but those are very special (bordering on creepy) cases.

In Lars’ case, it took twenty-three minutes; enough time to gather his papers, coat, aides and cross the door, determined not to return. I was more like a sloth because I needed about a month to convince myself that it wasn’t a ruse from him. 

Yes, I was an idiot wasting my time, waiting for a call or a letter that never came. When the only contact I had was a brief visit from Nils to hand me over the house deeds, I understood that he was gone forever. 

It hurt. It really did. 

TLO Chapter 19

 Chapter 19

The storm never broke out officially. 

The atmosphere was similar to an oppressive summer heatwave afternoon, when the electrical clouds loom in the horizon and you pray for rain even if you know that after the thunderstorm, the weather will be equally hot and humid. 

I had to keep to myself every doubt that mercilessly hammered my brain. Was it true? Was it not? Is it possible? How? I didn’t know how to ask without rising the alarms and ruin my escape plan. 

If I ever had one, that is. 

TLO Chapter 18

 Chapter 18

My pink elephant took a long holiday. 

Three years to be precise. Alas its credit card ran out of money: it was evicted from its hotel: its plane ticket was about to expire or for whatever reason it had to come back, that bumbly pachyderm returned to my life. 

It also brought along his good friend, Mr. Bull in a China Shop. Maybe they’ve become pals over the holidays but were determined to destroy my precarious life balance.

 They took the shape of Lars’ father and son. Maybe Linnea was around too. 

It was Lars’ fault entirely. He opened Pandora’s box. 

After three years of living in peace, he had no better idea than to start all over again with that marriage mambo. I never asked for it; I didn’t want nor need it. Me? Being Mr. Berggren II? No way.

Lars had to screw it all with his control freak ways. My books were sitting in his library; I had no savings, a shitty writing career and one foot in the homeless shelter if he kicked me out. I was the one in need of reassurance, support, help, assistance; not he. 

Did Lars ask me for my hand? No, of course. 

He announced the upcoming wedding to the side of the family he was still in speaking terms; his father, son (maybe he got an e-mail) and executive board. 

TLO Chapter 17

 Chapter 17

I never went to college, university and much less got a master’s degree. Lars had made his point very clear and I was too much of a mouse to bite the lion’s tail. I didn’t even made it to Mrs. Potts’ Creative Writing Seminar. 

Nor to the British Library.  

Lars’ library was comfortable enough as to work from there: so I did it. For three years long, I spent every minute after he was gone to work in there (when I wasn’t traveling with him). I did manage to write some things and even publish two books with my stories, but nothing more. It was self-publishing company; I didn’t have the guts to get into the writers’ mafia guild. One look at the very, very gay man sitting behind a desk -someone highly recommended by my aunt Clara- made me realise that he was more into the aspiring writer than into his writings. He was more than eager to get me contacts in the publishing world. 

Right, he was all into contact and keeping in touch with me, something that Lars wouldn’t like at all. If he was jealous of a pizza delivery boy, he would murder a respected publisher with the keys to Calliope and Melpomene’s E-mart.  

That was the last time I was in Madrid. 

As the man perfectly explained to me you have to be “in” to be taken seriously. Translation; hover around some professors, write what you’re expected to write; flatter whom you know you have to flatter and be patient. One day, one of the cronies might die (or post something inappropriate in Twitter) and you’ll inherit the keys to kingdom come. 

I didn’t have the stamina to endure it and Lars wasn’t exactly helping with his “did he write anything worth reading? I mean, something you can read,” question. 

We will always have Amazon Kindle Publishing. 

TLO, Chapter 16

 Chapter 16

Christmas and New Year passed and Lars and I achieved the miracle of “not arguing over everything” even if he stayed in the London house most of the time.  

Incredible but true. 

I should have got a medal from his employees as the boss didn’t pass by the office more than once per week in a period of over three weeks. He had his work brought to the house and worked on it every day for a few hours. 

I wasn’t as lucky as he. It’s absolutely true that monkeys take most all of your time. Writing with a macaque hanging from your chest? Not even Hemingway could have done it. One thing is to run away from bulls (fifteen minutes max.) and a very different one is to endure a monkey clinging to your neck, writhing in response to every little thing you do. It’s a Greek tragedy if you want to go to the toilette and the apocalypse if you put the monkey back in its cage and try to work on your own things. You become an appendix of the monkey. 

According to Lars, this mambo is my fault for not keeping another primate at hand who would kidnap the baby (as done in the wild) and give the mother a rest. Those she-monkeys have no hurry to retrieve their offsprings no matter how much they cry and I can understand them. The only thing I wrote during that period was; “101 Ways to Cook a Monkey” and no matter what my character did, the wretched thing was always coming back from the grave to howl plaintively under the hero’s window to be let back inside… and he did. How could he resist those soulful, full of sorrow, watery, green eyes? 

The character finally kills himself only to find that Hell brims with baby monkeys.  

TLO, Chapter 15

 Chapter 15

Announcing that you’re expected to move your ass to another continent for whichever reason with less than a 24 hours’ notice is Lars’ idea of “discussing something else with you”. The next morning, at an ungodly hour, the wonderful and reassuring cuddling he had started the previous night was cut short with a monster growling “get dressed”. 

I, who had never been to any Muslim country -not even to Morocco for holidays- was going to fly to one of their richest lands! Lars didn’t help me at all because the only thing he told me when we were having breakfast at his plane was: “no public displays of affections while we are there. We fuck indoors.” The stewardess paled when she heard him and I wanted to dig a hole in the fuselage. 

Of course, Sabrina, the witch was coming along. She was best buddies with Lars, shaking her imaginary tail to him and ending every sentence with a “yes, Mr. Berggren”. Needless to say, we got stuck together and she was supposed to show me the tourist hotspots. I bet she’d have preferred a hundred times to be in the first line to protect her beloved “Mr. Berggren” from the wild Beduins than walking me through air conditioned malls but she was screwed up (by her boss, no less) and watching her stoic suffering gave me a wicked pleasure thrill. 

TLO Chapter 14

 Chapter 14

For two weeks, Lars didn’t make a single remark about his marriage proposal -proposal that was rejected on the spot- so foolish me thought it was nothing but something said in the heat of the moment. 

Right. As if I don’t know better. 

Alvaro phoned me one morning Lars had taken his plane to Massachusetts for a whole week and “left” me in London. I should have hung up the phone the minute I saw his name on the screen but it already has been well established that I’m a total idiot. 

My brother was joyous, exultant and kissing the moon because of my upcoming marriage. Wasn’t he not even five years ago marching against gay marriage? Yes, he was but money isn’t homophobic and as Lars says, one million and you get communion from the Pope himself. I always wondered if my brother was attending those demonstrations with his boyfriend and “business” partner. 

If he had hit the pot of gold with his marriage, I was snatching the whole rainbow with the (cat)fish I had caught. 

“I don’t know from where you got that, but I’m not marrying anyone,” I told him and I heard his gasp, maybe the early sign of a premature stroke. 

“What? You’re not marrying?” He took a deep, calming breath in… but it was useless. “Are you fucking nuts?” He yelled from his ivory office in posh downtown Madrid. 

“Did you ask dad his opinion before you got dragged into this mess?” Nothing like calling the heavy guns in. Alvarito was terrified of dad (and he should be) “Or the sandwich maker?” Loyola’s husband was a way more recalcitrant conservative than dad; There were one or two people in our glorious linage that went the other way but those parvenues didn’t have enough noblesse as to turn a blind eye to it. They just sat (once) next to the old Duchess of Alba in a Legionarios meeting and now they believed that the road to nobility was through sticking their noses where nobody ever asked them to. 

“It’s different,” Alvarito said with the dignity of a Spanish conquistador. 

Of course it’s different; sandwich caterers have millions and Lars billions. Funny how a single letter can move mountains no matter how high they are. 

TLO Chapter 13

 Chapter 13

Blue eyes of the bluest blue. That’s the first thing I saw when I woke up. Then came the rest; expensive tweed jacket and brown trousers, white hairs, lots of wrinkles and an inquisitive look. 

“Let me see your eyes again,” he said and a hunch told me that the old man was Lars’ father. Same voice and a certain family air between them. Both are bossy because I obeyed without thinking it twice. I opened wide. 

“Is that your natural hair colour?” He asked me after a  thorough inspection of me. 

“Yes, it is.” I answered a bit intimidated. 

“One could say that you’re an albino but with its characteristics turned down.” He released my chin and went back to sit in his chair next to my bed. “Very rare, indeed.” 

“I’m Dr. Martin Berggren, nice to meet you. Lars told me you’d be here.”

TLO Chapter 12

 Chapter 12

Lars being Lars wasn’t happy at all. Being shunned wasn’t included in his language or view of the world as it should be. 

This is Spain; yes, we have gay marriage but without a ring, you wait outside and stay away from the nurses’ paths. I love the Spanish Public Health System. 

Loyola came the next day (or I think so because one loses track of time in those intensive care windowless units) and she was very worried about me. The doctors had told her that the bullet had caused significant damage and I faced a long recovery to get full mobility of my left arm. 

I felt bad for her because she had left her baby with the cleaning lady. She needed to return home as soon as possible because the school where she worked at wasn’t going to give her more than two free days. 

“Eric, you know you shouldn’t be near weapons,” she told me. “Remember all the times we had to duck for cover when you were around.”  

“I wasn’t shooting at all!” I defended myself. “I only saw some birds flying-and none of them crapped on me, so that’s an improvement in my luck-. One short sighted asshole mistook me for a rabbit.” 

“That’s your normal level of luck, jinx-boy,” she sighed with the resignation of the Virgin Mary. “Mr. Berggren is very upset for what happened and offers to take care of your medical expenses. I think you should accept his offer. You’d get better doctors and care there than here.” 

TLO Chapter 11

 Chapter 11

Nils Holgersson had enough of waiting for me and woke me up around midday. He just shook me awake and nearly caused me a heart attack. Supreme boss was out for the day and I was supposed to move my derrière-my headaches were none of his concern- and drive with him to the place where the hunt was taking place. 

I growled but got up, dressed and ate breakfast. I suddenly remembered my sister Loyola but Holgersson told me the visit had been cancelled. It enraged me but he didn’t care (I guess his boss can put on a bigger show than me) and told me to sit and wait till four when we would be driving to the place. 

Who the hell in his right mind hunts in the middle of the summer? It’s not only forbidden but crazy. Wait till autumn. I hate hunting and I did my best to prove to the world what a lousy hunter I was, but for Spanish nobility hunting is a must. Brits also chase the hell out of every fox they can but don’t walk the extra mile a Spaniard is willing to do. Do you want a new international contract? Do you want support from somebody here? Well, be ready to butcher some quails, ducks, rabbits, venison, sea cucumbers and a long etc. 

Maybe the sun had done my dirty work and killed Lars and his party of insolation. 

TLO Chapter 10

 Chapter 10

The flight to Salamanca was too short. Do planes fly faster when they know they’re making your life miserable? I don’t know. Lars was too busy to tell me; He had a board meeting organised in the plane and the guys were supposed to fly back to London that same evening. Way to screw up your staff just because you want tapas for diner. Up to his secretary looked at me upset. It wasn’t my idea, guys. 

As expected we were again in the same hotel, with adjoined rooms this time. I tried to sneak out of his radar but it was impossible. He had already planned a meeting with the architect and (joy of joys) the contractor.

Having survived the impression (well shock) of seeing my home totally torn out of its walls, pipes, electrical cables and tiles in many places, the architect explained me what he was planning to do. The man had simply taken over as my lack of enthusiasm for the works was understood as cluelessness. The forty-eight percent owner took over also and I was pushed aside as they both discussed -first in English to my benefit and later in Swedish- what was to be done. I was asked again about the same things as before and my choices stayed the same. I guess the architect wanted to play safe and preferred to have Lars to agree with me. He only changed one or two things and I didn’t object it. 

Everything was running smoothly, despite the heat, when my little elephant decided it had been quiet for a long time. Enough is enough, it said to himself and peed on me. 

TLO Chapter 9

 Chapter 9

Living with Lars wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be. Well, not at the beginning of our… relationship, friendship, non-aggression pact? I never knew how to name what we had. I still don’t understand why he needed me or why he liked me. Why he was so obsessed with me, obsessed to the point of not letting me breath without him being there to count how much oxygen I took. I don’t know what he was jealous of because normal people don’t have his visual impairment problems. Nobody, and I mean nobody ever, ever cast a second glance at me after they saw Lars with me. 

Alas, new things always shine and it wasn’t any different for us. We got along in every aspect, including the bedroom. It was ok to share the bed with him. We both received pleasure from the other and that was enough to keep us content and satisfied. He didn’t want to go “all the way” and that was more than fine by me. 

The other things we did? Well, they weren’t really gay. It’s not that we were kissing or drooling over each other. I still liked females though Lars didn’t want them around (me) and I wasn’t going to start being coquettish with Nils or Sven. Later I found out that he was married with two children, two dogs, two cats and one mother in law. Nils Holgersson was a prick -single- who loved money above anything else. I think he had a girlfriend or two but I never knew for certain. I remember he mentioned a son once but he never brought it up again, so I’m not sure if it was true. 

I mean, Lars’ beloved arowana fish, Oscar had more action with the opposite sex than me. Oscar would visit a female arowana now and then when some other breeder wanted champion-babies out of him. In exchange, Lars would get another several thousand dollar fish for his aquariums. I never understood that fish mania of his and his breeder friends. We went once to Osaka to pick up some Koi fishes that cost… an insane price. That golden-pearly Magikarp got its own tank in London with two girls but no deco-plants inside because Lars was concerned that they would scratch one of its scales. That koi had more medals than a general coming back from Afghanistan. That guy-fish had his own vet who came once a month to check him up. I swear that Oscar knew his name and would come when called. 

TLO Chapter 8

 Chapter 8

Arguing with Lars is useless. He just ignores you and focuses on things “that really matter” like his business. I told him that same morning that I had no intentions of leaving for Madrid; that I was going back to Salamanca; that I had several (well, two) delayed orders and that he could…

“Shut up.” 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was his contribution to the world of dialectics and he did it right in front of his people. They paled but had the grace of saying nothing or show any interest in our “chat”. 

But enough is enough. I stood there, silently, waiting for the others to go away which at some point they did. Lars kept on reading his things over the leftovers from breakfast. 

“I have things to do at home and our agreement was good for Cáceres. I want to call it off.” 

“Our agreement is valid till Sunday.” 

“Would you sue me? We don’t get along at all. I can’t stand the sight of you and now you want to go to Madrid? With me? I’d rather sell pot with Abdullah for the rest of my life than being the bitch you want me to be.” 

I knew the second Lars smashed his fist against the table that I had screwed it up big time. I don’t know what triggered his fury, but I learned right there that it wasn’t a good idea to say “Abdullah” in front of him. 

TLO Chapter 7

 Chapter 7

Next morning, somebody touching my private parts woke me up. I elbowed the giant who literally was on top of me, kissing and drooling over my face. 

 “Moody already, shrimp?” He laughed like an idiot and I would have punched him right in the eye but he looked kind of… sexy with his disheveled hair and boyish smile, like ten or fifteen years younger. 

“Don’t you have an ounce of decency?” I buffed and tried to push him away from me because that bed was large enough for both of us and he had no need to use my space too. No way; he’s big like a brown bear and said bear had just found the honeycomb. 

“I love when you protest so much,” he told me before he jumped on top of me and began to kiss my neck. My strength wasn’t enough as to push him away so I let him do it. “Do you have any idea how sexy you are?” he asked me when he stopped kissing, well biting, my neck.

“If you’re a rapist, maybe my refusal turns you on.” 

He jumped away from me and I was for a few seconds confused. That was surprising. Was that all what was needed to send him away? 

“I’m not.” He looked at me furiously. “It’s you who’s in denial. You want this as much as I do but you have to make a drama out of everything. I’m getting tired of your lies.” 

“Sure! Because I asked to be in your bed,” I replied sarcastically. 

TLO Chapter 6

 Chapter 6

Ever felt that panic that washes you over when the familiarity of your own bed is gone? Well, I  do and quite frequently too. I hate sleeping anywhere but my bed and it takes some time for me to get used to the change. After spending a night with someone one would expect to find that someone in bed, especially if it his. Not in my case. 

The asshole was away. I really don’t know when he left and I’m not a very heavy sleeper. It was quite clear for me that he isn’t the romantic type and I could kiss goodbye our “honeymoon” if the first thing he does in the morning is disappearing. 

I went back to my bedroom and got ready for the day. Then I needed to fetch my breakfast or at least track down a bar where I could get it. So far I was getting food if he was around and I didn’t know if the rule still applied if the lord of the manor was away. 

As it happens, it did. A maid told me to sit in the dinning room and I got breakfast from her. It was good to speak Spanish again though I was still in my own land. The English and Swedish I had been hearing for the whole weekend was getting to my nerves. Her name was Glenda and she was from Peru. She was telling me something about where to go clubbing in Cáceres (figures!) when Nils Holgersen and his goose burst in. She ran away at the sight of them. 

“Don’t speak with the servants.” Nils scolded me as he sat next to me. “You distract them from their chores. Mr. Berggren has a strict policy on that.” 

What the hell? Get a Roomba if you want somebody a hundred percent focused on his job. “Does it apply to you too?” I asked but he didn’t bother to answer me. 

“This is Sven Larsen but you can call him Mr. Larsen.” Nils introduced the goose because that man had the air of a goose. “He will be with you today.” 

TLO Chapter 5

 Chapter 5

Next morning, I was very nervous when I followed Nils back to the jerk’s lair. Maybe my plan would work, maybe not and then? I wasn’t ready to go horizontal with him. No, no and that’s a big no. 

Lars was again in the private room where we had dinner; sitting alone with an impressive display of food (I mean, that was the whole buffet from the breakfast service) on top of the table and on a side table. He was already drinking some coffee but he had not touched the food. 

“I didn’t know what you like,” he told me and strangely, that was good to hear. He’s not omniscient. 

“Thank you for the clothes,” I said as I sat in front of him. There was only one waiter and he served me coffee and disappeared. “Is your allergy so bad that you have to take so many precautions?” 

He seemed to be happy that I had shown some interest in his well-being and I nearly hit my head against the fruits bowl on the side. That wasn’t the right way of getting rid of him!

“It’s under control now, though it’s annoying not knowing when something could trigger a reaction.” 

“Do you carry an Epi-pen with you all the time?”

“Yes, I do but seldom use it. It’s been more than five years since I suffered a shock. I have to be in direct contact with the material to trigger a reaction. In your case, as I hope to be very close to you, it hurts nobody to take some precautions.” 

TLO Chapter 4

 Chapter 4

Saturday started like a normal, nice day. A bit cold, -well, freezing kind of-, but sunny morning. I woke up early, had breakfast (if a cup of tea and a toast can be called that); swept the two upper floors (which were cold as hell) and thoroughly cursed the boiler before I opened the store. 

I sat behind the desk and felt a pang of remorse because that was Eusebio’s place. I did nothing else but to sit there and watch through the small windows -almost at ceiling level- the running feet of tourists and locals rushing to visit the Cathedral or the Casa de las Conchas. Though people were visiting a city famous for its university, nobody was looking down, at our basement’s windows in order to discover the many books hidden in the shadows. Not even the students would look at us. We mostly lived from internet sales or seeing a few selected collectors- customers now and then. 

Just being there without nothing better to do but looking at perfect strangers’ shoes was nerve racking. Besides the situation with the psycho who wanted to become my boyfriend lover, I still had the tax-inheritance-problem (the nobility thing was almost out of my mind), my employment status (no, that one was solved: I had quitted the previous night) and a boiler on strike. All of my problems were the kind of situation that requires money; money I didn’t have and I debated with myself if I should ask my sisters for money (and humiliate myself a bit more). In a nutshell, I was royally screwed.  

TLO Chapter 3

 Chapter 3 

To say that the inheritance procedure was a mess doesn’t begin to cover all what it meant for us. Eusebio had put together all the money he still had and used it to pay for the documents and lawyers needed to donate me his house, its contents and his title. His will was quite clear; I could accept the donation or pass it over to any LGTB organisation of my choosing. 

At barely nineteen years old, I found myself the owner of a mammoth of a palace-house, a bookstore, some furniture and an ever-present headache. 

“There’s no way you’ll get the title. You will never be accepted by the other Grandees or the King,” told me Loyola. “It’s a lost battle. You have to yield the honour to the rightful heir; his nephew, Don Carlos. He’s of the blood.” 

“I know.” 

“This whole process will be worse than the Medina Sidonia’s, Eric.” 

“I know.” 

She was damn right but I couldn’t bring myself to reject the legacy and the title. It was something that was so Eusebio’s and he had given it to me, quietly, without saying a thing, that to refuse it, felt like flushing his personal papers and photos down the drain. 

“Can you even afford the taxes?” she asked me with a lot of common sense and that was true; I couldn’t pay for the Duchy nor the process to be recognised as a duke. No, the Duchess of Alba wouldn’t be asking me for tea anytime soon. 

“What are you going to do with this place?” She asked me once more and looked upset because I wasn’t paying any attention to her. 

“Is papa very mad at me?” I asked shyly. Loyola had been a great support, but her questioning and siding with the Rioduero family, was too much for me and I had never expected it. She was speaking about taxes, properties, estates and I don’t know what else while I was worrying because I only had a fabada can for dinner and didn’t know how to live my life without Eusebio’s gentle guidance. 

TLO Chapter 2

 Chapter 2 

I never phoned my sisters. I did mean to but I just couldn’t do it. The first week passed and then the second. A month, a season and I still didn’t feel like it. Around Christmas I had enrolled myself at the high school near Eusebio’s bookshop-house and he didn’t tell me anything. He never did, though his financial situation was way worse than ours, bordering on dire. 

Maybe that’s why I stayed with him. He was a very nice old man. Despite he had been a riot in his youth (hanging out with Almodovar, Macnamara and Alaska), he never asked me a thing or even judged me like everybody else used to do. 

I felt sorry for him. The years had not been kind to him. Most of his money was gone as a result of a “chain of unfortunate decisions” along with his friends. It’s not easy to grow old in such an environment where age is your worst enemy. The family hated him and waited for him to die and leave the last building he owned, right behind the Casa de las Conchas, to them. I mean, he only had a meagre state pension and that bookshop to keep a full palace alive. He could have turned it into a hotel or even a hostel but he hated the idea. 

As the antique books business wasn’t as buoyant as people might believe, I took a part time job at a pizza chain (lying a little about my age, but they didn’t really care) and every night I would deliver pizzas to university students. Erasmus kept them so busy studying that they couldn’t be bothered to cook and god bless them for being so lazy that they couldn’t move their asses down the street to the pizza parlour. 

The Lost Ones

 Chapter 1

When I was born, no fairy godmother or guardian angel bothered to show up. Instead, I got a pink elephant dressed in a fluffy tutu, and it peed on me. 

There’s no other logical explanation for my bad luck. The damn thing just pissed on me and the bad luck it brought joined me for life, just like a life-sentence with no parole. Whenever it look as if my luck would improve, very soon, sooner than you’d expect, my luck would turn for worse and I’d be royally screwed up. 

That’s my only comfort; that one day my bad luck will catch up with that bastard and ruin his life like he ruined mine. Even if I’m not there to see it, I certainly will enjoy his fall from the top. I definitively will.

Coming back to the pink elephant mojo. He started to work early on in my life; early as two days old -If I’m to believe the doctors and nurses at the hospital where I was brought in-. I was found in a heap of clothes on top of the compost recycle bin in a small town in Madrid. The dustman who picked me up, thinking that once again people were too lazy to walk to the “Humana” recycling container, suffered a heart attack when said bundle of clothes moved and it wasn’t a rat what was in there. The guy dropped me and I got a cut in the head -so the newspapers told-. While his colleague was busy trying to perform a CPR on the poor guy, the truck driver picked me up and dialled 112. 

I ended up in the hospital with hypothermia and a bump in my head and the poor guy in the morgue as the local dustman course didn’t include a real CPR training until that day. The news of my “miraculous” rescue aired in the evening news and people spoke about me for a while (two days? Maybe three?) There were some photos of me (blurred face, of course) in the press. If they would have published a good photo of me, maybe some more people would have been interested in me or my real mother would have shown up, but the news of a dead hero scares the hell out of good Samaritans and nobody really wanted to adopt me.