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Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd - Dai Lewis

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123 pages

English

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Harry had been a happy-go-lucky member of the human race until his girlfriend of two years decided she preferred the company of her own gender. Since then his life had become a downward spiral of misery and self-pity. His best friend Paulie had been as supportive as any male can be, but he too was beginning to drown in Harry's woes, as were the rest of their group. Together with his twin sister Sarah, Paulie was determined to get Harry 'back on the horse' and find a girl. They knew that if that endeavour was to have any chance of success, he would need to recover his happier self. Thus began Harry's quest to trawl through some of the myriad alternative therapies in a desperate attempt to 'pull himself together'. Unfortunately for Harry, 'Murphy's law' was a reality and anything that could go wrong, did, usually in the most unlikely and worst possible ways. The adage 'There's always someone worse off than you' is true and in the world of alternative therapy that person is Harry. Throughout this rather painful journey of self-discovery, his awareness of deepening feelings for Sarah slowly develops. Join Harry through the trials and tribulations of his journey to enlightenment and hopefully love. This is his story.

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Humour

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
Date de parution	30 novembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781398435063
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Extrait

Happy Never After?
A doomed flirtation with alternative therapies in a quest to mend a broken heart
Dai Lewis
Austin Macauley Publishers
2022-11-30
Happy Never After? About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © The Beginning of the End Aromatherapy Reflexology Massage Yoga Acupuncture Homeopathy Art Therapy Psychodrama Hot Stones Muscle Stimulation and Relaxation The Retreat The Health Spa The End Is Just the Beginning
About the Author
Dai was initially a mathematician but became fascinated by the human condition. He gained another degree in Psychology and completed Masters’ degrees in Human Relations, Counselling, Health Psychology and Medical Science, training as a Clinical Hypnotist specialising in paediatric pain, before becoming a doctor of Psychology. His broad experience has provided a depth of knowledge about therapeutic interventions, including alternative therapies. He is a Chartered Psychologist, an associate fellow of the BPS and a practitioner registered with the HCPC. His love of humour in his writing helped him to develop a storytelling protocol for helping children experiencing chronic pain.
Dedication
As always, my writing is dedicated to my children and their children who are my world.
Copyright Information ©
Dai Lewis 2022
The right of Dai Lewis to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781398435056 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398435063 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2022
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA

The Beginning of the End
“Another bloody day in paradise” sprang into Harry’s head as he stood at his window seething at the bleak sight that greeted him. The sky was dark purple and the air was heavy and humid, reflecting how Harry had been feeling since his girlfriend of two years had left him. “We need a storm or we’ll all expire,” he thought as he felt the room shake with a distant, thunderous roar but still the rain didn’t come. He began to feel lethargic and even more disgruntled about his life and how utterly, utterly crap it was.
It was July, “Where’s the bloody summer and the inherent feel-good factor that comes with some decent sunshine and warmth?” he asked no one. Even if it did manage to rain to freshen the air a bit, he wouldn’t feel any better about things, he’d simply moan about the awful weather, global bloody warming or something that he got irritated about but didn’t fully understand, nor if he was totally honest did he care very much about right now.
To describe Harry’s current demeanour as ‘grumpy’ as indeed many had done, does not do justice to the adjective. His predilection to launch into a flurry of negativity about every aspect of his life and the world he inhabited was quickly becoming legend. His tirades usually terminated in how bleak and depressing the present is and how futile any hope about the future will only prove to be. The resulting sense of hopelessness was pervasive and likely to engulf any who strayed into Harry’s path.
Up until this point in his life, he had been a fairly happy-go-lucky kind of guy and usually managed to make people laugh and they enjoyed his company. He was one of a fairly large and close-knit group of friends who met up regularly and always enjoyed good banter, often at each other’s expense though never maliciously. There was amongst them some genuine concern for how Harry was feeling, though they didn’t allow this to interfere with ripping into him, as was the norm.
It was usual for Harry to participate fully in such interactions but he had suffered a bit of a sense of humour transplant recently, his mood had deteriorated badly since Chantelle, his ex-girlfriend decided that she definitely preferred the sexual company of other females. In fairness to her, she had declared her experimentation with both sexes when they first met, a fact that he had found a little arousing at the time but subsequently had chosen to get pissed off about.
The fact that Harry was lacking the necessary physical attributes to win her back did nothing to minimise his frustration about this thing called love. He wondered if he’d got something so badly wrong that he’d turned her into a lesbian, a notion that he knew to be ridiculously irrational and deeply insulting to the gay community but he wondered it anyway. His solution was to give up on love entirely, believing it to be the domain of severely deluded people. This was his outward presentation but in reality, he wanted nothing more than to be in a deeply loving relationship and settle down with ‘the one’.
It was entirely possible that he had invested a lot of effort into believing that he and Chantelle were ‘it’ but if he was totally honest and with the benefit of hindsight, he felt that there had always been something lacking. It wasn’t her he missed per se but more the closeness and intimacy that comes with sharing your life with someone you care about. Unfortunately, this rationalisation did little to change the fact that he was upset about the loss and irritated by the way it transpired.
At the latest party that one of the group had organised, there were the usual suspects together with some of their wider circle of friends and acquaintances. Generally, the membership was a good-looking bunch without the oft-associated over-confidence bordering on arrogance, which can be so unattractive. Flirting was a common aspect of their interaction but it tended to be superficial and not done with the usual end-goal in sight. There were obviously couples and some of these were longer-term relationships whilst others were more transitory. Thus the group was fluid in nature but always with a core of very good friends, so in that respect at least Harry was a lucky man.
Despite meeting many of the criteria for a full-blown clinical depression Harry did make the effort to join in the frivolities, though his lack of spark was obvious. His life was not the flattened effect of many depressed people’s experiences but was a roller-coaster of emotion ranging from peaks of intense anger and hatred of everything, to a sad resignation of just how shit his life actually is. This existential angst was a reflection of his feelings of hopelessness about the whole process of loving and indeed living, with only death to release us from it, the ultimate fear of which loops back to further deepen the angst.
In fairness to his group, there were many attempts to counsel him and to try to joke him back into life. “Better to have loved and lost my arse!” and “I don’t like fish so I don’t care how many more there are in the fucking sea!” he’d mutter when anyone verbalised one of the many clichés offered after a bad breakup. ‘Time’s a great healer!’ was another platitude he’d grown to hate and vowed never to say it to anyone unfortunate enough to be in his position, though he recognised that it had been one of his stock phrases of comfort and support when others had suffered a breakup in the past.
The crux of the issue was that Harry had become comfortable with Chantelle and they were casually talking about marriage and kids before she dropped the breakup bombshell. Struggling to make sense of when and how things had deteriorated so badly, he had to accept that as a couple they had become less loving than they once were. “Such a calming happens in most relationships,” he’d rationalised but now wondered if it was a warning sign that he’d previously been blissfully unaware of.
This dawning was exacerbated by the very recent discovery that Chantelle had been testing out her preference for the female gender on several occasions during their relationship when she was out with the girls. In retrospect, it was interesting that he had chosen to ignore the rumour mongers and dismiss the fairly damning photographs posted on social media after such a night. Since she’d left him, the possibility that he couldn’t have been all that bothered about the potential cheating was quite a realisation about the state of their relationship, or was he just using dissonance as a coping strategy?
The party was in full swing and his friends were going about their usual party-associated behaviours. There was much flirting, ripping into each other and gossiping about anything and anyone and all were in high spirits, well nearly all. Several failed attempts were made to involve Harry and get him to loosen up a bit and return to some semblance of his former self.
Unfortunately, his closest female friend was not at the party, which was a shame for Harry because he could always talk to her about anything and everything and he missed her. Sarah was also the twin sister of Harry’s best friend, Paulie, who was desperate to rekindle his friend’s lost spark. Sarah had been in a relationship for a bit longer than Harry had but her ‘other half’ was not liked by the group because of his arrogance, self-aggrandisement and the unacceptable way they felt he treated Sarah.
Throughout the proceedings, several of the other female members of the group tried to engage Harry in some way. He tried to interact as he would normally hav