Prologue
I wrote this for another place. But it seems rather apt in the general scheme of things, so it should be here too.
This is a tale of fate, or a fateful tale depending on how you look at it. Don't ask me which, I'm still trying to figure it out myself.
Lionheart was born late in the afternoon of Monday January 19, 2004, somewhere between Milton Keynes and Luton in the middle lane of the southbound M1. A strange place to enter the world, but rather fitting none the less, being roughly equidistant to the place I was driven away from and the one I was retreating to to lick my wounds.
Part of me was distracted by a rather striking sunset. And part of me was pondering something I wanted to write (but still haven't done properly yet...); a valediction for love destroyed.
And before anyone says it...
I know...
That wasn't the most safe and sane thing to be doing while simultaneously pushing the 80mph boundary in heavy traffic. But right then I was hurting too much to care. And I'd driven that road so many times that I could pretty much do it on auto-pilot anyway.
Then it hit me. No, not the under-run bars on the artic in front (or I wouldn't be here to tell the tale).
Lionheart.
Whose incarnation owed everything to a shape-shifting wicked witch with more identities than it was possible to count.
But why that name???
Why not "DozyDom"? Or "ThroughALensDarkly" in homage to my photography? Or "WalkOn" in homage to the great outdoors and the moving sound of the Kop in full voice? Or...
I haven't got a clue. I wanted something that sounded brave and strong at a time when I felt neither. And it just came to me. Out of the blue (or the red sky at night on my right).
CourDeLion (Geddit? And yes, I know it should be CoeurDeLion) as an "alter ego" came later for sites where Lionheart(ed) was already spoken for. And no, CourDeLion wasn't a typo or carelessness. It was a site that only let you have a maximum of 10 characters for your handle, so something had to give.
It has to have been fate.
I didn't consciously choose Lionheart. "He" "found" me.
And were it not for Lionheart there would be no CourDeLion.
And if I hadn't been logged into a site at the same moment as a sub for whom CourDeLion had a certain resonance.
I wouldn't be where I am now.
Such are the fickle fingers of fate.
This rambling inane drivel is dedicated to:
g, for being my muse and making me smile again
and lots of people at lots of munches, for just being you.
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you'll never walk alone...
All together now... ahh isn't that sweet / or pass the sick-bucket Alice / or [insert cliché to suit]
The End (part 1)
The room looked the same as thousands of others in hundreds of other chain hotels dotted around the country. Not that he minded; he had a convenient base.
Especially as he wasn't in a hurry; he didn't need to be on the move until mid-morning. A cup of tea first (Why was the tea you made in your room so poor, he mused. Did they really need to skimp on the ingredients that much?). A leisurely shower followed by more tea while he dressed: black trousers, black shirt (no tie) and a black jumper. He smiled as he remembered that it was the one she had bought him. It seemed rather fitting...
He had done a recce yesterday after he had checked into the hotel. He knew how long it would take to drive there, the best place to park, the layout of the building, the entire routine. He glanced at his watch. There was time for breakfast in the cafe across the road first. This was not an event he wanted to get to too early..
Bacon butties (another one of their favourites) and decent tea. Served in a mug. He had never understood the attraction of Earl Grey served with a sliver of lemon in served in dainty china. It had to be industrial-strength Assam with rather more sugar than was good for you. The caff were more than happy to fill his flask for him too. He liked places like that, simple and unpretentious.
Although he didn't want to arrive too far in advance, he couldn't afford to be late either. And he knew from experience that the traffic on the roads across town could be unpredictable.
The timing was perfect. The car creaked slightly as the engine cooled in the chill of a spring morning. He was parked right where he wanted, where he could observe the growing crowd in the car's mirrors. Not that the little knot of people by the door could really be described as a crowd. He wiped the glass. The heat of his body and the steam rising from the mug of tea balanced atop the dashboard were starting to mist up the car, making him even less visible to the gathering.
He waited until the last straggler had drifted inside before he got out of the car and shrugged into his long black coat. He crunched across the gravel towards the door, thinking of those old westerns where the stranger (dressed in black, his coat flapping loose with an air of menace) would first appear, striding purposely down the main street. The time had come for him to make his last stand.
Preamble
Depending on how you look at it
This is either a work of fiction based on fact
Or facts that many people will refuse to believe, so better that they are presented as fiction.
Or something somewhere between the two.
It will be written a series of fragments. They might appear unconnected at first. But, in the opposite to the way that a thread unravels, all the strands will eventually come together into a single whole.
At least that's the theory anyway. Who knows where the twists and turns will take us as the words start to flow?
