Zeitgeist

It has been a very special day for me. It’s one of those days that truly only comes once in a lifetime, a day on which you want to make things right, make things go your way, make the day unforgettable for everyone involved.

Today I want to tell a story of my life, no big deal.

And my story is about death.

My biological mother and my father never married you see, but they were together. Eventually things got serious, and I was born. However since they didn’t marry, it was a tough decision to make as to who is gonna raise me. I am a bit vague on the details, but in fairness I have to say I didn’t really ask for details. All I know that the case could not be decided and went to court, who then decided in favor of my biological mother. My father was allowed to see me once every month by court ruling. But outside the court both agreed that my father could see my every weekend. So she got me and was allowed to raise me.

Little did I know about the events that would take place in the time I would be with her. When others were having fun with their parents, or mothers in that case, I was mostly left alone and had to have fun either on my own or with some friends from school. But these friends of course could only stay during the afternoon, had to be home for dinner at night. After that, the fun was pretty much over, every day. Eventually my biological mother and the woman who lived next door connected, got a pretty good relationship going from what I could see. The friendship got so intense between them that she would leave me alone at night, scared to hell, no light anywhere in the house. Often she would stay at her friend until deep in the night, consuming alcohol. Or at least I believe that’s what she did. I remember that one night when I got scared again and was looking for her, in a dark apartment. I was able to reach the light switches, I looked for her – in vain. I then opened up the main door into stairway, shouting ‘mom?’ all the time. Other families in the house would eventually notice me screaming for her, and then she came out, bringing me back to bed, all lights off again, only to return to alcohol consumption duty.

Over the years things changed in my head, I accepted the fact that we probably would never connect. In fact, I know nothing about her past. At all.

Eventually she too got struck by loneliness and decided to look for someone. And so she did. Placed contacting ads in local newspapers. Much like dating sites today, only without the Internet. Apparently some guys have responded, but I only saw one or two. I think the second guy made it, in terms of my mother deciding for him. So they apparently connected, more and more he would stay over night. In most nights when he was there it was very audible what was happening in the bedroom.

Let me put this straight: he was a redneck. Or some sort of it anyways. They’re called Travellers here in Ireland. But redneck is I think more appropriate. Had his farm with one or two cows, somewhere in the middle of nothing, left at the end of the world. He had some customers, one of them an elderly lady with a somewhat huge house and real estate. However I remember that one night when I couldn’t sleep and turned a smaller light on, to read something. Suddenly this redneck guy goes all crazy or haywire, slams open my door (which had a window in it, I’m amazed it didn’t break), lifts me up and spanks the hell out of my ass. I was crying in pain, and believe me when I say that only Jack Bauer could inflict worse pain than that. He didn’t care, the spanking continued for a rough 6 minutes, before he got back to the bedroom and being helped his horniness. Yes, for real.

Eventually I compiled a clever plan that would frame him for the removal of money stored in a safe place. When it came out that the money was gone, the circumstances pointed at him. It appeared conclusive, and soon after they would part ways.

Victory! Or so I thought. It was far from over. I had no idea what was coming next. So one or two years passed by with me being on my own as usual, and during that time my affection for computers and software grew, and at that time it were mostly DOS and Windows 3.1 systems, as well as video games, and Nintendo was the shit at the time.

So then she sets out to place another ad, looking for someone new. The shock had settled (my genius, and yes, evil plan worked out, I felt victorius). Same game again. People reply, some were interesting, some weren’t. And again, one guy makes it through, she decides for him. Deja Vu, everything happened as before. However, this guy was not a redneck, this one was a bricklayer. Yeap. What did he want to be when he grew up? I don’t know. I don’t care. Anyways, so she decided for him, and they connected well. Without me, of course.

However then something happened I didn’t expect. This guy integrates me into things he wants to do. Bizarre, System Error occured. That was not expected. Well what can I say. He seemed better than the other guy and at least did not folter me for turning on the light to read a book (I can still feel the pain in my head by thinking about it). In fairness he had a bit more intelligence than the other guy. Which seemed to be a good deal at the time.

Eventually my grandmother died. I think it was a heart attack. Today I regret not having connected with her. I’m sure she would have had advice for life. But then I was also afraid because every time we went to see her, my mother was with me. In her last will she stated that her savings should be split up between her two daughters – my mother and her sister. I cannot disclose the exact amount of the savings but lets just say that it was a substantial amount of money. Deutsch Marks at the time.

So my mother got the coin and that was the moment it all took the most important turn: She wanted to invest in a house, her own property.

And so she did. Bank played along and provided the rest. Which I still find quite questionable given the circumstances we/she lived in – but hey, I’m not the bank. Anyways, the deal was approved. The house was a nice big property with a huge field outside. I’d say half a soccer pitch from a stadium, so approx. 50 meters. Two stories was the house. My room was upstairs.

See, this guy also has a son. He was like 5 or 6 years older than me I think. In the beginning it all seemed cool, I at least had someone who was on the same ship as me, we connected. At last. So my mother had less to worry about. She had that guy, and I would be busy with my new friend. At that point I didn’t really care, I left her on her own, she left me in peace.

However in time, things got bad between me and this guy she was with, and my mother as well. Things got really bad. Which was basically crap because the house was in the middle of nowhere, right at the end of the world. Next city like 40 kilometres out, next village still 2 or 3 kilometres out. So if you wanted to go somewhere… there weren’t much places to go. But things got truly bad, only shouting, only bad vibes.

You know it got to a point when they got pissed, they would just turn off the electricity supply to my room. Boom. Gone. They did it one day in winter, my room only like 10 degrees C. I had to wear a jacket. My mother comes in ‘why you wearin’ a jacket?’. And they demonstrated their powers with the power switch on a lot more occasions.

But my mother is also guilty of theft you know. At the time modems were the only way into the intartubez, top speeds at 28.8 K. Yes, that was really fast back then. So I saved my pocket money to eventually buy one of those suckers. Time passed by, my money piled up. Eventually I got those 200 Deutsch Marks (about 100 Euro) collected, and then I ordered a modem from the ISP, and chose to pay cash at delivery of the device (in Germany you can do that). So the postman rings, I wanted to hand out the money.

It was gone.

I told the man to give me bill instead, which he did. But I still got the modem. I then asked my mother if she would have an idea where my money went. She said:

‘Yeah, I took it because I wanted to order some clothes from that catalogue’.

That’s fine. You owe my 100 Euro.

I however connected my modem and surfed till sundown, and at the time THIS was an expensive hobby. Telephone bill rose to 700 Deutsch Marks (around 350 Euro). I was then questioned as to why the bill was so high. Since I thought it would be a fair question, I was asking them what happened to my 200 Deutsch Marks – but they let me go.

You still owe me 100 Euro.

But that must have been the turning point, the boiling point, because what followed was the one event that changed my entire life forever.

It is June 6, 1998 – around 1:00 PM.

A summer day. Hot as hell. Shoe’s soles would melt to the ground. It is important to understand that I was born with a hole in my left heart chamber. This hole caused my heart to beat infrequently and could ultimately be my death if for some reason the heart would take to long to pump my blood through my body. Well today the hole is gone. My heart beats more frequent, but still not in a normal rythm. This prevents me from doing heavy duty activities such as sports and stuff. Every one was aware of this medical condition.

Anyways, it’s a hot day. My mother is busy doing some stuff in the garden. Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to complete it all, she asked me if I would help. I said kind of that I’d love to help, but I can’t right now since the sun is shining like hell, it could be an issue with my heart.

Which probably caused her partner and her partner’s son to freak out. They grabbed me, slam me to the floor. The bricklayer is kicking into my ribs again and again, while his son his putting his arm around my neck and throat. While I am being kicked, I am chocked by his son.

And I’m telling you, I was thinking it’s over, because I lost the ability to breath normally, I could feel the air supply vanishing in my longues, and no more air coming in. I hear one of them saying

‘Okay, do it now, take him out of the picture’

and they continued with their assault which probably had the aim to take my life. I was kicked, but no more pain, I didn’t wanna fight what was coming next. My air was gone in me, no air coming in and they probably wouldn’t let me breath again. I’m a logical person so… I already know I’m dead.

Then for some reason, I do not understand why, they stopped. They let go of me. What was upright of me collapsed to the ground. Amazingly, I am still concious and feel the air supply returning, feel my longues starting to work again. I then was stable enough to get up, to my room. Luckily, no broken bones. I was in a good shape. But I’m telling you, dizzy as hell. If you know what a Vertigo is, than this is how I felt. If you don’t know what a Vertigo is, well, you don’t wanna experience one.

I remained in my room silently until the next day. Did not speak to anyone. I was thinking about the next logical step.

I then packed my clothes, my stuff, wiped my hard drive (the PC in the room), and left there forever.

But as I was standing in the door, I said

‘I hope that you understand what you’re about to loose in this very moment’

to my biological mother. I actually physically never looked back and moved to my father, where I lived for the entire time without any big incident until I came here back in 2001.

This is the closest I have ever gotten to death, and I hope it will be for quite a number of decades. And what I learned from that experience is that life here in this world, on this planet, is the most precious thing of them all, it is the greatest mystery and joy at the same time. The greatest thing of them all is to be alive, is to be here, and witness these moments in our society. Our world is not much, and it certainly isn’t the way we would all like it, but it’s a start.

I have also come to realize that death is the one thing we cannot escape from, it is the one destination which is the end of all of our roads. No matter which road you take, at the end, death will prevail. Even more reason to make the most of you and your life as long as you can. As long as you are here, you can do things, change things. We’re all here on our little spaceship, traveling at 96,000 km per hour through the vastness of space, and we don’t have much time.

You know in the past ten years ever since I left there, I have had a great time. I think I got a bit lucky, too. Came here and worked for a big company for 4 1/2 years, then I worked for another one, then for Microsoft, and now Google. And all of that in only the last 7 years of all those 10 years.

What I’m saying, is, that you shouldn’t waste your life, you are here, you can do something. You know one day our life is over, and when that day comes for me I want to be able to know that I at least tried to make the world around me a better place.

Some people, like my biological mother and the person she was with at the time have a different state of mind, they appear to be wanting to make the world a darker place for people around them. A scarier place, ever more worrying for people around them. And by doing so they just become like death, dark and lifeless.

Don’t be like them. Be like me. Try something totally crazy in your life. Do something that’s so unexpected and so far out that has not even a remote chance of success.

With a bit of luck and determination, you will succeed and I personally guarantee you: You will have the fun of a lifetime.

On June 4 2008, I have visited her house again and tell her about my life, and what she has been missing out on. Not that I’m interested in re-establishing the contact in any way, it’s just that she should know what happened.

She and her partner are still living at the premises, as my information showed it would be. When I saw her, I had no idea that it was her. She had aged a good bit. However her partner also showed the decade that had passed. Both were in pure awe of seeing me after all this time. In the end, it was a surprise visit. I was shown around in the house, and man… it felt pretty weird. Like you step out of a time machine and see yourself again. And your stuff. Almost all of my stuff was still there, even my first PC I ever owned. And it still works as it seems. I have seen the rest of the house, too. Not too many things had changed. Re-arranged, maybe.

As you can imagine, me too was in awe of being there. After ten years, returning to the one very spot you almost lost your life is a very weird feeling.

However to be fair, and so that both sides get a fair hearing, we talked. I presented my side of the story, and so did they. And while we were doing that, I brought along my voice recorder I had bought some weeks ago – just for this day. I bought this in case they would confirm what happened. Just to be on the safe side. They were not aware of me recording. Nevertheless we talked about what happened. They said that ‘it has been a great mistake’ and they wouldn’t know why they did it. Although I got my confession on tape, I did not get the one main thing I set out for: to get an answer to the question:

Why?

Maybe it’s one of these questions I will never find an answer to. Life’s full of mysteries, let this be one of them. Having lost her only son, and knowing what she has been missing out on, is doing enough justice for me in the end of the day.

The good thing about this is however that there was no hostility yesterday there. So maybe, indeed, in the end the good always wins. Like in the movies eh? I certainly would like to believe that, but somehow, I can’t.

In the end, I guess, I got my closure, I got what I set out for now.

My life goes on, kids. It will stay the way it is… I have no intent of going back there again or something. I just went there for closure, to maybe talk, to let them know that I am still around. My life proceeds into a new direction from now on, and I am very excited as to see what life has in store for me.

I’m Marcus AKA SystemError51.

Thank you very much for listening, good night.

Bill Hicks used to finish his shows with this:

———————

Here’s a list of things that have happened in the time from June 6 1998 until today, June 5 2008.

- George W. Bush became President
- World Cups that took place: 1998 (during which the attempt on my life happened), 2002, 2006
- Euro Cups that took place: 2000, 2004
- The 9/11 WTC Incident
- Britney Spears’ entire music ‘career’ has taken place in this time
- Microsoft released 5 major versions of Windows for consumers
- Google unleashed on September 7, 1998
- Apple released 6 major versions of Mac OS X
- Web 2.0 begins to emerge
- Apple released the original iPod in 2001, which changed the way we listen to music, forever
- Sony released the PlayStation 2 on November 24, 2000 – the PlayStation 3 on March 23, 2007
- Microsoft introduced both XBox generations during that time
- Nintendo unleashes the Game Cube, and the Wii
- Sega Dreamcast launches, but quickly disappears
- YouTube was founded in 2005
- The Columbia Shuttle catastrophe which killed all astronauts in the process
- Facebook arrives on the scene in 2004
- Wikipedia launched in 2001
- The Tsunami which killed 250,000
- Linux gains massive momentum with Ubuntu
- Theories concerning how believable 9/11 really is, have arisen
- People abandon TV, prefer YouTube or other web services
- News travels faster through the Internet than it arrives on TV
- New Orleans nearly wiped out with Katrina
- NASA plans to go to the Moon again in 2020
- Osama Bin Laden alleged leader of Al Quaeda
- The London underground bombings
- The Ansari X-Prize is won for the first time ever with SpaceShipOne in 2004
- The iPhone is unleashed, revolutionizes the mobile world forever
- Google acquires Keyhole in 2004, paving the way for Google Earth and Google Maps
- Also in 2004, Google goes public
- The entire Lord Of The Rings trilogy was filmed, produced, released
- The second Iraq war
- Dublin sees major change as a new public transport named LUAS is introduced
- UFO Phenomena taken more seriously, more detailed information arises on web
- High Definition introduced to households, networks begin broadcasting in HD
- Intel breaks speed barriers with Dual and Quad Core technologies
- Pixar releases these movies: Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Rattatouille
- The Chronicles of Narnia come to the big screen
- Apple revolutionizes the laptop market with the MacBook Air
- The campaigns for the next US President
- Star Trek IX and X were filmed, produced, released
- The entire buzz around BitTorrent has taken place in that time
- All Star Wars prequels (Episode I – III) were filmed, produced, released
- DVD was just ready in 1998, now to be replaced by BluRay
- Microsoft gains dominance in the browser market with Internet Explorer, now share declines
- All Mozilla Firefox versions written, tested, bugfixed, released
- Netscape faced its end in 2008, after huge glory 10 years before
- Religion collides with science, teachers in US get fired for teaching evolution
- Scientology faces a threat from a group named Anonymous
- Digg is founded in 2004
- KDE launches versions 3 and 4
- Apple switches from PowerPC to Intel, introduces Universal Binary in the process
- GMail has seen its entire existence in the past 4 years
- Blogs become more and more popular, become vital part of Web 2.0
- Flatscreens replace the dated CRT screen technology
- All new generation Grand Theft Auto games are written, produced, released
- The entire series “Enterprise” was filmed, produced, released, and well, canceled
- Stargate SG-1 came to an end after 10 seasons – launched in 1998
- The entire iTunes music store existence took place in that time
- SE51 released OS X Mercury in 2007 after 16 months work
- Dido’s entire music career took place in the past 10 years
- Duke Nukem Forever is still in production
- The entire P2P (Peer to Peer) file sharing technology has seen all of its share in this time
- 64-bit computing introduced, is to replace 32-bit