During his University days Christopher had stumbled upon the realisation that the best way to lie was simply to tell the closest version of a truth that he could. So when his mother called as regular as clockwork at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon for a welfare check, as an example he'd tell her that he'd been eating well, getting plenty of rest and regular exercise. “Monday was a busy day so I had bacon, but Tuesday I had beef and even had a second helping. Wednesday I went for a run having had a long sleep.” What he really meant was on Monday he'd had a packet of Frazzles, Tuesday he'd eaten two packets of beef Monster Munch. He'd then been out on a bender, overslept and had to run as fast as his unsteady legs would carry him so that he didn't miss the start of his lecture. He reasoned to himself that it was kind of like pigs in blankets at Christmas, the meat comes from the same source and put together they combine to one enjoyable taste the recipient could easily swallow and enjoy. Well unless they happen to be vegetarian or vegan of course.
Christopher had led a very sheltered life by the Norfolk coast and the sea water had left him permanently wet behind both ears. During Freshers week he'd wondered who this girl Molly was that everyone was seemingly so desperate to find. All the people asking him where to find her or did he know to get hold of her? So naive had his upbringing been that he'd never even gotten the joke when someone painted out the n on the next on the little sign that greeted you at the boundary of his home town of Wells-next-the-Sea. The local council had tried fixing the signs for about a month and then just given up on the war of attrition when the next day the n would just be missing once more.
Unlike 99.8% of the other students Christopher was having to be educated both in his educational subject of choice and in life at the same time. There were probably another one or two people like him helping make up the other 0.2% but if they actually existed they were sensibly staying in their room and getting on with their primary education.
A lot of parents worry about their kids going to university means that their little babies will have access to drugs and quite frankly they're right to be. However there should at least be a caveat to that statement that the drugs sold in universities are of the highest quality unlike the shit you'd find pushed in nightclubs or on the street. A death from an overdose whilst never great for business only ever really matters if the person dropping dead is a student. Therefore the unwritten rule is to not tamper with the goods if you know they're being sold to students. It was Christopher's mother's question as to whether he'd been remembering to take his vitamins that had unwittingly led him to taking MDMA for the first time. Even over the phone the tiny pause in his answer gave away the truth that he'd forgotten and he meant his promise that he'd try his best to remember to take them. So on the night one of his fellow classmates had held out a handful of pills and told those boys and girls around him to remember to take their vitamins he'd remembered his mother's words and the promise he'd made to her and duly swallowed one and promptly had the best night of his short little life to date. Only a few days later did he find out that it wasn't the sort of vitamin that you could buy from the local chemists and latterly sometime after that, that all the people asking him for Molly hadn't been asking for a girl at all. His cheeks had flushed like he'd been out for a coastal walk in December and his naivety shone like a beacon from the local lighthouse far out to sea. This hasn't stopped him from taking more vitamins in the future mind you and here we often found another lie wrapped up in the truth as he declared to everyone he danced with that he loved them, especially the girls and at that moment he did, he loved everything he came into contact with including inanimate objects like doors and chairs and more than once his own reflection with his eyes as wide as saucers and a permanent grin etched on his face like in the movie the Joker which he'd seen in the original Batman played by Jack Nicholson but only 36 years after its box office release which was double his age.
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