Sock Free Hideaway

BEATS OF LOVE 

98. Headache by Grouper

RUNNING THROUGH the farmhouses on Red Hill with my mate's older brother, giving chase was exhilarating and once off the path and running across open field, I could easily picture my dead body, left, concealed beneath the long, reedy blades of grass. 

By the time I was eventually caught, all he delivered were a few weak kicks at my scrunched up body. I thought there and then that living in my imagination was more fun than anything reality could offer.

It was just as well. By the time my orthodontist, Mr Bogues, finished his assessment, my evenings were spent sitting patiently with a red, greyhound-style brace clamped around my face, waiting for my teeth to straighten. Barred from entering normal mid-adolescence, I retreated into a world of records, playing them every Sunday night on my imaginary radio show.

By the time he showed me his success with the before and after moulds, my hooter had sprouted both across and out of my face. A face now riddled with at least four red boils at any one time. No wonder I continued with my imaginary radio show and, in essence, still do. Escapism has never left me.

'So', asks nobody at all, 'what is the best record you've bought this week?' This haunting beauty, I reply. A record I should've bought in 2016 but didn't. Thankfully repressed in time for the duvet months. Enjoy.