Life Begins
Life Begins
Title Page
Introduction
Preface
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Life Begins
By
Jack Gunthridge
Life Begins
© 2013. Jack Gunthridge
Smashwords edition
ISBN: 9781301105489
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Author’s Note
Life has gone through various revisions throughout its publication. The version you are currently reading has over 25,000 words added to it from the version. This was done to make the story eligible for some writing contests. This took Life from a novella to an actual novel. This matters to some people, even if the author cares very little for such distinctions.
The new section gives a greater insight into Christine, her character, and how she sees her relationship with Jack. Hopefully this will appease readers whose only complaint was that the book was not longer. (Contrary to popular opinion, the new section was not added because the author is a male and grew tired of female readers saying how disappointed they were at the size. “I really liked it. I just wish it had been longer.”)
As for the author’s preference between the two versions, he does slightly prefer the original version. If you would like to read this version, please skip over the section titled Restricted Access and proceed directly to Chapter Eight: Back to the Future. This will give you the novella effect as it was originally published.
I will not go into detail here about the new section that was added. The author wrote it to fit into this work and does feel that it adds to the characters, story, etc. It just makes the work a little bit different type of work.
I would also like to take this moment to clarify some confusion about this book. The author has always envisioned Life as the first part of a two part series, whether it was as a film or in book form. The author has always debated on where to divide the two parts of the story when they are really part of the same story. The newly added section helps to get the reader ready for what will come in the second part. The problem with the two parts is that while they are part of the same story, they are mirror opposites of each other and were designed to be this way. This is the reason that they were broken up. Although they are part of the same story, their tone and feeling is completely different.
The book you are about to read is not an autobiography. It is just written in the style of an autobiography. It is based on a screenplay that the author started to write when he was in the seventh grade. It has always been his intention that Jack Gynapsy grows up to be Jack Gunthridge. This was done so that the author could identify himself with his work. The introduction you are about to read is part of the narrative. It is Jack Gynapsy when he is older and known to the world as Jack Gunthridge.
After this note, everything else in this book is part of the official narrative as conceived by the author.
Yours truly,
The real Jack Gunthridge, author
This was the original introduction to the finalized version of Life I released in 2010. Since that time, the book has been read by thousands of people around the world. It has received its fair share of fans and haters. I have had people write me to ask for advice because they were in the same sort of situation with a girl. I’ve had people telling me how important the book was to them. And I have had other people tell me how awful the book was.
As I have been busying preparing the sequel I have always planned for this book, I have had my own issues to deal with. I was formally diagnosed as having a high functioning form of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome.
As a writer, there has always been something missing from the story, a little piece that didn’t quite make the sequel work for me. It seems that puzzle piece was my autism.
I spent the first 33 years of my life thinking I was normal. I knew I was a little different. I was creative, but I never considered myself autistic. With the recent discovery, it has caused me to reflect on my own life and things I have done.
The history of Life stems from my own childhood and teenage years. I started writing the script for it when I was in the 7th grade. As I learned more about girls, I revised parts of it. My autistic traits are hidden throughout the story, whether it is in Jack’s reactions or his philosophies.
Since the story was written in an autobiographical style, people have always thought it was real. Even though I tried to tell people it was a work of fiction, I could never dispel the idea that it was a work of non-fiction. I was so adamant about the work being fiction that I wasn’t even comfortable when people would call it creative non-fiction, which is really a term where authors are allowed to embellish the truth in a way that it is mostly true, but the truth has been given the freedom to be exaggerated for dramatic effect, character development, and other literary tricks to keep the audience interested.
The problem is that it even when I denied the work being true, answering questions about specific parts of it made it extremely awkward for me. The truth for the answers to the questions that people want to know is complicated. I found myself not able to deny something or confirm it. Both would be a lie, whether it was a little white lie or a giant whopper. I have always wanted to tell the truth, but I couldn’t really with this book.
You must understand that one of the common features of people with Asperger’s is that they create alternate universes where they can control things and make a world in which they can achieve their desires and wishes. They will create alter egos that accomplish the great things the autistic person knows is inside of them, but that the autistic traits and social difficulties prevent them from doing. This usually happens as the person is entering puberty and going through the teenage years.
This is the exact time period of my life in which Life was written. I cannot say that the book is entirely a work of fiction or a piece of non-fiction. Lies and truths have been blended so completely with wishes, desires, missed opportunities, regrets, what could have been, and what was that separating them and explaining them to somebody would be like pulling a single strand from a tapestry and trying to explain how it was significant to the whole.
I guess the best way to describe the book is as a type of parallel universe where there are similarities to my own life, but there is a lot that is different.
Even as a teenager, I knew that this was the work I wanted to be associated with. I had the main character grow up to be Jack Gunthridge. Back then, I didn’t know exactly why the story was taking the shape it did, but I knew it was important.
Looking at the book now, after my autism diagnosis, I feel that it is necessary to add to it once again. Instead of adding length to make it a novel instead of a novella, I feel that I should be adding an explanation of the grown up Jack Gunthridge that has received the knowledge that he is on the autism spectrum and looking back at this period of his life.
Instead of uploading an updated version of Life to the various digital readers and producing a new paperback, I think it is better to let the semi-original version that has already been read and reviewed to exist in the form it is in. I do not wish to destroy history.
Explanatory notes, however,
should be added to the text to help readers to understand that Jack is an unsuspecting autistic. It is for this reason that I will be going in and adding a new section at the end of each of the original Jack chapters. And the book will receive a different title to separate that it is different from the original version where Jack’s behavior is that of a normal person.
I don’t know if the book has gotten bad reviews because Jack’s behavior and his relationship with Christine didn’t make sense to some readers because of my autism. Hopefully adding an explanation will help people to understand the behavior and the relationship between Jack and Christine.
As with the original story, the new additions will neither be true nor false. They will be the creator and the work looking back through a lens where the author and the hero examine the past with the knowledge that they are autistic.
These changes are significant enough to warrant a new title to separate it from the original. I’m not just adding a chapter or revising a section. I’m making an entire character autistic, which changes how everything is looked at and understood.
Introduction
There has been a lot written about me lately. I do not think I can fully explain all of my actions to the public. I don’t think I can fully explain everything to myself. Christine has that effect on me.
When I was a senior in high school, I was asked to write my autobiography. The purpose of the assignment was to see where I came from so that I would have an idea of where I wanted to go in life. This assignment is what you are about to read. This introduction that you are reading is just introducing you to this concept. I’ve been told that is what introductions are for.
Anyway, my publisher wants me to tell you that when I wrote this assignment I went by another name. This was back when Jack Gunthridge (yours truly. That is to say, me, the author, the person who is writing the sentence that you are reading) went by the name of Jack Gynapsy. I know some of you might have a hard time believing that a celebrity would change the name that they were born with to another name, but it is actually quite common. So when you read this story, remember that Jack Gynapsy grows up to be Jack Gunthridge. You don’t really need to know why I changed my name. I mean, there are a lot of reasons, but that is another story that I don’t have time for right now.
You see, this book wouldn’t be published right now, except for the fact that my agent and publicist need to clear up some stuff about me that is in the media. It seems that everything the public believed about me was carefully crafted by a publicity machine. You see, it’s not that I meant to mislead you into thinking that I was somebody that I was not. It just happened that after the events you are about to read about everything I knew and depended on in life changed. So the publicity machine promoted that person, which was me, except that it was a different me.
I’m not trying to confuse you. I’m just trying to say that what you are about to read is the historical document that I wrote about myself when I was eighteen. I’m not going to tell you what happened after this was written. That’s really a different story. That’s the story of how Jack Gynapsy became the Jack Gunthridge that you think you know. This is the story of Jack and Christine, two American kids growing up in the heartland. It’s just that for you to understand what Jack Gunthridge (me) is doing now, you will have to understand what happened to Jack Gynapsy (me) back then. When you put what you are about to read together with what you can read about me in the gossip columns, everything will make a lot more sense.
If you aren’t thoroughly confused now, just wait until you get done reading what I wrote when I was a teenager.
Jack Gunthridge
Author’s Note
This is the original note of the text by the Jack Gunthridge character that Jack Gynapsy grows up to be. In this scenario, which will be revealed in the sequel, Jack Gynapsy grows up, changes his name to Jack Gunthridge, and becomes famous. A scandal arises as Christine comes back into Jack’s life. To explain why the rich and famous Jack Gunthridge would be involved in a scandal with Christine, Jack released the text you are about to read. Supposedly it was written as an assignment when Jack was in high school. It was just being released after Jack was famous to explain this other woman to the public. It’s a fictional introduction that sets up the entire second part.
Preface
I want to start off by saying that I object to the writing of this book. While I see the purpose of looking at my past to see where I have come from in hopes of realizing where I may be going in the future, I am only eighteen. I do not know what I want in life.
I also object to the fact that I am not the best person to write my autobiography. I have a tendency to lie about myself and to myself. To counter this natural tendency, I will write my story and will have those closest to me filling in the gaps. The truth will lie somewhere in between. Their version will appear in a different font.
I also want to say that I am only completing this assignment because I feel that it is essential to leave a written record of myself and my time here on earth. It is a purely vain and egotistical reason and has nothing to do with my teacher's intent of the assignment.
Sincerely,
Jack Gynapsy
Chapter One
I Am Born
I came into this world in the usual manner. The first thing I remember upon leaving my mother's womb was a bright white light and a smell that I would later recognize as that hospital smell. How odd that we should come into this world in much the same manner that we should leave it? I only know this because I have been born and died many times. My eyes have seen the greatest horrors mankind has ever inflicted upon itself. I have witnessed murder, genocide, and plagues. I have also seen glory beyond what the human mind or eye could comprehend.
So here I was being brought into this world again. But before my eyes could fully focus on my new surroundings, I was taken by a pair of cold hands and cleaned off. I was then given to the woman that birthed me. She looked nice enough. It's always hard to tell. She had just spent nine hours in labor. She didn't look her greatest. My father seemed to love her. I figured that as long as I had two parents who were in love I would be fine.
Now, if you believe any of that story, I have some land in Florida that I would like to sell you. It's wonderful beach front property. But the truth about my birth is that I was a virgin birth.
In fact, I come from a long line of virgins. Both of my parents were virgin births just like their parents before them. My great-grandparents were born the usual way. I guess I didn't know them enough to care whether or not they ever had sex. The thought of my parents and grandparents having sex makes me sick.
It's not that I don't want them to love each other. I mean, there is love. And then there is sweet, sweet lovin'. It's just disgusting and immoral. It's one thing for me to have those feelings for somebody else. But for my parents to have feelings like that?!
So I will stick by the fact that I was a virgin birth. Actually, I am kind of repulsed by the idea that I came out of my mother's body.
I was delivered by a stork. No, I don't like that idea either. I was created out of the dirt like Adam. I later had plastic surgery to give myself a belly button. I had to make it look like there was nothing out of the ordinary about my birth, or non-birth in this case.
The truth is that I don't remember my birth. This is probably God's greatest gift to mankind. Women forget the pain of childbirth. The child doesn't remember being born. And the man got to have sex (except my parents and grandparents).
I'm hoping that I wasn't breast fed. That would be kind of disgusting, too. Actually, it would be very disgusting. I was bottle fed. I've only ever had baby formula or cow's milk. Human milk is not for drinking. That is why you never see ads for it.
And that is what I remember about my birth. You could ask my mother about it, but all she remembers is that I made her miss her soaps that day. It's nice to know that I was a special event. I can't really blame her, though. I don't even consider my birthday to be my rea
l birth. My true birth came about five months later when Christine Parnelle Robinson was born.
I don't remember that event either. So here is Christine with her own birth story.
~~~
I am writing things here because Jack has promised me that he would not alter what I would write. No matter how long we have known each other and loved each other, there are still a great many secrets that we have not shared with each other. I probably hold more than he does. He is only guilty of holding his heart close to him. The secrets of his heart are easier to reveal when I get him alone. And his secrets are beautiful. Mine are all dirty, little secrets that I usually found out as I was taking care of my mother as she was recovering from a drinking binge.
My parents never got along. My father was a handsome and successful man. He was a playboy and could have any woman that he wanted. My mother was attracted to him. She was a beautiful woman. She was sweet and funny. She may not have been the smartest woman, but she was pure and honest. She had the misfortune of meeting my father at a point in his life when he decided that to be truly successful he needed to settle down and get married.
I am guessing that this had something to do with Jack's dad. He and my father were the greatest of friends. They were nothing alike, but they were the best of friends. I think Jack's dad was always a curiosity to my father. I don't think my father ever understood him or what made him tick. He was successful, smart, and could have anything that he wanted. These are all qualities that my father admires. He possesses most of these.
What separates the two men is that Jack's father had a kindness and moral authority that guided every decision he made. My father is guided by a selfish desire to be the best. If he wants something, he gets it by any means necessary. Jack's father was motivated by the philosophy that he was put on this earth to help other people.