of nurture’s wildness: a novella (book 4, ch. 1)

by Tom Stuckey

1

Today was Gary's birthday, and he was 70 years old. Having children was something Gary did without thinking it through. Before online pretences, people met people in real life, and they had children. To say he loved his kids would be far from the truth, in fact he could only vaguely remember the oldest one, who he remembered as James, having last seen him twenty years ago. Some people held value in virtuosity, sticking with their family through thick and thin, even when it was killing every member like a slow cancer. One night, however, Gary had made the decision to leave his family; drunk just enough to dampen the afflictions that burnt him alive when sober, and looking at his then wife bitter-faced, which was all contorted from the hate she had for her husband, sitting across the dining room table, he got up, walked out, and never saw her or the children again. Something was not right, Gary thought at the time, not right at all.

Birthdays were harder no matter how drunk he got; he always remembered his birthday. Alone, half mad, body deteriorating; where once he had told himself of the freedom, was now his hell.

Hobbling to the shops, day after day, on his ulcerated feet that hurt, if he made it back to his bedsit, what booze he could keep down only took the pain away temporarily and then he would have to repeat the process all over again.

It had never made any sense for Gary, none of it. From birth, he had been dropped in an alternate world that was a constant war, but instead of bombs and machine gun fire, it was cruelty and isolation that conditioned him from his first breaths onward. He could not see the world in any other way. His parents, devout and ruthless Catholics, had seen the Devil in him, apparently since his birth, and he had succumbed to all their rudimentary purifying methods which had left his fragile infant-self in a perpetual state of shock. There was only one treatment that he had found to work for the trauma and that was booze, booze every day.

Even the meanest and hardest of drinkers, however, have to meet their end, either in death or sobriety. So, in a moment of rare clarity when his eyes fixed upon an advert in a paper that was amongst the debris on the floor, it read - Assisted Death and Living, Another way. A hope that someone may help him with “the end” came. Amazed, also in the lingering clarity, that something had kept him alive this long, just to be here and now - alone, nearly dead but dialling the number anyway. A woman with a kind voice answered, and it was the first friendly sound he had heard in a very long time; his surroundings had become a cave of goblins and thieves and killers. "Hello, Gloria speaking. How can I assist you?" Gary realising that he had not spoken a word to anyone in such a long time, tried to work his vocal cords, that had ceased up. "He..llo, I want, to see, if...I can come to...your...facility....to, DIE." His voice finally broke back in with the word “die” that he almost shouted down the phone, like the last wish of a tortured soul. "Yes, let me take some details from you, and we can make the proper arrangements to collect you." Gloria sorted everything, having great abilities when it came to managing the unmanageable. It was all arranged within a 10-minute call, and Gary was to be collected the following day. 

Gary attempted to pack a bag but found a bottle of half-drunk vodka and began to drink that instead, slumping into the swamp that was his floor, momentarily content in his renewed rebellion.

The next he knew of the world was in hearing a banging at the door; he lived in a strange and scary third world, it is not the real, or the dream world, but a dark and lifeless abyss, where nothing could reach him. Gloria had, herself, come to collect Gary. On hearing the surname, she had an immediate concern that it could be James's father, and as soon as Gary opened the door, her concern became confirmed. Although older, broken and swollen, there was no doubt that this man was once James's dad.

"OK, Gary, we need to get you up the mountain. I'm going to help and get a few of your things together, and all I need you to do is make it to the car. OK?" Gary, in a state of semi-lucidness confirmed with a grunt he could. Gary was the mildly living proof that there was absolutely nothing romantic about being an alcoholic.

***

It took a few days of mountain air to clear away the smell of shit from Gloria's car. In that time, Gary had been well-medicated with Valium and intramuscular Thiamine to ensure he did not fit and die from the withdrawals. As the Valium was tapered down, Gary began to stir to his on-fire reality. He begged for drink, hallucinated, and shook horribly. Gloria had managed to keep James away from Gary but knew she would have to tell him at some point because, as soon as Gary regained his feet, he would surly run amok.

James, having also picked the drink back up, had been advised to give AA a try. He read the Big Book in the chapel and even had found a fellow resident, John, to join in, in a sort of two-person meeting, where they read and shared about their life and began, together, on the slow road of recovery. They lit candles and said the serenity prayer and found the most peace that either had experienced in a long time. On those quiet nights inside the chapel, it became clearer that a higher power had been at work in their lives all along, even during the abyss years. It was not all easy, and there was a lot of guilt, shame, and fear that they both had to face - but together - it seemed to dissolve somewhat in their connection.

***

Francois and Andrea sat in the dining room together and were playing chess. Francois was secretly a very good chess player, having won some national titles in his youth, but now pretended that he did not really know how to play in order to look into Andrea’s golden face as they played. He moved his pieces around, ignoring the five or so moves that his trained brain still thought important to let him know about in order to win. The mind could not differentiate between love and loss but had to be bargained with all the same. Andrea made cute little twitches with her nose when she positioned her pieces into place, poised and ready to strike, and he adored it so kept on playing with her. "Oh, look you got me again!" Francois said and was not lying. "I know, I'm getting good at this, another game?" Andrea asked. "Yes," Francois replied, "Always."    

The weather on the mountain in the summer revealed its history. Scars on its surfaces from the miners who once dug for its minerals and shepherd huts where men would take shelter from the storms on long nights in the cold. It was a nice reminder that time would heal and complete all that is, was, and will be. Man's abilities, or lack thereof, were always second place to nature, the only real thing man had was in the way they could nurture themselves and others to find a certain harmony within it all; with this, man had failed dim heartedly. The clear and vast surroundings of the mountain gave this message to each resident, whether they were willing (or not) to accept it; it was up to the individual. Some found what they were looking for and others did not. Francois was one that did.

James liked nothing more than having a siesta and, having found a vintage copy of Nuts magazine, decided to read it before drifting into a summer’s afternoon dream, that were always more lucid than in deep REM of night. A man with no name—James knowing it to be his father who he was going to fist fight on the school playground; kids were standing with their parents, waiting to bear witness to the two who were about to fight to the death. James delivered the first blow into the man’s stomach. His father doubled over, but he morphed and was then behind James as the man now jumped his back and began to choke him. James could not breath, as the toothless man grunted heavily into his ear. The dead-eyed children looked on unable to help. James's nervous system woke him, alerting him to take a deep breath and sit up. At that very moment, Gary burst through his door screaming in gibberish, "They will come for you all! I am the one who will show you the way!!!" James looked into the man’s face that was just like the man’s face in the dream - his heart stopped briefly - and he did not know what to do. A moment later, his brain took over, and he rose to his feet on the bed, jumped onto the man, and threw him against the wall, gripping his shirt by the collar and clenched his jaw, looking into his wild eyes, and realised that this was his dad. Through a mixture of fear, anger, and shock, he spoke, "I should kill you," and began to tighten his grip, causing Gary to choke a little and cough, until Gloria came bursting in and shouted, "Let him go, James! Let him go!" James finally obeyed, and Gary slumped to the floor at his feet, still muttering absolute non-sense.  

*Read Tom Stuckey’s next installment of Of Nurture’s Wildness (Book III) on October 28, 2025, at 6PM CST.

Photo of Tom Stuckey

BIO: Tom is a writer from Devon in England.  His work can be found at A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bristol Noir, Nut House Press, and Pulp Magazine. He is the author of The Canary in the Dream is Dead and The Sun Marches upon Us All. Learn more about Tom Stuckey at www.tomstuckey.com.