Slaine of the ferry

As you get older, there are weird memories that can't possibly be true. They sit there in your head, conjured up from adolescent dreams or fantasies, and are as real as the houses you grew up in and the schools you went to - in your mind, at least.

Like I know that when I ran around on the inter-island ferry during a family trip in 1983 when I was eight, there wasn't a guy sitting up on the stairs on a quiet staircase off to the side, and I know he didn't look like Slaine from 2000ad, with a big fur cloak, something that looked like a giant sword hidden beneath it, and the best stubble I ever saw in my life.

That can't be true, but it's there all the same. There's other memories like that, involving the Big Red Cheese in a drunken stupor, and Superman and Batman outside my house, and there's another clear memory of seeing Doctor Who's TARDIS sitting on a dirt track near the Opihi River mouth.

They can't be real. They just can't.

But if I close my eyes, I can still see Slaine on the ferry and man, he looks so fucking cool.