PROLOGUE

Hello, reader. I'm Rick. As I share with you my journey in this adventure through interesting times, you will receive a legit view of me as I am at each relevant moment, not some ‘Made-for-Disney’ G-rated crap.

Also, and this is my true feeling on the topic, if you can read about and not be as bothered by accurate descriptions of the death, horror, and misery of people as you are by reading vulgar language that is in common use in the real world, or you do not grasp that certain graphic depictions of a sexual nature are germain and provide critical perspective, then I consider you as having a skewed sense of the obscene and do not want you misappraising my story.

So, if that’s you, you should probably stop reading now.

If you understand the realities of life are often exceedingly base, grotesque, horrific, or simply unpleasant, but that we must, as beings with intelligence and wisdom are required by nature to do, move forward down the path of personal and social development, please read on.

I know my speech patterns, and word choices, particularly the frequent low-class dialect and non-stop vulgarity, in the first parts of this story at least, make me sound like a rock. Or trash that will not burn. Or both. However, ignoring the very rare advantages of my birth, I’ve always had significantly above-average intelligence, made good grades in school when I wasn’t bored to tears, and excelled in learning anything I found interesting or challenging.

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The thing is, I speak as I do because that was the environment that I was surrounded by, outside of the home, of course. Fighters, football players, lacrosse players, rugby teams, coaches, and the fucking Marine Corps during an exhausting war. I learned to communicate, as a norm, at the conversational level of my daily peers, the people I dealt with and worked with and had to rely on every minute of almost every day. Not my family. Yeah, I got that whole above and beyond thing from them, and it shows up later. But at the start of this adventure I have named the Shattered Universe, I was who I was, behaving as I did, when I did.

If you ain’t running the show, you don’t present as a wounded tuna when you’re swimming with sharks. Alright?

You swim, wait, work, and fight to become the biggest, most bad-ass shark-destroying whale in the ocean. With big, fucking teeth.

Remember this. I’m not at all stupid, not at all common, not even close.

But I have been known to pull a boner move on occasion.

All that aside, if you take the time to hear my story you will find out who I am, what I am, and if you do not tremble with either fear or excitement … boner move is yours.

BTW, everything here has meaning, so if you just gloss over something because it seems too trivial to notice, it isn’t.