Short stories at 11

It was so difficult getting myself to read the short (and mostly incomplete) stories I wrote as a child, because they are so bizarre and embarrassing. They include:

• A story about a boy called Timothy who left half his broken heart under a railway track, and when he tried to recover it, was knocked down by a train. This 15-year-old also had AIDS, smoked, took drugs and beat up his girlfriend Caerha.

• A story about a boy called Vinnie who works in Yellow-Mart after school, and goes to visit his girlfriend Natalie in her apartment after work. She finds out his true age (16 not 19), is angry with him, begs him to get off heroin and to move to Philadelphia with her.

• A story about a brother, Conrad, who loves to hunt but who loves his sister, Cassian even more. Set in the medieval ages, he gets drunk after a castle feast and beats her up, too.

• A story about a bunch of school kids in a science lab, who spill some chemicals during detention and see an apparition of a blue boy who eats glass and calls it “crispy”.

• A story inspired by the childhood of River Phoenix, in which “I” was Rain and River was my older brother. We travelled around South America in a caravan, busked for three years until we were broke and moved back to the United States.