CHAPTER ONE
Tobias, gifted with the ability to sense the atmosphere of his environment like a hundred year old tree, branching it's roots out, probing for what it needs. It felt as though the temperature had dropped below zero the wind had died away and the hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention, anxiety settled in, a moment was on its way. A family meeting called urgently but not in the usual setting of the old kitchen table. This one was in the lounge room at a more casual timing, mother sits down looking at the floor with a deathly, hollow look, followed by father, then brother, and finally, full of hesitation and disbelief Tobias sits, cross legged, lanky and aged 9.
At this point he knows something big is going down, like a death in the family or getting rid of the pet guinea pig. But the words that roll off the tongue of his mother are casual and unremorseful, with almost hatred she spoke the words "Your father is leaving and is moving out, we have separated, you will still live here with me but go and see your father on weekends". Unable to hear or comprehend because of the flashbang dropped in his brain and the shear ringing in his ears and just a humble and softly spoken "wha wha at?",what is this feeling? he asks himself, his thoughts racing a million miles an hour, the anxiety building, threatening to break over him. The ever familiar lump grows in his throat, he's stumbling. The blank stare from his mother - burning into his memory like a cattle prod.
Looking at his father, a grown man crying, begging like a religious man on his knees for forgiveness from the gods. A man who spoke nothing of feelings, nothing of his past, nothing of his future, nothing of fear. His father did speak of greatness with respect and always doing your one hundred percent effort and adding ten for good measure, otherwise you as a person will not survive this life son!"First impressions are the most important" - but Tobias, to his full knowledge, knew nothing of what this meant, nor did he know what this moment meant for him and his mother.
In this moment Tobias' life changed, dramatically and one could argue for the better or possibly he simply took the path he was destined for..
Fast forward 16 years, now the prisoner of the mind, gifted with these abilities to think far beyond the simple minds and to a complexity only geniuses are recognised for. Tobias' passion for knowledge, like a drug addict with the thirst for more and more, a curse he felt. Until recently when he had a thought about his past and all the tribulations he's been through to bring him to this thought, thinking while thinking you could put it. In this moment, in this thought he himself realised that he was apart of his own problem and apart of the social construct problem, he realised that if he removed himself and analysed the situation and environment, then he could pinpoint the problem from the beginning the ol' Nip in the bud.