Dear Father christmas,

I would like to get fat, start smoking and grow a beard so then later i can lose weight, quit smoking and shave my beard, everyone would then tell me how good i look and i would feel fantastic about it.

I would like to have pens as fingers so i could write really quickly.

I would like to have a cat that could speak to me, he would pay me compliments all day and be called Nicholas Alan Carrington.

I would like to have cyborg eyes that could zoom in on things.

I would like to fight a clone version of myself just to see if we would do all the same moves.

I would like to put the world’s largest mirror around one of my friends houses so they wake up and think that the simple act of sleep has transported them into a bizarre alternate mirrored universe.

That is What i would like.

Is it Christmas yet?

Arthur ‘Ace’ Enders is his name, and he never fails to astound. ‘The Early November’ was the name of his band and they would regularly take your breath away. His solo project was ‘A Million Different People’ and would make your smile spread all the way across your face from ear to ear until it hurt your throat and forced you to stop singing along. His reinvention is called ‘I Can Make a Mess like Nobodies business’ and it does to me all these things and more. I smile with warmth but cry with sadness, seethe with regret, and embrace with a huge sense of nostalgia. I stay up all night to lie and listen, to remember all the times i spent with people i loved and wonder why my words could never explain how i feel to anybody else. I pick up the guitar after listening for five minutes and put it down again, never being able to write anything this profound. Maybe i should hunt him down, find his house, search through his ‘trash’, find his old clocks just to see what makes them tick, i think.

I follow my leads and see him mowing his ‘lawn’, he moves inside to put the kids to bed and i peer in through the window. To my astonishment i see what i supspected all along in ‘Arthur ace Enders house’, pictures of faces cover the walls with written discriptions under each one. My eyes flitter accross the smiling faces that peer back at me, they know i am watching but don’t look on dissaprovingly, infact they welcome me in to look at their private lives. This is when i spot my own face staring back at me, for a second i am shocked and my knees begin to get weak, but they gather themselves and apologise for their momentary lapse in attention, i forgive them.

The description under my image is picture perfect, it tells stories of how i came to be the way i am, what makes me laugh, what makes me cry, what makes me wonder, what makes me scream, what makes me look around and think ‘if this is it then i love it’.

I slump on the grass for a second below the window and look out onto the suburban street, confused for a while i ponder. Then it all becomes clear. Of course… all the pictures on the walls are everybody who has ever listened to anything ‘Ace Enders’ has produced in his magic music laboratory, the descriptions underneath display exactly how the person feels. How else would ‘Ace’ have written such wonderful music that touches so many people and reminds them how they feel, he has known all along why, because of these descriptions of life, that’s why he gets it right every time, and continues to write amazing songs. I walk away feeling fine.

By Edward Lewis

www.myspace.com/icmam