Brain the size a planet!

I’m going to be an

Author!

BRAIN THE SIZE A PLANET

Freelance Fiction Writer

& Autistic Spectrum Type Geek

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Do try to find a sticky bun and latte during which this book is a most unusual way to think. Or even better a bottle of Plonk

GENRE

Cerebral, Comedy, Contemporary Fiction, Magical Realism, Romance, Humanities & Social Science

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FOREWORD

This boffin of a book for the eyes and ears in this brand of broad curious minds. So if you are as thick as a Whale Omelette, then please put it down. When Tom writes, you buy into the fiction.

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To the seven year old Cillian Custard of Tea Lane, Victorian life in Belfast was a watering hole of wisdom dwelt on a childhood of creativity with peculiar pleasure.

His home Funny Floor Cottage was heated with fallen coal then fed with a trickle of water from the Mournes, and was hardly Malone Road glam from the fancy side of town. There was cooking and fireside study, with lives of his siblings and ancestry compressed with happiness and tolerance in one room. Yet he so loved this curious little home with his parents Fred and Flo from Sandy Row, where his life had many challenges. And here the first days of dreams flourished in his head against this beautiful and solid working-class respectability.

His nickname around Tea Lane was the ‘Rinkha Thinka’ and to those less informed ‘Silly Custard’, but one a charming childhood label with it’s vanity to be interpretated as an enquiring tender age philosopher of many pure reason schools of thought over Ice Cream at the Rinkha Parlour of Rowland. And his mentor of sundae consumption was proprietor Giuseppe Leonardo dispensing his ice cream shaped happiness who had arrived as one of the many Italian craftsmen that were brought to Belfast to work on the many churches being built at the time. And later his standard of work gave rise to the most famous Crown Liquor Saloon that had the reputation of being the finest Gin palace of it’s time. And was also instrumental as life may happen in courting young Cillian Custard’s future.

A pretty boy was this Cillian of Tea Lane, yet his Dad Fred had a bake like a ‘Busted Sausage. And in the Rinkha, he had every sense and book around him.

With this refuge of great escape and Gelato, the Rinkha it’s own penny university. Here thrived this Cillian Custard the local Egghead as it was always his narrative never to illustrate the verity of the real world around him. Only the personality and soul of his autistic brilliance. As few among the thinkers of his time possessed in as high a degree that delightful lucidity of thought and expression which seemed to be a limited birthright of humans. And Fred and Flo of Sandy Row, they did not know. Even Dumbledog the street dog had more grey matter.

Whatever Happened to the young expressive Cillian Custard the Rinkha Thinka of Funny Floor Cottage who became the stereotype of a seaside Memory Man, then author and artist. His vital force is written in a depth of slang with ephemeral language and metaphors, with no example of moral perfection.

And why of course would Fred & Flo of Sandy Row by any stretch of the imagination ever wish or think to celebrate their surname Custard, many outside Tea Lane might ask or was it their alliance to their relatives in that curious quarter of Belfast who ran the Custard Cake & Cuppa Fun Tea Shop. Another story is Fred & Flo of Sandy Row, they were out for the day at the Gobbins Cliff Path of Island Magee by the Seven Sisters Cave on the annual Lily Bar Beach Bliss Bash outing. And when they met by the Wise Eye entrance, there was dreamlike quality of poetry in the air as they enjoyed Ulster Fry in the Tea Room next door. They met, they married, and all by a cliff. They fell in love that day, and all their voices resonated of a cliff like an echo. So Fred & Flo of Sandy Row got well oiled that day and bought everyone in town a drink and a breakfast so the restitution was endless. The first name arrived for the impending birth when the happy party were accompanied along the Gobbins cliff walk by this charismatic guide called Cillian who had the most friendly cat called Billybollocks who was the Teashop Mouse Catcher. This memory remained alive as everyone enjoyed the institution of their day out, and everyone stroked Billybollocks the congenial cat of the Gobbins.

But back to this surname Custard that was some excellent line and brand of refreshment from the Custard Cake & Cuppa Fun Teashop. His father the fantastically thick Fred did not follow that succession of tea with custard cake in the family, and so made boats and not brew like you get at the Big Fish & Cow corner shop. A career at sea beckoned away from the sideshow of Tea cultivation from China.

And his middle name Zoltar. An unorthodox name. Well that was a family joke from some eerie mentalist circus Clairvoyant The Great Zoltar from a day out in Donaghadee. Who canvansed and held his mother Floella’s hand and whispered “There is a young handsome man about to come into your life, weighs about 7lb”. A surprise from a seer by the sea, and a very crap clairvoyant was Zoltar as Floella was obviously pregnant.

Yet Cillian in his early package was a child made in a unique way, against an extraordinary emotional landscape. Yet looking deeper the shape of his experiences are fudge all to do with fantasy. Cillian Custard certainly felt unmitigated prodigious understanding of everything yet great empathy to share thoughts with his much treasured stuffed doorstop doll the so secretly silent Daisy Doughnut. It’s curious name this stuffed rabbit, obviously had no cultural connection to confectionary or cakes from the A Piece of Cake bakery on Botanic. The Daisy Doughnut, was some prodigious name that reflected that floral pattern of it’s fabric. This was his unique near to one’s heart stuffed doll imaginary friend only swam in the oceans of his mind, and was once manufactured and born without ceremony at the Ulster Weavers Downpatrick with a designer label attached to it’s posterior.

And in Cillian’s life and everyone’s eyes around him, they are ceaselessly touched by the plague that ran rampant through the industry of his education. That affliction was his gift of overthinking, and his mind was a miracle. This mental oomph of Cillian Custard was completely untouchable and impossible to get one’s head around.

And Cillian in his early days had an older sibling, someone called Ferris. And these two souls were on different planets. An animosity caused by a clash of ideas and his evil person, and from where Ferris different in every nature and inherent quality to Cillian only to leave the tranquillity of Tea Lane and find his way as some sort of evangelist as the Bishop of Ballynonce. His days spent coaching on the elocution and vocals of the choir, and whatever else their mouth was for.

However in later life, young Cillian was a creature of secrets, always staring into the abyss of people as he always sat in judgement on humans.

SYNOPSIS

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It’s a good one. Pure verbal fantasy yet genius. Cathartic to the author. Discover all the secrets of a Stage Mentalist until you read how to become one, or get between his ears.

And by doing so perceive the parody of an Oirish child savant starting life in the refuge of Funny Floor Cottage in Tea Lane Belfast who was totally misunderstood with great depth yet in a nice prepossessing way by his overbearing idiot father Fred, from where this Rinkha Thinka Cillian Custard distinguishes quite by chance that the synchronisation and discovery of harnessing his awesome imagination with simple techniques of association that produced a stunning eidetic memory. And other gifts he captured wind of that took him to very unexpected places.

Read the trappings of knowledge that generated his choices and follow every moment of strength, triumph and learning curve that generated direction with his gift as we follow his life and learning from the destitution and cobbles of Tea Lane Belfast with his wealth overwhelming not in shillings or groats but in cerebral ability quarters. His mind always aware of his childhood of poverty was one of no abundance of money while growing up. Yet always providing the basics, as his father Fred worked hard with his hands at The Darling & Dogg Docks, and Mother Floella fashioned miracles at Factorytastic Weavers. But education was free, as was the local Glover Library that had lost dusty shelves that only spiders would prospect and travel. From where Cillian always knew that books was that essential credential to a better life.

And later he would pioneer his pipe dream joy hearing of the tradition of the fantastic English Seaside Freakshows and Theatrical Circuits greatly inspired by the most fantastic side-show hypnotist Barry Barbados of Donaghadee where in his ripened years this Cillian Custard who brought brains to life and not boiled brew was off to Blackpool on the elegance and energy of his sit-up and beg bike christened Manda Panda. Later to become some doctrine of stage Mentalist to the Masses as The Brain The Size A Planet Show from where any understanding or comparison to his mind only illustrated and served humanity’s capacity for stupidity.

The story of Belfast’s unique Cillian Custard begins, as he knew that the entertainment highway is littered with casualties. And would make a good film when such technology of moving daguerreotype invents, as his chemistry with genius and Darwinian parody of stereotypical seasiders as a satire surely a shocker of stupidness.

And his family and many character dimensions of the book these guests are ever present and are never identified by their own traits and make-up, but rather by their human constitution. However no-one in his family could compete or inspire like the repercussions of his Granma Nanabanana, who shared her visions and awe of mind with her most peculiar grandson Cillian. And his dad Fred used to joke that Nanabanana she was as old as the Ark. However her real name Maud, and she was a clever sod.

So Brain The Size a Planet is written with great artistic licence. The mind of Cillian Custard and his crash of assets did not become the next, he became the first.

SNEAK PEAK

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As Buddha used to say Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of Wisdom, and even better this one Brain the Size a Planet is written with great supply of passages of wealth and intellect all in the second person. Cillian simply lives around Ice Cream, stupid humans, and a wicked sense of humour always written in great fantasy, psychology and surprise. From Cillian Custard’s round the clock reading of books and the Soup Sisters next door with the Something Tasty Soup Shop so surrounded by sweetshops, Ice Cream and Stringed instruments. Quite simply with this Cillian Custard, his dreams and goals of childhood condition him.

As a young man of celebrated creative origin and endless Ice Cream, follow his odyssey and insights on bike from Belfast to Blackpool across the water as he draws upon his arrival at Nothing Normal House. After years of his secret nose in books nutrition at Funny Floor Cottage, and the mental refreshment of the Glover Library. From where he meets and knocks about with people you could not invent, not by accident but by reason and finds ways to think and fix himself that no ways of science or psychology had any natural design or way of doing things.

Read in his mind as he talks truth about how he thinks, that while the World judged that what happened yesterday no longer mattered, yet in his eyes every thought swam and existed in the present not sugar coated in the past.

And one tiny detail, why is Cillian Custard’s home called the bizarre baptism of Funny Floor Cottage? Well there was once this great field commander of the Roman Conquest called General Knobos of the Coddiwomple Legion who so loved the scenery of Cave Hill on his incursion and violation of Oireland that he decided to stay. And he built one of those Bath Houses you hear of with the Mosaics, like that famous washing and lavation ruin at Bath near Bristol.

This was a sign of great wealth to the Romans, these ceramic floor decorations. But in 1820 the relics of one made the most perfect and unplanned foundations for the building of Funny Floor Cottage of Tea Lane, in a time when archaeology or any study of human history was not an art. For even in those days, Farmer Giles wrapped a fence round Stonehenge to keep his pigs in.

It was of course a great talking piece for the street, throughout the many nights of Guinness shared there. As amongst the coloured stones was enscribed Nobis Magni Sunt Qui, which in it’s vulgar Roman Latin of the day simply read ‘Big Knobos Was Here’. This beautiful floor had a mosaic of fair maidens with jugs like the Alps, and then there was a collage of cooking their time honoured national dish of Pizza of the Emperor Domino. Set against the wonder of the Coliseum, so what better celebrity and name of their home than Funny Floor Cottage thought Fred & Flo of Sandy Row.

It was mesmerising to look at this floor of a thousand porcelain tiles, with an exotic vibe that took Tea Lane to a faraway place. The mood and lighting of this mosaic perfect after surviving seventeen hundred years. It’s colour frozen in time, captured like the rare frescos in Pompeii presently being excavated and found.

However the easily affected Mrs Floella Creamtea expressing her modesty, always covered the distracting breasts of the fair maidens with a Turkish wool tapestry. As she certainly did not want nosy neighbours to read about the infamous General Knobos. But for little Cillian Custard and his books, he was away with the Leprechauns as the house was much more than a Mosaic of these bathing beauties in their titillating posture with the Emperor Knobos drolling.

So this writing of his inner child from Funny Floor Cottage to Chocolate & Ticklefields Publishers of Times Square, yet the irony that he himself with his adventures of mental illustration is himself the interesting book.

Are you ready for something cerebral?

BRAIN THE SIZE

A PLANET

Chapter One

FANTASTICALLY THICK FRED, ICE CREAM MOONS & BREAKFAST WITH NANABANANA

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Cillian Custard was a natural egghead yet was taught and imposed upon the methods of memory, however this is the romance of his early moments.

First every night before the natural crash of his senses, his mother Floella would tuck him in at Funny Floor Cottage with his Steampunk stuffed Rabbit Daisy Doughnut. She wouldn’t read him a book or anything, as she was too thick for that. That was Nanabanana’s job. And one of his six senses would wonder what the Soup Sisters next door were concocting for the next day’s menu, as the odour of their cooking invaded the crevices in the brickwork.

As by oneself his imagination could see the Ice Cream Moon, of those mind’s eye wonder years. Floella thought he was a fruitcake, with thoughts that only he could invent and see. All Cillian had to do was look into the eyes of his anthropomorphic Daisy Doughnut, and he was off. This stuffed doorstop doll animated his imagination and followed him on his endless spectrum of adventures in his mind that he could with fantasy simply shape and change. And Cillian always whispered to his much loved soulmate steampunk doll so as not to disturb the Soup Sisters of the Something Tasty Soup Shop next door. So Cillian and Daisy Doughnut had many therapeutic conversations at night of Newtonian Classical Mechanics and the latest offerings at the Rinkha, like the smooth rich creamy toffee ice cream with honeycomb pieces intermingled or the lemon ice cream with a swirl of lemon curd and a scattering of meringue pieces. Sometimes if Daisy Doughnut had a real brain or soul, she would wish she was free from this nonsense and back in the Belfast Love Shop for stuffed toys to escape Cillian Custard as he was such a torturous and cerebral geek.

Daisy Doughnut was the insufferable ears for Cillian Custard and his young evolving mind. As he would say things at night while looking out the window, ‘‘Look at Mister Marshmallow face the Moon just like Wordsworth wandering lonely as a mass of water particles in air with those cloud shapes’’ he murmured. ‘‘They are so like the pigs from the Shankill Shambles Slaughterhouse, as he covers the ice cream moon.’’

The story telling device Daisy Doughnut obviously does not answer. She had a face that was embroidered with an expression as if to say “What the Dickens?” The doorstop doll from Downpatrick listens to his endless repetitive fables, and how the intervention of Cillian’s sensational senses that make his childhood happy with the chemicals in his brain doing their thing.

However this Steampunk Daisy Doughnut was not knitted by Freud, and is so unaware that sometimes human brains go a bit funny in flight of fancy with illusions and that is okay. Her stuffing has no substance or soul and this his actual imaginary friend the punk of steam, just goes along with everything young Cillian had to say. Every night it is the flight of the ice cream scoop moon and all the goodnight ghosts, that only Cillian in his child’s eye mind and creativity can see. Ferris next door was never one to experience this joy, as his brother had his own prison of venomous ways that sometimes negatively impacted upon the emotional ways of his brother Cillian. These two were complete other sides of the coin apart. Fred & Flo of Sandy Row would always ask why Cillian and Ferris could hate each other without actually wanting to know each other. But Ferris was not one for thinking.

However in the morning his mother Floella who is blind to his brain, calls him for breakfast. Cillians’s mother Floella a delightful creature, was definitely the hen who hatched the genius duck. And her flair was with food and fabrics. Her homecooked provision the sense grabbing taste of fare of fried soda, fried farls amidst potato bread and eggs of dairy with that heart desisting cardiovascular of bacon. Touting sauce too, as nothing tasted like Floella’s Ulster Fry as chambers of the heart cried in fear.

And also sharing the table every morning was the magic and verbal wisdom of his Grandma Nanabanana with more lines on her face than the fourth rock Mars. She was an oracle of information and Maud is never seen without a Guinness. Yet quite an ugly creature but in her day, she was once as hot as Helen of Troy. But some people are truly gifted with beauty of a timeless kind, and Nanabanana to Cillian Custard who understood his promethean vision was surely one of those souls.

She wore a wart on her nose like the clowns at the Astronomical Acrobats Circus, yet she was also wise and indifferent as she too had a brain the size a planet and smelt of old books.

And every breakfast his much loved Maud Nanabanana once some great social hierarchy of the Island of Rathlin and proprietor of The Custard Cake & Cuppa Fun Teashop, and she would impose information and hilarity to inspire his intellect. And even over Ulster Fry, Nanabanana would read from memory the musings of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, riveting Cillian with this English literary classic. And sometimes Nanabanana would read macabre gothic fiction and poetry by Edgar Allan Poe. It was so much fun over the first meal of the day.

Her knowledge was never ending, and Fred who did not enjoy her trespass on his eardrums wished that he had a chastity belt for her mouth. She knew in Cillian’s company over breakfast, that he was from these early days possibly an enormously gifted child. She never once thought that his mind of great pictures was away with the fairies let alone the milk from the dairies.